Train Talk.

My love for public transit is strong and everlasting. Despite the requisite transition to Ventra (which was so lame), the overcrowded red line and the vanishing Damen bus, I love it until the day I die.

However, I am never, ever interested in engaging in conversation with strangers on public transit. The train is for sitting quietly. The bus is also for sitting quietly. Its for books and music in headphones and playing on your phone.  If you happen to be on the train with people you know, then some idle chatter is fine. If you run into someone you know, then a catch up session is fine too (if only because it makes excellent eavesdropping fodder for those of us around you). 

I do not ever want to talk with you on the train. I do not care if the train stops, or is crowded, or if it is raining. The exceptions to this rule are if there is something so insane, so crazyballs that it needs to be addressed to ensure that neither party is dreaming it up. 

"Oh my god, is that a freaking BIRD on the train?" (this is my favorite worst story still)

Beyond that, no talking. When you talk to me, I assume you are trying to steal my stuff, hit on me, or are perhaps an unhinged lunatic. 

This, of course, says more about me than it does about you. It says that I spent my prime commuting years in a city full of unhinged lunatics hitting on me and trying to steal my stuff on the train. It says that I am not trying to make friends. My transplant status means I continue to lack the folksy midwest standards you all were born with. 

Of course, I am completely #sorryIamnotsorry because seriously, if I wanted to make friends, I would hang out at Mad River until girls sat me down and told me they had talked it over and told me they wanted to be my friend. Or, I would go to Girl Scout sleep away camp. Either way, on the train I just want to get from place to place and perhaps do a little reading or facebook stalking and that is totally normal.

Think of the train as just a giant car that we are all in separately. Feel good about yourself for not destroying the planet, but don't feel the need to tell me all about it.

5 Minutes to Freedom

Of all the technological advancements of my lifetime- nothing had been quite so amazing and game-changing as Bus Tracker.

Since I haven't had a car to call my own in over 10 years, I have been a dedicated parishioner of public transit - dutifully paying my monthly dues to ensure that no matter what (as long as I bring my CTA card) I'll get to where I am going.

I may get to where I am going, but chances are - it won't happen in a timely or very lady like fashion.

I have made a promise that, now that I am 27, that I will not run for public transportation.  No matter how late I am running, no matter how cold it is, unless I am already inside the station I will not run.  I break this promise on a very regular basis.  You could probably set a clock to how often I find myself hustling down the street trying to look as relaxed and calm as possible.

Also? Sometimes I will pretend that I hear the train coming and start running, just because if someone sees you running they will start running too and there is a small amount of satisfaction I get on having that kind of impact on some one's day.

And with the advent of bus & train tracker, my life has been made considerably warmer, for sure (I now know exactly how long it will take me to get to the bus stop & will not walk out of my house until my phone tells me the bus is 3 minutes away) but in some ways, it has been made insanely more stressful.

Back before the internet controlled my entire life, I would get to a bus/train stop and I would wait. I had a book or a disc man (lies. I was never cool enough to carry a disc man) and I always gave myself enough time to ensure that even if the transit gods were against me, I would get to where I was going in a timely manner.

Now however I Know how long its going to be - and while in theory, this is ideal, in practice it means that sometimes it means I KNOW the next bus is 28 minutes away and there isn't really anything I can do about it (refreshing the bus tracker feed in a frustrating manner doesn't help like you think it would). Normally when this happens I figure out another route that doesn't require me to stand, exposed to the chicago elements for as long as an episode of Whitney (you decide which is worse) - but occasionally I am simply just forced to stand there and think about the old days where if a bus didn't show up in 10 minutes I Just.Walked.

And since I have figured that with bus tracker, everything will just magically appear (which it doesn't) - I tend to be late to everything when traveling by bus alone (CTA trains while smelly, terrible and full of people who don't know how trains at rush hour are supposed to work, tend to run fairly punctually)

My new least favorite thing is the bus-to-bus transfer (which, when executed correctly is called the "Perfect T") because I can now track when both buses will be arriving at my transfer intersection. If I am ever running late, or need to pee or whatever - the chances are extremely likely that the buses are slated to be at the intersection at the Exact Same Time. 

This means that my fate is in one person's hands.  And not just any person, a person who drives a Chicago City Bus. This means that all bets are totally and completely off. Sometimes bus drivers stop in the middle of the street to let random people on. Sometimes they run red lights. Sometimes they refuse to let you off at a red light because "its against the rules." Occasionally they are awesome and will do some sort of morse-code honk to let the other bus driver know you're gonna make a run for it.  And then? Your life, timeliness and commute is in the hands of yet another single person who may hate people who wear pink gloves...you don't know. That's the chance you take. Although, most of the time they will wait for you because in general, bus drivers are pretty reasonable people.

Though, once you are on the bus, you are then at the whim of all the other people on the bus, the bus driver's inability to shift higher than 2nd gear, and all the drivers of cars on the roads who really cannot fathom that their terrible right lane driving is, in effect, making everyone in the bus behind them late to where they're going.

Really - my studies in public transit have taught me that, when in doubt, you should probably just stay home.

Night of Day 9 - and day 10. Train people and Paris.

So as I mentioned - one of the major flaws of Milan was when we got there they told us that our sleeper car was not female only as we thought we had been promised. So I spent a lot of the panicking about what sort of whackado Europeans we would be spending ten hours with. That paired with the fact that when we were in the Police station (confirming that we were not going to get deported because we didn't have Italian stamps in our passports - which we didn't) - we saw a woman who was really, really upset and had no things, so we are assuming had all her things stolen, which was super scary.

Naturally the first thing that happened was we realized that our car was Alllll the way at the end of the very, very long train - I had read multiple times that occasionally trains leave the station very quickly so I insisted we RUN to our car with our 50 lb. bags. Bear was not amused.

Anyway, we get to our car - here were our train roomies:

1- A bitchy french woman (is there any other kind?) - she doesn't understand that she is on the bottom bunk, and then insists its broken and tells the conductor she wants a switch - naturally he fixes it in about 30 seconds which I think pissed her off more. She ALSO had like an absurd amount of bags. WHY? Do you not understand how small the train car is? Where do you think that is going to go, because if you think it is invading my personal space you are SORELY mistaken.

2&3 - A pair of 50 or 60 year-old Italian men. They seemed to be backpackers of the real serious variety. They were far fitter than I could ever dream of being - their backpacks looked so light and sensible. I am sure that a peek inside would have proven that they did not bring a formal shirt, jic. Once they established that we didn't really speak Italian at all they took charge - they got our bunks all set up, put the dumb french lady's bags up and out of everyone's way. Even though one of them snored for most of the night - it was forgiven because they made us feel safe.

4- At the very last minute a gentleman walked into the cabin - he was probably in his late 30's and looked like your stereotypical french man. He was dressed in what looked like a fairly expensive three piece suit and white button up with what had to have been four-figure boots on his feet. He promptly took off his jacket and fell asleep. I was mesmerized by his clothing. How do you sleep in a suit that costs more than my rent? I don't think he said anything the whole trip.

Anyway - the train trip itself was pretty uneventful. I discovered that the rolling of the train does not put me to sleep so much as it keeps me awake. But it was a pleasant awake.

When we got into Paris - we arrived at the Bercy station. I wanted to see if we could get some information about going to Giverny so I walked up to a person sitting behind a desk that said information. In my exhaustion the first words that came out of my mouth were in English. You could see her immediately shut down and get bitchy. She shook her head in disinterest in what I was saying.

I sighed. Of Course everyone was right about the French. So I tried another line and this time attempted some weak French. This girl rolled her eyes and repeated what I had said in a disdainful way. I realized my error and tried to correct myself but the damage was done. She was never going to help me. So I gave up.

We got on the train and went directly to J's. J went to college with my Mom on her first go-round at university. He is tres American but has been living in Paris for a couple years and has had quite the adventure. I would tell you about it, but it would ruin the fantastic book he is going to write in a few years. He was a perfect tour guide and after a quick croissant breakfast he took us right out to experience the Bastille Market.

The Bastille Market is a HUGE farmer's market that has every food I could ever think of. I so desperately wanted to take pictures of all the fish and the piles of tomatoes and perfect pieces of cheese. But there was not that much elbow room to begin with, and the people at this market were not there for photo opps, they were there to buy groceries. So I kept my camera in my bag, mostly because I am afraid of the French.

After a quick coffee J. got us our first Velib. Velib is my most favorite part of Paris. So we tooled around and got a wonderful bike tour (Notre Dame, Louvre, fancy bridges) until we got to the Eiffel Tower and it started to rain.


Please note - this picture is in color - it was just that gray. This was one of the two days of bad weather we had and it was actually a nice respite from the 85 and Sunny of the rest of the trip.

Then there was lunch and then the Hunting Museum. The hunting museum (or Maison de la Chasse et de la Nature) is probably in my top 5 of best Museums ever. For a few reasons.
1- Its a huge old house from back in the day - and it still looks like a house for the most part.

2- the ceiling made of owls.


It was hard to take a picture of but - seriously the ceiling of this (rather small) room, was covered in owl pelts. Many of the other ceiling had antlers and such on them. These paired with the classy chandeliers was pretty much my dream decor.

3 - This guy.


Polar Bears are consistently on the short list for my favorite animal and to get to stand this close to a real (albeit dead) one, was pretty amazing. They are much taller than you think. For reference, I am 5'2.

And many more things (the videos that teach you how guns work, the boar in the hall and the deer in the salon, the pictures of puppies in the touring exhibit) - the bad news? The gift shop was terrible? It didn't even have any good postcards. Just books and books do not do the place justice. I left empty handed and disappointed - try harder Hunting Museum.

Then it was home for dinner (Bear's first duck! So delicious) and game planning for the first full day in Paris.

Venice, yay. Milan, boo. Day 8 and 9

Venice is a great city to spend exactly 2 days in. There is a lot of walking involved in Venice and so.many.stairs. I feel like no one bothered to warn me that anytime you go over a canal, you have to climb way more stairs than feels necessary. But its so small that you can get a solid feel for it in 2 days.


We woke up early and got poppin' on our to-do list that Luigi had so nicely mapped out for us. Most of the things we saw were just big religious buildings, which (again) doesn't really get me all jazzed. But I understood the beauty. I was shocked by the really poor condition of most of the buildings. Chipped paint, exposed cracked plaster - it was so upsetting, because it makes me want to buy one and spend my days fixing it up. But even in those crappy conditions, these buildings cost bajillions of dollars. Sigh.


One of our first adventures was to Piazza San Marco. Venice is a city that has completely dedicated itself to the tourist trade and so on most streets there are signs telling you exactly how to get to all the biggest tourist attractions. It is SO useful (also Venice is like a triwizard cup maze, without those signs people would probably just get lost forever). So we got to San Marco in record time and since we got there really early (like 8:30 AM) we were able to go right up to the top of the bell tower. Fun fact, all the roofs in Venice are red.


Piazza San Marco is pretty during the day, but you should really go at night to listen to all the bands play. And then it was on to more buildings - but mostly the Teatro La Fenice. Which is the main character in one of my favorite books. You should go in and just see the book store, its totally worth it and you can get an idea of how totally gorgeous the place is, post-fire. Or, you know, go see an Opera.

After all this outdoor walking it was time for some indoor time - at the Peggy Guggenheim, natch. Basically she collected art in her gorgeous house and when she died - they made the house an art museum, full of all her art. The best part is all of the pictures of the house when she was living in it with all of the art on the walls. That is exactly the kind of crazy old lady I want to be.

Also she is buried with all of her dogs (there are like 15 of them) and their names are on the gravestone. And apparently she had her own gondola and would just ride up and down the Grand Canal waving at people. Seriously?! Best old lady ever. And her front porch view is not to be effed with.

More walking, walking, walking. Discovering that you pay more for food if you eat it outside at the cafe (boo). Finding the best sheets in the world (they have baby tigers on them!), buying lots of presents for myself (and others), and finally going back to the same bar we ate dinner in the night before to watch more soccer and drink more Beer. I know this was poor form of us but we were exhausted and hungry and didn't want to walk in circles to find something that was in our price range, had the game on and was close to where we were staying. Plus it gave me chances to take pictures of the sunset.

And then we went right to bed to get up (way too early - again) for the train. Most of the getting up early had to do with getting out of Luigi's apartment. He was a very, very, very hospitable host, but also a total European bachelor (nothing creepy happened, but we could tell he wanted his space back).

We got to the train station with our bags that had gotten MUCH heavier in Venice. Oops. We were hoping that Milan would have a bag storage place at the train station much like Venice, Rome and other cities. We get on the train and realize we know nothing about Milan. No problem, won't the Dolce and the Gabana be right there like, waiting for us?

Of COURSE not.

We get to Milan and it is raining, there is no place to check our bags that we can find, and we find out, after a half-hour wait in a line, that we are NOT in a girls-only compartment for our overnight train to Paris. Milan already had its 3 strikes and yet we were stuck there for the next 16 hours.

We haul our duffle bags around the train station for awhile deciding to wait out the rain with some gelato. NO GELATO in the WHOLE train station. Here are some other things that there aren't: wireless internet (even that you pay for), free bathrooms, televisions. What a disaster, Milan.

What there IS, is a fantastic bag store. It is apparently only in Italy (not quite true - but its only in Europe) which gave Bear and me huge fashion boners. The bags are crazy affordable for how nice they are - so we got new purses, which was awesome because then we got to carry them around ALL DAY. (Such geniuses).

Most of our day in Milan was spent walking in concentric circles near the airport looking for something/anything to do, food that wasn't gross/crazy expensive and some Effin' internet. No dice on any of them really. In retrospect we should have gotten on the trolley/tram situation and just gone somewhere, but our bags were too heavy and it was too rainy and we were pretty grouchy. So instead we wandered around and were just mad at Milan, which was far better than being mad at each other in retrospect.

Eventually we went to a cafe to get our last prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich of the trip and OF COURSE it was terrible. They put lettuce on it? wtf? So disappointing. And of course we ordered a beer without choosing a size, so we got 50 cl. beers which was way more than we wanted. So bogus.

Eventually we just went back to the train station and called the day a wash. Bear and I obviously had not packed enough books and so traded which meant she got to read The Namesake (amazing) and I was stuck reading The Summer I Turned Pretty (horrible, so horrible Blogger won't let me tag it). Lose.

Anyway - finally our train got there and we could leave Milan behind.

Day 6 & 7 Rome to Venice.

So, the Venitian adventure started actually on our last day in Santa Severa. It was decided that Bear and I should stay at Eugenio's house the night before our train to ensure that we made it in time. This meant that finally we were going to be on our own. No more hand-holding or translating or standing silently while Dad does all the talking

This was something I was incredibly nervous about. For some reason I wasn't nervous about Venice or Milan, I was mostly terrified of the moment we got to the bus stop in Rome and our ride was not there to pick us up. Then what? No phone, no internet, heavy bags. And like most parts of the world, the bus stop in Rome is not in the best neighborhood. But I sucked it up and got on the bus with Bear, saying goodbye to the lovely beach with the piles of trash and dirty water. Buttmunch lost in an epic game of Egyptian Rat Screw which actually screwed me over, because it meant he wouldn't take all the clothes I had regretted bringing home with him. Instead I still had a 40 lb. duffle bag that I was regretting every minute. If I ever do something like this again (read - travel anywhere) its back packs all the way.

We get off the bus and stand in the designated meeting place. Our bus was running a little bit late which peaked my optimism into thinking that maybe whichever cousin was coming to meet us would already be there.

Nope. No cousins.

We do some laps around the "station" to see if we recognize anyone. Nope. No cousins.

I bite back my panic.

We make a plan that if no one is there in half an hour we look for a payphone. If that doesn't work, we go back to Santa Severa on the next bus and admit defeat. We're not proud (a trait comes from the other side of the family).

After about 20 minutes a cousin shows up!! We are not going to be kidnapped or robbed or anything. Miracles. Ricky was just running late, and had been given the wrong time anyway. Like I said - a very loose relationship with time.

Ricky takes us back to their house on the subway. The Roman Metro only has two lines. Apparently this is because anytime they try to make a new subway line they start digging and run into ruins. Like actual historically significant old things. So they gave up. Which I found hilarious.

After a delicious dinner and much translating by Ricky (the oldest of Eugenio's kids with the best English) we go to bed. I decide that insomnia and a massive panic attack are exactly what I need before a 6 hour train ride and brand new city. So I am very worse for the wear the next morning.

I wanted to give us at least an hour to negotiate the train station that wasn't in English. Ricky said we would need 20 minutes. I won, as I tend to do with things like this and we got to the train station WAY too early. Of course. But we got to people watch and panic about why our train was the only one without a track number before getting on the train.

I had never been on a train in Europe before. I guess I just thought that they'd be situated like American Amtrak trains with the rows of two seats. Naturally - this was incorrect (at least for 2nd class, who knows how the rich bitches seats look). The seats are 3 across and they're each in their own little compartment. And there is not a ton of space - particularly when the stereotypical Italian lady and her "Ma-Ma" get on with their 6 pieces of luggage.

Anyway - it was a long 6 hours. But it ended in Venice! Venice is kind of amazing, because you have to go over all this water to actually get there - and then you're in the train station and you've kind of forgotten about all the water (mostly because you're appalled that they're asking you to pay 80 euro-cents to use the bathroom) until you get outside and there is the Grand Canal. Amazing.

We had another fun/terrifying wait for someone to pick us up. This was way worse because all we knew was that his name was Luigi, he was 37, had brown hair, and was tall. As you may have guessed, this describes about 98% of men in Italy. So basically we just stood around saying "Luigi?" in an a-little-bit-louder-than-normal voice. Then half an hour or so later, we see a guy with a sign with our names. Of course!! Luigi works in the tourism industry (which is pretty much the only industry left besides trash collector and gondola driver) and so knew what he was doing.

Luigi believes that all American girls between the age of 17 and 30 only have one goal - to get drunk. This, naturally, was not really our scene and despite our insisting otherwise, he was sure we wanted to get wasted and come home at 4 AM. I am sure that after we were in bed by 11 every night he is just confused.

The first day we were pretty confused and exhausted but we went on an adventure to find gelato. Instead we found a prosciutto sandwich which was almost as good. Luigi gave us a map that only had about half the streets labeled on it which, if you know Venice, is almost more trouble than its worth.

I tried to calm my OCD and allow us to just get ourselves lost and it worked out okay. There was a lot of excess walking but it was fun. There was so much to see.



We didn't talk to that many people, but the ones we did encounter were all incredibly friendly and willing to work within the confines of our limited Italian. We explored until 8 when we watched our daily world cup game and each drank an Italian beer which was surprisingly delicious before heading back to Luigi's and going directly to bed, despite the fact that we were American girls.