Man/Dog vs. Nature/Trains
10:48 AM
We arrived in Pescia on a rainy Monday and settled into a routine here at Stuart and Helen's. We'd wake up at 8 (Zach at 7, but I'm one to stay in bed until the alarm) get ready and have breakfast with our hosts at 8:30. After breakfast on Tuesday it was straight to the terraces to clear away the bramble and brush and really just make them look like terraces again. The work was intensive, raking and tossing around dead branches, but it's easy to see progress and feel rewarded at the the end of the day. Wednesday's rain kept us indoors but there was work to keep us busy there too; bathroom demolition to put Zach's plumbing skills to the test and wood staining for me. Each day we would work for a few hours, break for coffee, work for a few more, break for lunch, work until 3:30. Afternoons we spent reading, drawing or taking naps (well, Winry and I did) but the real joys have been the evening meals with Helen and Stuart. We always seem to start on seemingly simple conversations that will morph into a philosophical discussion on gun control or enviornmental policy. Every night is a great new conversation and you can find some of their brilliance on their own blog (plus a few pictures of us working!)
Hopefully this explanation of how smoothly this stay was going will stand as reasoning for some of the decision making process you'll see ahead. There were many indications that we should have turned around and conceeded to mother nature. Our hubris got the best of us.
Zach's grandpa's girlfriend Pat (whom we love so much) had messaged us a few days earlier saying that she was visiting her granddaughter in Milan and would be spending the day in Florence on Thurdsay. Understandably we were excited to see a familiar face so we traded our Saturday off for Thursday and planned a place to meet. We went to bed excited for the next day and awoke to the wind howling through the trees. Zach reached for the lightsitch only to find the electricity had gone out sometime over the night. We packed our bags anyway (hubris) and went up for breakfast to find the same dark scenery in Helen and Stuart'
s kitchen. We ate breakfast quickly, still not doubting our decision, and learned that a few trees had fallen down in the driveway and had to be moved before going anywhere. Zach went out to help Stuart while I washed the dishes. Seeing as how the trees had to be moved anyway but they were probably still a sign to stay put. We'll call that one a wash.
With the driveway cleared, we all jumped in the car and drove down to the station. Evidence of the storm littered the town with trees down all over, some smashing down signs or clearly hanging on power lines. Huge garbage bins were blown over and one even landed in the river, gutters had been torn off and lay useless in the streets and lone branches were everywhere.
We were in good (hubris) spirits when we arrived until we saw everyone standing around the station, squinting at the displays which were flashing "CANCELED" on the majority of trains, no matter the direction. Helen chatted briefly with two would be train passengers nearby and found out that when people saw the trains cancelled and jumped into their cars, police were there to turn them back into town. Still our 9:55 train hadn't been labelled as cancelled, so we bought the tickets (hubris) and waited with our hosts on the platform to see if it would really show.
I still maintain that we shouldn't have gotten on that train, but that thought does little good now as that train chugged around the corner and we stepped right up. The ride was indicative of what was to come: lots of waiting. It stopped for long stretches at stations and even in the middle of the tracks. Finally, at one practicularly long period, Zach looked up and asked "Are we the only ones on this train?" We looked forward and back. Not a soul. The train display had abandoned us too and showed only a black screen. We stepped off completely disorientated and finally found a sign to tell us we were in Pistoia, a full stop away from Florence. The people were in the same frenzy here in Pistoia, seeing as the displays were now flashing even more "CANCELLED" signs than before. The next few hours were a frenxy of making plans on the fly, trying to find wifi to contact pat (who ended up aking it to Florence just fine) and our hosts to update them, and long periods of waiting for any train to come through. We tried to keep ourselves entertained.
The final defeat to our hubris came when we accepted we weren't getting back to Pescia but were still stubbornly tyring to get through to Florence considering it was a main hub and they would try to push as many trains through as they could there. We had been waiting at the station for a few hours for the only train that hadn't been cancelled (but still never came), when Zach was finally able to get ahold of a conductor. He pointed us to a bus outside and Zach ran up to the men standing around it to double check. They confirmed happily but as Zach ushered Winry and I over, they quickly decanted.
"No Cane!" ("No dog!"
)
We admitted defeat there and accepted our fate. We were stuck in Pistoia for the night. Just like that, when we conceeded and things got easier. We were able to check in to the first hotel we came across, for less than we had originally saw it listed for. Zach ran out and bought champagne, beer and some type of cake roll and we dined, drank, and watched music videos on MTV. We even tried watching episodes of Xena and Chuck in dubbed Italian. Eventually after we had thouroughly licked our wounds, we went out for a nice dinner in the town's square where we found free wifi and were able to update everyone on our whereabouts. Of course since we had a bit of time on our hands and alcohol in our bloodstream, out came the camera again.
The next day was just as simple, out to the square for drinks in the sun as we waited for our train and then finally on the tracks home. It was quite funny when we realized how quickly that train ride goes when there aren't any trees in the way.
So we've learned our lesson about day trips and respecting mother nature. But to be fair, we only learned afterwards that this was the "
worst storm in living history" so our hubris wasn't that bad... Was it?
Respect your storms, kids.
H W Z
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