Ok so I am making a pact to myself to start taking more pictures on this trip, because that was one of the main things I envisioned doing and yet I have not captured so many of the striking moments and images of it. One of said moments/images was walking the morning hillside in Perugia, past the silent farmhouses, stone walls and gravel driveways, everything green but covered in frost. The hostel that I stayed at was another special sort of place; I was the only guest (I have come to the conclusion that I am one of maybe a handful of tourists traveling through Europe right now), and the two girls who greeted me upon arrival were living/working there, work seeming to translate to hanging out, cooking, and watching MTV, a pretty good deal aside from the fact that they also have to live in the basement of an isolated farmhouse in chilly February. We drank some wine and watched Grease dubbed in Italian, and munched on Perugian chocolate. Then I went to bed, or tried to, considering one of the girls was having a very long-lasting Skype date. I woke up at the crack of dawn, wanting to take advantage of the long hillside driveway for some form of exercise, but when I got out there I found that my legs were having difficulty enough just in walking after lugging my ridiculously gigantic suitcase around the whole previous day.
My suitcase. Is a topic I don't even know if I have the energy to embark upon. Let's just say that whatever I'm doing is not backpacking. It is not even remotely close to the conception of backpacking. When you are carrying such a gigantic suitcase that people comment or do double takes or ask, "Are you smuggling another person in there?", you should really not be trying to undertake a backpacking itinerary. But I am. And I feel like I'm getting weaker every day. The suitcase is beating me. The other day I fell face first onto a train in trying to shove it on, and this was with people helping me. It took a human pyramid to try to get it onto an overhead luggage rack.
So Mom, if I don't ultimately come home with my Samsonite, just try to take into account your daughter's physical and mental well-being in proportion to the cost. Because believe me, I love that suitcase. It's seen me through all kinds of adventures. But I think it was the moment where I, dying of hunger and about to set off into the farmlands of Perugia, seeing no other option but hitting up the supermarket next to the train station, and had to lug the behemoth in with me and then try to communicate, in Spanitalian, my need for temporarily leaving the suitcase while I collected my groceries, the ensuing spectacle being one that I will leave you, dear readers, to imagine.... it was that moment where I saw my fate of traveling in Europe very clearly, and that fate did not involve the suitcase.
I actually took a taxi to the hostel, and it was a damn good thing, because I couldn't imagine trying to lug the beast over gravel, through the darkness, over what was basically a mile of mountain, to a farmhouse I wouldn't even know how to recognize. The girls couldn't imagine it either, and they stared at me as if I had super-human strength.
"You brought that all the way here?" They gasped. They had not seen the taxi, and for one reason or another I was embarrassed to tell them I had taken it. Actually, I know the reason. The reason was that the taxi had cost as much as one night at the hostel. But whatever... it had been well worth it for the luxury of riding in a car, listening to music on the radio, and I hadn't had that experience in at least a month. So anyway, I did what I tend to do a lot, which is lie.
"Yeah!" I said. "It was pret-ty challenging. Could you pass the wine?"
The only problem was, I was worried about how my story would hold up if I tried to do the walk the next day only to collapse in a gravel rut halfway down the mountain. Thankfully, it wasn't a problem. I hitched a ride with an old Italian farmer, driving one of these miniscule contraptions. My suitcase went in the back and the two of us squeezed in the front, him leaning over me to change the gears. Every so often he would say something unintelligible with a cheerful wizened smile, and I would nod and smile back, and on we would go. At the end of the driveway, he tried to get his hands on the suitcase, but I shouted "Io! Io!" And practically pushed him away, but only because I didn't want him to die.
So that was all very pleasant, and I felt rather optimistic as I waited for the bus amidst the slowly melting frost. And waited. And waited. A countless amount of cars had passed and stopped at the intersection, passengers staring in disbelief at the Samsonite. I waited and waited some more. I checked my clock. It was 10 minutes after the bus was supposed to have arrived. That's when I started to get a little less optimistic. I couldn't call a cab; I didn't have a number. I was not about to walk all the way back up that hill to the hostel. So I just said a little prayer and continued to wait.
By and by a man came along and gave me a funny look.
"You do know there's no bus today, right?" He said first in Italian, then in English. "It's a Perugian local holiday. You have to take line C, but it will come very infrequently."
Really, Universe? I thought, Really??!
But I am working very hard on being Flexible and Open and Trusting, so I thanked him very nicely, and dragged my suitcase down a few more blocks of road to the stop for line C. I waited another half hour, during which another little old Italian man came by and tried to tell me that I was at the wrong stop, because it was Friday, and this was a line for Sundays and holidays.
"It is a holiday," I tried to tell him, "A Perugian local holiday, to be exact!" But it came out more like a lot of "Spanish, Spanish, intelligible" and finally he gave up, waved his hands dismissively, and moved on. Whatever. It's not my fault he doesn't know his county's ways. And finally, FINALLY, two minutes before schedule, I saw the bus rounding the bend, and my suitcase went on ok and I didn't even pay (like lying, not paying for public transport is a thing I tend to do a lot of in Europe), and I made it just in the nick of time to my train to Rome and then Napoli.
Oh yes, and I fell trying to get my suitcase on the car again. But I'm sure you're smart enough to know by now that that goes without saying.
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