I Find Room In The Stables

Yesterday, I awoke at six in order to catch the first train out of Rome going to Cinque Terre, an Italian national park, which moonlights as the Italian Riviera. I wanted to spend my last weekend abroad in Cinque Terre, alone and all reflective like.

The train I rode on had compartments like a small house, with bedrooms of six seats each and a long hallway running beside. It was so full up that I rode the entire four hours in the hallway, on a makeshift seat in a long line of placeless people, feeling very much like a part of those pictures of rural buses with as many people and chickens sardined in as possible.

Cinque Terre, it turned out, was much the same. The park has five towns, all connected by hiking trails overlooking the ocean, but yesterday, people walked four abreast up and down the trails, so that those on the inside track of the trails couldn't even see the ocean. The trails were paved with people like cobblestones, from American and Germay and Japan and Italy and so on.

Yesterday was Liberation Day, which celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy. I watched a movie about it once - the occupation, not the end. It was called Open City. It was extremely good. However, my experience with Liberation Day was not so.

After spending the day hiking through a flesh forest of tourists, I turned to the hostel in Cinque Terre, in one of the five cities, Manarola. There was a sign on the door: FULL. Oh. On talking to the proprietor, I found out that there were no rooms to be had in all five towns; he directed me to the neighboring town of La Spezia. So I went to La Spezia, and found that they, too, were completely full up - not a room in town. I did meet two other students, Mack and Maggie, from UC Berkley, who were in the same situation. They suggested going to Florence, and, without any other ideas, I conceded.

I first found that there was no room in the hostel around 7:00. I boarded the train to Florence at 9:20. And it was on this train that someone, no doubt overwhelmed by an intense patriotism brought on by Liberation Day, stole my bag.

So, in addition to the MacBook Pro, RIP Mountain Smith Manny Pack, Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, another notebook, a camera, a nalgene, and my passport.

I actually feel a little bad for the thief, who went to so much trouble to snatch my pack, but who doubtlessly felt his heart sink when he opened the bag and found only a few novels, a notebook with notes on the narrative logistics of time travel, and my passport. What seems very precious to me probably didn't carry much weight with him. Thief, whoever you are, I am sorry I didn't have anything better.

Once in Florence, in true California kid fashion, Mack and Maggie abandoned me; I was left to my own devices, which were few now that I had no luggage. It was around midnight. After an hour I ascertained that there were no more rooms in Florence than in Cinque Terre or La Spezia. Liberation Day is a very popular holiday. So I took in as many cups of coffee as possible before being thrown out of a closing bar, and spent the night wandering the streets of Florence, attaching myself to various English speakers, and writing on a few napkins I nymmed from said bar. After the train station opened at 4:00, I found a quiet spot and remained there until my train back to Rome at 5:50.

And so that is how I ended up spending the low point of my semester in a window display case in the train station of Florence, writing on scrap paper and making basic conversation with another homeless man.

The passport will be reissued by the American Embassy, but not until Monday; my flight, which leaves Monday, will have to be changed. With all luck, I'll now be home on Tuesday.