| One year ago right now, I was sitting down in the European Commission building in Central Brussels defending my position that the addition of Bosnia Herzogovina to the European Union would benefit both the Balkans and "Old Europe." All of my luggage, including alot of Belgian beer and Jacques chocolate, was sitting in a locker in Brussels-Noord station, which I was traveling to and from free of charge :) Once I finished that final, I took some pictures in Brussels, but then headed to the bus station to go on one of my crazier journeys. After a huge slice of pizza and my last beer in Belgie, I boarded the Eurolines bus originating in Amsterdam and heading to Milano. I fell asleep but woke up briefly in Paris and Luxembourg, two capitals I had visited during the semester. After Paris, I was asleep all the way through France, and woke up when we entered Switzerland. Traveling through the Alps at sunrise provided some of the most picturesque memories of Europe, especially the Matterhorn, Bern, and the small villages outside. Also some of the most tense moments, as the Swiss police boarded our bus checking passports. Of course my passport said I had been in Europe for 4 months on a 3 month visa, so I became even more concerned when a young guy was taken off the bus and put into the back of the police car in front of our bus. I was then fine until we got into Turino. Before the Olympics, the only reason I had heard of Turino was because that is where buses from Amsterdam heading through Italy get searched for drugs. The police boarded the bus and went row by row, having passengers take everything at their seats with them as they exited the bus. As I was getting off, there was a drug sniffing dog at the bottom of the stairs, and it let me walk by without moving at all. When a man a few rows behind me was getting off, he saw the dog starting to move alot, and he started to run. The dog and the police didn't like that much, and had to chase after him...I kind of wonder what ever happened with him. Anyway, the policeman in charge came up to me and told me that the dogs had smelled something on my luggage (how they could connect the luggage to me, I have no idea). So I got to haul all of my stuff into a small depot in Turino, where I was put into this small, cement, windowless room, and instructed in Italian to remove all of the contents of my suitcases and go through all of the pockets of any coats, sweatshirts, and pants. As I speak no Italian, the use of hand motions slightly prolonged this adventure. After about 30 minutes, the policeman in charge came into the room, asked if I speak Italian or French, to which I said "Nederlands, Deutsche, and English." He then asked me in English to see my passport, then said to the policeman I had been dealing with: "he's American?" I was then told to repack all of my stuff and head back to the bus which was waiting for me. The thirty minute ordeal did not please the people on the bus, as I got some fairly awful looks as I got back on. I then headed to Milano, where my time on the bus came to an end. It dumped me in a fairly obscure part of the city, and I then spent a good amount of time trying to find my way to the subway. Once in the subway station, a nice woman instructed me to hop over the turnstile and stay on the train for 2 stops. I got to the train station, a full hour after the train I expected to catch had departed, and 10 minutes before the next train was supposed to leave. Unfortunately, it took 15 minutes to get through the line and buy my ticket. At that point, the train had left, and the next 2 were sold out. So I got to take the Intercity train (read: train that stops at every city, regardless of size) to Rome. Apparently, I didn't pay for a seat, but someone felt bad for me since I had all of my luggage and looked like I had been traveling for 24 hours (since I had!), so they gave me their seat for the 7 hour ride. With no leg room thanks to all of my luggage, I looked like the moron in the car all curled up in the corner. When Rome final came up, I headed for the main aisle, which was filled with people. Some people were nice and helped me get all my luggage off the train. So there I was at Termini Station in Rome at about 9:30 at night on my mom's birthday. The whole family is waiting for me somewhere in the city, and I only had sketchy directions on getting to the hotel. I was planning to walk to the hotel until I got there at 9:30pm and realized how sketchy the area is at night. So I get onto a (free) bus, and luckily get off at the right stop, as they don't announce the next stop on Roman buses. I start wandering around a large outdoor market that was luckily still alive at that time of night. As soon as I heard a family speaking English, I ran up to them and asked for help. They were able to ask the police, a taxi driver, 2 shop owners, and the manager of another hotel in Italian where my hotel was, and none of those people had any idea. We started walking to where my new American friends thought the hotel might be, and as luck would have it, we found the hotel at 10:30. I go inside, walk up a flight of stairs, tell the guy at the desk that my family should be there, and he tells me to call their room. My dad answered the phone, and I told him I was in the lobby. I heard my mom yell at him to get out of the way, and she came running around the corner yelling: where have you been?! The family that had brought me to the hotel, still at the door to the hotel, yelled up "Happy Birthday, mom" to her, and then headed out. You know that Belgian beer and chocolate I mentioned at the beginning - that was all consumed in the remaining hour of my mom's birthday. So, after leaving Leuven, Belgium at 1pm on the 22nd, I arrived at my hotel in central Italy at 10:30pm on the 23rd, a full 6 and a half hours later than I told my family I would be there. Christmas here in Springfield just is not going to measure up to a wonderful family giving me their extra ticket for Midnight Mass at the Vatican, for which I stood in line for 5 hours, or to the Christmas Day Mass with the family (and the German couple in front of us who shushed my brother and me), but it probably won't be as stressful. |
