Good ol' Unreliable

Yesterday I was thinking back to a conversation I had with an Italian. We discussed the subject of my watching machine and how it took about 2 weeks to get the thing fixed and operational. The chase for the technician, along with the afternoon waits, had been what consumed my time for the days when the door to the washing machine just wouldn’t open. We are still waiting for the plumber who was supposed to come in August. Luckily that situation isn’t urgent. So me and this Italian (I don’t name him because I don’t really remember who it was) talked about how in Italy a student needs a tessera (membership) for just about everything, nothing is straightforward or logically and everything takes a long time to complete. That just seems to be the way things go. But the trains, this Italian marveled, the trains are always on time.

So I had wanted to write about the trains in Italy, the regionals, the intercity, the eurostars, and how on time and efficient they are. But as I had had a marvelous weekend (thus the rule of life balance would eventually screw me over) and I had planned ahead (a thing someone should never do with a thing as unruly as life in Italy, let alone life itself), there was of course going to be a strike planned for the day I wanted to travel. In Italy, they tell you about the strikes in advanced. Thus, I learned this morning from my classmate Hezzy and later from the trenitalia website, that in fact the trains would not run on time or at all on Wednesday September 27, 2006 from 9am to 5pm.

For some reason I went into a semi-crisis, trying to figure out what plan B would be, since I hadn’t had a plan B before. Would I leave the previous evening and have an additional day in Cinque Terre? Would I leave Wednesday at 5pm when the trains picked up again? After a bit of stress, I ultimately got back to my senses after talking to my mother, sweet, wise, soothing mother, and decided to just postpone the trip for one day and extend it for one day on the other side. The weather would be better anyways for later in the week. Thus I will have a few days to myself to plan out my classes, wrap up some homework, maybe even do some laundry. I’ll just have to learn that I can’t really ever rely on anything or anyone in Italy, and that I should always have a plan B.