Stage Three, aka Acceptance, was really, uhhh…. something. I’m not sure how to describe it. To say it was “forced acceptance” almost seems paradoxical, but that’s kind of how it felt. Let me explain.
My friends Julia, Alexis, Nicole and I went to the gorgeous coastal region of Cinque Terre for the weekend. We had an incredible time, but Sunday rolled around far too quickly and it was time to head back to Siena. The following story doesn't manage to capture the true drama of that night, but perhaps it will help you understand what I mean by "forced acceptance."
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We amble to the train station, exhausted but content. After reaching the station and parking ourselves on a bench, we bring out our train tickets to look at the travels ahead: three trains (the first connection granting us only five minutes, and the second only seven) and a three-hour bus ride. Wow, such naïve optimism.
When our train arrives, we scramble in to grab some seats together, only to discover that there's no air conditioning. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t 90 degrees with serious humidity. We shrug our shoulders and feel grateful that this train ride is only an hour long.
Or so we thought. We notice that the train is sitting at the various train station stops for extensive periods of time. Considering our connecting train is supposed to leave five minutes after our scheduled arrival time, there is simply no room for delays.
Well. There ends up being over an hour of extra delays. Now we're sweating from heat and anxiety. I try to remain calm. We figure that surely there will be other trains that can get us home. Once we reach the Pisa train station (our first destination), we can arrange the rest of our travels home. Deep breaths.
But no, that would simply be tooooo easy. We sit at a train station in the random town of Empoli for about twenty minutes, so everyone is getting fidgety. Suddenly, a voice announces something over the intercom in Italian. In a chaotic rush, everyone on the train hurries off. My friends and I look back and forth, the panic we felt apparent on our faces. We have no idea what was said on the intercom, but every single person was filing out of the train. Without understanding why, we hop off the train. We begin asking strangers what is going on, but the only person willing or able to respond simply says, “No more Pisa.”
I’m sorry, what? Has Pisa gone up in flames? We look around to see no trains and only one employee, who sprints away and disappears into a locked room as people try to ask questions. We follow the herd into the train station and find a long line leading to the *one* solo employee left.
So here we are, in the random town of Empoli, in a sea of mass confusion. Finally, another employee emerges and we flock to him. Once my friends and I gain his fleeting attention, we ask how to get to Pisa. He simply points to a bus outside. We attempt to ask more questions, but he’s swallowed by the crowd.
With nothing to lose, we sprint toward the bus. We’re soon followed by a mass group of about sixty people. The doors are closed, so we congregate outside of them. But this soon escalates into the most intense shoving/pushing/yelling match I've ever seen as people realize there are only about thirty seats, and sixty people desperate to get to Pisa. My friends and I are at the very front luckily, and once the bus driver opens the door we rush him with our train tickets to prove we qualify for this ride.
Alexis and Nicole make it onto the bus, but suddenly I’m being knocked aside and a woman begins screaming at the driver about something with serious gusto. They fight exuberantly, and people attempt to use this distraction to push in front of me. At this point, I am ready to throw some elbows (and I do). I shove my way back to the front and climb onto the front step of the bus to secure my place. I’m centimeters from the bus driver and the arguing woman is centimeters behind me. In their fighting, they are leaning in and throwing their arms around, so I’m being knocked back and forth between the two as they fight. Julia shoves through the crowd, confronts a woman who tries to push her, and puts her hand on my back to keep me from falling down the bus stairs.
In a whirlwind, I abandon the idea of waiting any longer for the driver to check my ticket and quickly scamper under his armpit and onto the bus. Alexis and Nicole welcome me onto the bus with cheers of victory. I’m soon followed by Julia, and once we’re all seated, clearly disheveled and utterly confused, we burst into hysterical laughter. Tears fall from our eyes as we take in the scene around us.
The mob continues to swirl and yell outside the bus and the driver continues the screaming match with the lady in words we cannot understand. Somehow, the men who sell cheap items from black trash bags along the train station platforms manage to sneak onto the bus and smile with glee, hoping to sell their “treasures” to us. As one runs past, his giant trash bag smacks me in the face and knocks me backward. Needless to say, another fit of laughter ensues.
The madness continues for another 30 minutes or so before the bus is full and those unable to make it on cover their faces in defeat. At this point, we still aren’t totally sure where the bus is even going. The driver speaks no English, but he says the words “Pisa airport” which greatly concerns us considering we need the train station. At this point we have nothing to lose, so we simply sit back and spend the 90-minute bus ride wondering how on earth we ended up here.
I believe this is when Stage Three: Acceptance has kicked in. I realize that what I am surrounded by was not my language, not my social norms, and certainly not the transportation system I know. I realize that I can't live life as I normally do in the United States—using our ways of controlling, planning, and problem solving. Instead, I’d have to fully embrace the Italian lifestyle and accept the fact that I am utterly clueless here.
Luckily, the bus does end up taking us to the Pisa train station. We're expecting this to be the safe destination that would provide us with a new route to get home. Instead, we arrive to a deserted train station. Turns out, all of the trains have been cancelled across the region because of “technical difficulties.” There are no employees to be found.
At this point, it’s approximately 11:00pm and pitch dark. The Pisa train station is actually a pretty sketch place to be late at night, apparently. There’s a hotel across the street, but it’s a high-end expensive one. There are some taxis, so we run over to see how much it would cost to simply taxi home. It would be several hundred, but split up it could possibly be the best option. Problem is, they only take cash (which none of us have). We head out to search for an ATM, but we can’t seem to find one and grow nervous as a few...street interactions (I'm not sure how else to describe it)... make us question our safety.
There are some high stakes here. We're already missing the maximum amount of school days we can, so missing class the next day simply wasn’t an option. Plus, not getting home that night means the money we spent on our train tickets would go to waste, we’d have to drop a ton of money on a hotel, and that we would have to purchase more train and bus tickets for the following day.
All of our phones are dead and we have no idea how to get home. We've exhausted most alternatives and come to the conclusion that we might just have to stay in the expensive hotel for the night and figure out train rides in the morning. In one last desperate attempt, we take a final lap through the train station to see if anything had changed. We walk by the customer service office and find, to our amazement, three employees! They had just arrived and were leaving in ten minutes. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. We talk to a kind and helpful woman who is willing to hear us out. She speaks minimal English, but she knows of kindness.
This saint of a woman makes some calls, types away at the keyboard, and glances repeatedly at the clock. We glanc nervously at each other, hopeful but weary. Suddenly, she rips off a piece from some nearby paperwork and begins to scribble. She slides the paper over to us.
It’s a schedule for our trains and buses, beginning in an hour at 1am. We can’t believe it. We’ll get home in time for our 9am class.
So I can say this: miracles do happen.
We can’t say thank you enough. She nods her head dutifully.
It was a rough and sleepless night of travel. Eventually, we make it to the homeland. Exhausted, starving, and weak, we climb the countless stairs to our top floor apartment. In my mind, I wave the white flag of surrender. The acceptance stage has been forced upon me, but I welcome it as an escape from the hostility I was feeling before.
My friends Julia, Alexis, Nicole and I went to the gorgeous coastal region of Cinque Terre for the weekend. We had an incredible time, but Sunday rolled around far too quickly and it was time to head back to Siena. The following story doesn't manage to capture the true drama of that night, but perhaps it will help you understand what I mean by "forced acceptance."
*******************************************************************************************
We amble to the train station, exhausted but content. After reaching the station and parking ourselves on a bench, we bring out our train tickets to look at the travels ahead: three trains (the first connection granting us only five minutes, and the second only seven) and a three-hour bus ride. Wow, such naïve optimism.
When our train arrives, we scramble in to grab some seats together, only to discover that there's no air conditioning. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t 90 degrees with serious humidity. We shrug our shoulders and feel grateful that this train ride is only an hour long.
Or so we thought. We notice that the train is sitting at the various train station stops for extensive periods of time. Considering our connecting train is supposed to leave five minutes after our scheduled arrival time, there is simply no room for delays.
Well. There ends up being over an hour of extra delays. Now we're sweating from heat and anxiety. I try to remain calm. We figure that surely there will be other trains that can get us home. Once we reach the Pisa train station (our first destination), we can arrange the rest of our travels home. Deep breaths.
But no, that would simply be tooooo easy. We sit at a train station in the random town of Empoli for about twenty minutes, so everyone is getting fidgety. Suddenly, a voice announces something over the intercom in Italian. In a chaotic rush, everyone on the train hurries off. My friends and I look back and forth, the panic we felt apparent on our faces. We have no idea what was said on the intercom, but every single person was filing out of the train. Without understanding why, we hop off the train. We begin asking strangers what is going on, but the only person willing or able to respond simply says, “No more Pisa.”
I’m sorry, what? Has Pisa gone up in flames? We look around to see no trains and only one employee, who sprints away and disappears into a locked room as people try to ask questions. We follow the herd into the train station and find a long line leading to the *one* solo employee left.
So here we are, in the random town of Empoli, in a sea of mass confusion. Finally, another employee emerges and we flock to him. Once my friends and I gain his fleeting attention, we ask how to get to Pisa. He simply points to a bus outside. We attempt to ask more questions, but he’s swallowed by the crowd.
With nothing to lose, we sprint toward the bus. We’re soon followed by a mass group of about sixty people. The doors are closed, so we congregate outside of them. But this soon escalates into the most intense shoving/pushing/yelling match I've ever seen as people realize there are only about thirty seats, and sixty people desperate to get to Pisa. My friends and I are at the very front luckily, and once the bus driver opens the door we rush him with our train tickets to prove we qualify for this ride.
Alexis and Nicole make it onto the bus, but suddenly I’m being knocked aside and a woman begins screaming at the driver about something with serious gusto. They fight exuberantly, and people attempt to use this distraction to push in front of me. At this point, I am ready to throw some elbows (and I do). I shove my way back to the front and climb onto the front step of the bus to secure my place. I’m centimeters from the bus driver and the arguing woman is centimeters behind me. In their fighting, they are leaning in and throwing their arms around, so I’m being knocked back and forth between the two as they fight. Julia shoves through the crowd, confronts a woman who tries to push her, and puts her hand on my back to keep me from falling down the bus stairs.
In a whirlwind, I abandon the idea of waiting any longer for the driver to check my ticket and quickly scamper under his armpit and onto the bus. Alexis and Nicole welcome me onto the bus with cheers of victory. I’m soon followed by Julia, and once we’re all seated, clearly disheveled and utterly confused, we burst into hysterical laughter. Tears fall from our eyes as we take in the scene around us.
The mob continues to swirl and yell outside the bus and the driver continues the screaming match with the lady in words we cannot understand. Somehow, the men who sell cheap items from black trash bags along the train station platforms manage to sneak onto the bus and smile with glee, hoping to sell their “treasures” to us. As one runs past, his giant trash bag smacks me in the face and knocks me backward. Needless to say, another fit of laughter ensues.
The madness continues for another 30 minutes or so before the bus is full and those unable to make it on cover their faces in defeat. At this point, we still aren’t totally sure where the bus is even going. The driver speaks no English, but he says the words “Pisa airport” which greatly concerns us considering we need the train station. At this point we have nothing to lose, so we simply sit back and spend the 90-minute bus ride wondering how on earth we ended up here.
I believe this is when Stage Three: Acceptance has kicked in. I realize that what I am surrounded by was not my language, not my social norms, and certainly not the transportation system I know. I realize that I can't live life as I normally do in the United States—using our ways of controlling, planning, and problem solving. Instead, I’d have to fully embrace the Italian lifestyle and accept the fact that I am utterly clueless here.
Luckily, the bus does end up taking us to the Pisa train station. We're expecting this to be the safe destination that would provide us with a new route to get home. Instead, we arrive to a deserted train station. Turns out, all of the trains have been cancelled across the region because of “technical difficulties.” There are no employees to be found.
At this point, it’s approximately 11:00pm and pitch dark. The Pisa train station is actually a pretty sketch place to be late at night, apparently. There’s a hotel across the street, but it’s a high-end expensive one. There are some taxis, so we run over to see how much it would cost to simply taxi home. It would be several hundred, but split up it could possibly be the best option. Problem is, they only take cash (which none of us have). We head out to search for an ATM, but we can’t seem to find one and grow nervous as a few...street interactions (I'm not sure how else to describe it)... make us question our safety.
There are some high stakes here. We're already missing the maximum amount of school days we can, so missing class the next day simply wasn’t an option. Plus, not getting home that night means the money we spent on our train tickets would go to waste, we’d have to drop a ton of money on a hotel, and that we would have to purchase more train and bus tickets for the following day.
All of our phones are dead and we have no idea how to get home. We've exhausted most alternatives and come to the conclusion that we might just have to stay in the expensive hotel for the night and figure out train rides in the morning. In one last desperate attempt, we take a final lap through the train station to see if anything had changed. We walk by the customer service office and find, to our amazement, three employees! They had just arrived and were leaving in ten minutes. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. We talk to a kind and helpful woman who is willing to hear us out. She speaks minimal English, but she knows of kindness.
This saint of a woman makes some calls, types away at the keyboard, and glances repeatedly at the clock. We glanc nervously at each other, hopeful but weary. Suddenly, she rips off a piece from some nearby paperwork and begins to scribble. She slides the paper over to us.
It’s a schedule for our trains and buses, beginning in an hour at 1am. We can’t believe it. We’ll get home in time for our 9am class.
So I can say this: miracles do happen.
We can’t say thank you enough. She nods her head dutifully.
It was a rough and sleepless night of travel. Eventually, we make it to the homeland. Exhausted, starving, and weak, we climb the countless stairs to our top floor apartment. In my mind, I wave the white flag of surrender. The acceptance stage has been forced upon me, but I welcome it as an escape from the hostility I was feeling before.