No free rides

Steph and I rode so many trains on this recent 1 month excursion through Europe that I felt like I became a train master by the end of it all.

There’s really nothing to riding a train if you think about it. Simply buy your ticket, arrive to the station on time, find the proper platform, make sure your ticket is printed, find your car and seat, and then hope no one is sitting in it. How hard could that possibly be?

In one case, we had purchased tickets online returning to Tuscany from Rome, but didn’t have them printed. On the way to Rome a day earlier we skated by not having them printed, and we weren’t the only ones. When ticket-checkers came around, I provided them information I had written down, and we were fine. But on the way back, however, they didn’t even check our tickets. Deep down that troubled me, because these tickets weren’t cheap. Out of all our train rides, attendants may have checked and punched our tickets maybe 50% of the time at best.

So, near the end of the trip (after well over a dozen train rides), I got this wild idea of riding the train from Bologna to Rome for free. Bologna was in between Firenze and Rome, and from my previous experience train attendants only do a walk through checking bookings right after leaving Firenze (Florence). I hadn’t seen anyone check tickets the previous trip through Bologna, so why was I to believe they were planning to do so this time around?

Steph was strictly against my (not so) evil plan. Moments before we left our hotel for the train station we ordered tickets on the web. Good thing we did. I ended up having a reserved seat next to the only person I would have wanted to chat with on the train anyway. I spoke with a gentleman (an Italian) more or less the entire way from Bologna to Rome who had lived several years in NY (where I’m from), and in San Diego where I’ve also lived. We hit it off.

Near the end of the ride he asked me if I’ve ever been to a bar in San Diego called Alibi. If you’ve ever been there, then you’ll probably agree with me that it’s one of the sneakiest, coolest bars in all of California that hardly anyone knows about. He also mentioned that he liked my project I'm filming about Marco's story, and that he may be able to put me in contact with someone in Italy who may be able to have it broadcasted on national TV there. If it's good enough of course.

Good thing we purchased tickets.

Keep the faith.