Around The World – Livorno, Italy
My goal on this leg of the trip is to get to Italy, 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.
Off the coast of Italy they made an announcement that we were to pack up and prepare to get off the ferry. Two hours of chugging through the narrow lanes of the port later we touched Italian soil and we were allowed to get off. I think the announcement was a little premature. I was almost first in line to get off, because I follow directions well. I need to stop that… At the door we had to show our passports and ferry ticket to officials standing in the doorway. I showed mine and he just waved me past out onto the dock. No stamp, no nothing. Welcome to Italy.
I walked off, into the 8PM dark and drizzle. Three soldiers with machine guns stood in my way. This port is not where the Love Boat docks. It’s where Satan’s latest shipment of evil gets on and off. It’s a dark, dirty, deserted shithole. No signs, no sign of life other than the soliders. I rolled up to them and shrugged my shoulders and pointed my finger around, like which way Rambo? One guy pointed his gun to the left, I looked over and saw a single light on a pole about a hundred meters away. I rolled my bag to the light and then saw another light to the right so I followed. This was the exit gate. I walked through a gate to a dark and open area where a bunch of people were standing around, not a taxi to be seen. We are somewhere in the backwater of this port with no way out unless you’re getting a pre-arranged pickup. I walk back to the little hut and ask a policeman how to get a taxi. He points to a sign with a phone number on it, I say my phone doesn’t work here yet, he looks at me and walks away. Yes, my works-everywhere-in-Europe-SIM-card doesn’t work here in Italy. It won’t attach to any of the four cellular companies that it can detect. No Wifi either. I am just completely buggered and for really the first time on this trip I feel like I want to scream in frustration. I calmly walk back out through the gate and behold, a taxi minivan drives up and drops someone off! I run over and claim the taxi which isn’t a problem because the other pedestrian ferry passengers have all been picked up and driven away.
I show the address to the taxi driver and after a fair bit of fiddling with her phone’s mapping system, we set off. And man, the Euros are just cranking up on this thing. Less than a mile from the dock and I’m over E10. We pass through dark streets, past an oil refinery and many, many oil storage tanks just to get out of the port. This is just the worst fucking place in the world to be dropped off by a ferry. Way to go, Italy!
The taxi driver goes down some local streets and comes to a stop. Now, it’s dark and drizzling and there are almost no street numbers on the houses. Lovely. I show her the Airbnb phone number and she calls it, no answer. We drive around aimlessly for another 10 minutes. The best we can figure, my Airbnb is in a police station, which is closed for the day. Not kidding. I ask the driver to call again and she finally gets the host who tells her we’re way off. We drive in a big U shape to a street with exactly the same name and this one is my Airbnb, not in a police station at all. It looks like the street was continuous at one time, but is now bisected by a large highway. I’m at E20 on the taxi but just glad to have found it.
I go inside and the host lady doesn’t speak English but her daughter Francesca does, quite well. We get introduced, they show me the room. I ask for the Wifi password and she says it’s broken. I offer to try to fix it, she says they didn’t pay the bill so it stopped working. Fuck! I don’t want to be in this town, it’s just where the ferry ends up and I can get a train south but I need to book my reservation on my Eurail pass. And most importantly my new Visa card has been sent here by FedEx. It was supposed to show up a couple of days before my arrival but wouldn’t you know, no card delivered. I’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.
Francesca describes how I can walk to an Internet cafe to sort out my bookings and track down the card, and then take the bus into the city center to get a SIM card at a phone shop. So those are my goals for tomorrow. Oh yes, and eat some god damned good Italian food. I’ve been looking forward to this leg of the trip so much, just for the food. I settle into my room and realize it’s freezing cold, nothing coming off the radiator and everyone has gone to bed. I find another blanket in the closet and fold both in half, giving me 4 layers. That should help me survive till the morning without frostbite.
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.