Around The World – Livorno, Italy
My goal on this leg of the trip is to get my new credit card and get on a train to Napoli. This is harder than it sounds.
I wake up to what will play out as the biggest clusterfuck of a day so far.
First cluster of the morning is the toilet doesn’t flush. I mean, no water in the tank. I actually wondered if they didn’t pay their water bill. Then I noticed that the water valve was turned off. A few twists and a minute later everything is good. No wifi, no heat, no water in the toilet. Not looking like a good review on Airbnb.
The map that Francesca drew for me is badly wrong. Who doesn’t understand the roads directly around her house? And it’s only about 10C degrees and windy so it’s very unpleasant to walk a mile into the center of this village on the outskirts of the city. Anyway I figure it out and find the Internet Cafe. The owner speaks a little English and I get hooked up on his Wifi. Woo hoo!
I do a text chat with Citibank and explain the card’s not here yet. He gives me the FedEx tracking number and I check – today is Friday – it arrived on Tuesday but it was brought back to the depot as “Incorrect address.” What a load of shit, FedEx drivers that don’t know how to find a house in the same town as the depot? My taxi driver was clueless last night but FedEx should be better than this.
I get the cafe owner to call FedEx’s local Italian number. I enter the tracking number and request status. A very helpful woman answers who speaks English. She repeated the incorrect address story but then changed it to “driver couldn’t find your name on the street.” Even bigger load of shit. I explained it’s an Airbnb and I’m booked in and I wanted the card to get here just before I arrived. She puts me on hold and confirms it’s at the local depot. I offer to take a taxi and pick it up but she says she can have it delivered to the Internet cafe this afternoon. I really push on the pickup because I don’t trust these people at all but she insists. Bad news, like most European businesses, the cafe closes at 1 PM and then reopens from 4 – 7PM. She says it will make it. I’m in big trouble if it doesn’t, tomorrow is Saturday and they’re closed and I don’t want to be stuck here for 2 days waiting for the card.
So with the card in process, onto the bus I go to the “downtown” part of the city of Livorno. I find a phone shop and a very helpful man sets me up on Vodafone. Orange apparently doesn’t work here, duh! We went with a huge data plan of 5GB, and an International plan that I can use in Greece and Turkey. Yeah, cross your fingers on that. E10 for the SIM, E10 for the data and E10 for International. Very pricy but fuck it I’m in the homestretch and have bigger problems to sort out today.
I have 3 hours to blow before the Internet cafe reopens so I walk down the street and have a wonderful penne aglio e olio, the laptop tethered to the phone, data coming down the airwaves beautifully. I catch up after 4 days with no Internet and scout out Airbnb locations in Napoli, contingent on me getting the card in my hand.
I head back on the bus and sit in the cafe from 4 PM, freezing my ass off. Nobody believes in heat in this town! At 6PM, the FedEx driver shows up with the card! Woo hoo! I just about kissed him. I jumped on the Citi web site and activated the card.
Feeling awesome, I saunter over to the local pizza place and inhale a quattro formaggi. No wine available, I wanted to drown my sorrows.
I walk back to the Airbnb and up to my freezing room, with its still cold radiator. I tether the phone to the laptop and booked my Napoli Airbnb with the new credit card and it worked! I started doing more email and then the data ground to a halt, along with a message from Vodafone (in Italian) that my data has run out. At 100MB. Yes, 1/50th of what I paid for, and it’s too late to go back to the shop. Fuck it, I’m getting on the train tomorrow and will figure out how to get the phone working again later. Mike, meet clusterfuck. Clusterfuck, meet Mike.
Oh and Francesca turned on the main heat control downstairs and there’s some warmth coming from my radiator. Pro Tip for Airbnb hosts: People are paying to stay in your house, give them some heat on a cold winter day. And maybe some water in the toilet.
Wait, 2 hours later and my phone beeped and a bunch of messages just came in. Do I tempt fate and try to use it? And 10 minutes later, it’s gone. And it’s back. I’ve got to stop tormenting myself.
There are no pictures. You don’t want to see this place.