A Rant

A little rant:

The first thing that I was taught in my Presence of the Past (Italian society/history) course was this: everything in Italy moves slowly. "There is no concept of punctuality or order here," my teacher stressed. To prove her point, she regaled us with a story about how she's been in a monetary dispute with Mediaset, the big Italian commercial broadcasting company (interestingly enough, owned by the Prime Minister, Berlusconi....which says something about the political atmosphere here) for 25 YEARS. She also made us aware of the fact that nowhere in Italy will you find store hours for anything posted. Shops open and close whenever they want. Basically, Italians have a pretty blaise attitude about things that most Americans have come to take as The Word of God.

Example: As an American, I've been trained to assume that when I read on a nation's official train website that a train will be departing from Pisa to Siena at 22:30 on a Sunday, that train will be there come hell or high water. In America, minute details like these are the things around which lives revolve. I can't imagine how any major city in the States would function if people couldn't rely on, say, Walgreens to be open 24-hours, even throughout the landfall of a Category 5 hurricane.

So, I guess I was pretty naive (or spoiled) when I booked my flight to London for this weekend. I specifically made sure to book a flight that landed in Pisa before the last train went to Siena so that I'd be able to make it home (Pisa, the closest airport, is a 2-hour train ride away). Anyway, I found a train that left about 45 minutes after I was going to land. This was the last train of the night. I figured I'd be safe and sound in my bed by about 2 am because I could count on the good ol' Italian train company to bring me home.

Not so. Turns out, my train got cancelled 2 days ago. This leaves me landing in the Pisa airport at 22:50 (that's 10:50 pm for all you Americans) with no way of getting home until the next train....at 5:45 AM. All hostels = booked. All hotels that weren't over $500/night = booked. Car service home = disgustingly expensive, but that isn't surprising considering the distance between the 2 cities. That leaves me having to spend the night at the airport in Pisa all alone (I'm traveling by myself since the friends I'm meeting are coming from Paris) because Italians have no issue with just cancelling random trains.

At first I thought that this non-chalant attitude towards typically rigid rules was quaint and somewhat cute. I would go to the gelateria at peak gelato-eating time and the store would be closed and I'd think, "That's so sweet how they care more about living better here than they do about making money." Now, I don't think it's that cute. Get your act together, Italy. If I can count on a McDonald's in Texas to provide me with an oreo McFlurry at 3:45 AM when there's a tornado/snow/sleet/hurrican/monsoon/tidal wave/any other natural disaster, then is it too much to expect to be able to have my g-d train show up as promised?

If this is the kind of shit that they pulled at the height of the Roman Empire....no wonder it fell.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: 1. I'm going to LONDON tomorrow!!!! and 2. The best gelato place in Siena opened earlier this week and it is hands-down the most amazing gelato I've ever had and I've gone back every day this week :)