Italy Journal 10 - A Cautionary Tale of Good Fortune

I wrote this up in the airport yesterday. Something was compelling me to get all the words out before leaving this beautiful, crazy country. I hope you enjoy it.

Journal 10 - A Cautionary Tale of Good Fortune

It was a hot, sunny Sunday, actually the Fourth of July, when, along with two classmates, I took a train out of the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence to the Tuscan countryside, a small town called Castagno, to swim at the pool of a fancy hillside resort. I had read about the pool in the English-Florentine newspaper a day earlier. Locals in Florence always leave town on the weekends since it is so hot and touristy in the city. At this point on our trip, we no longer considered ourselves "touristas" since we had been living in Italy for almost a whole month and knew our way our Florence really well.

We transferred trains in a place that can only be described as a creepy Italian ghost town. It was solely populated by a dusty luncheonette which luckily served not only pork panini but also tuna wraps–-a bonus for my hungry friends who were each Jewish and Muslim. After lunch we found our local train and a short ride later we arrived. At the local station, we planned to use the ATM (called a bancomat here) and check the return schedule home. You can imagine our surprise to see that the rural station was nothing more than a dilapidated shack, sort of an homage to where a station maybe once stood. There wasn't even a sign to mark the train stop!

My euros were few, and I planned on getting cash at the Florence train station, but the machines were all broken. One of the girls was planning to exchange some US Dollars for Euros, but all of the exchange places were closed. So, before we left, I asked the third girl if she had enough money on her, explaining that we were broke but would pay her back upon returning, and she said okay. An hour later, on the train, I learned that the third girl only had a few euros for herself but that she was willing to share what she had. Knowing the cost was about 15 each, I was praying the resort would accept credit cards – it was too late to turn back.

                 

We inhaled the pungent perfume of Tuscany, a gorgeous blend of fresh air and the sweet smell of the woods, and knew instinctively that everything would somehow be okay. Walking down a very steep hill, we spotted our destination immediately—a rectangular blue oasis in the center of about a hundred very tanned people. Around the pool was a fence of ancient looking white stone columns, attached to the side of an enormous stone mansion.

Explaining our situation to the pool manager with all the charisma we could muster, he responded in broken English, "No money, no pool. Who travels to Italy with no money? What is wrong with you?" After a brief conference in which going home was never discussed, we decided to try him again, with our doe-eyed, sweaty and pitiful faces.  We were standing there with our towels and flip-flops, and finally the man took pity on us and allowed us to enter for the sum of our entire collection of euro coins, a few small bills and an American $20 bill. Woohoo!! We had a great relaxing time at the pool and in the sun and packed up a few hours later to go home. After changing, we returned our locker keys, went to thank them, and asked about the train schedule back to Florence. At this moment, we learned that the last train had left an hour ago. No more trains until tomorrow.

We still had no money between the three of us and were starting to worry. Stranded at a fancy resort in the hills of Tuscany is not the worst place to be, but we needed to get ourselves home to Florence for class the next day. I called Kevin on my cell phone and asked him to check the online train schedule for us to see if there was any way hope of leaving. The pool manager, Peter, who we were now on a first name basis with, again took pity on us and offered us a ride in his car to our transfer point – back to the ghost town, where we were able to catch an evening train back to Florence.  The fact that he drove a regular car and not a scooter like everyone else was another huge stroke of luck. He flirted with one of the girls in broken Spanish along the way, as it was the easiest language to understand each other in. Peter, incidentally, looked exactly like how you would imagine a bronze 31 year old pool manager in Tuscany to look like. And he was charming. I appointed him Santo Peter (Saint Peter) for letting us into the pool and then driving us back in one piece. Seeming like the kind of guy who drives a car exclusively for the back seat, he thought that was hysterically funny.

As a side note, I'd like to say that you should never travel without any cash. You should also never get in a car with a strange man no matter how nice he seems. And always check the train schedule ahead of time. Don't expect anything to be open on Sunday, either. End of public service announcement.

Back in Florence, we found an ATM, celebrated our good fortune and fun day with some gelato, strawberry cheesecake flavor this time, and the three touristas americanas, grateful for a day of Italian hospitality, enjoyed a nice walk home.