There is possibly nothing more humiliating than standing outside a crowed train station being treated like a high priority criminal for not having a ticket for the bus. Now granted I had hopped on the bus without a ticket assuming I could buy one on the bus but alas this is Italia! That would be far too simple. Silly me, I feel I should know by now that everything in Italy is constructed in a way that makes sure you really do really really want or need what you are attempting to buy before you can actually physically own it. If you want to buy a drink at a bar for example you have to queue to pay for it, then you are given a receipt; with that receipt clutched tightly in your hand you then have to move 10 metres to your left to queue again before the drink becomes a physical entity in your hand that will help you forget all about the silly queuing system you have just endured. Not to mention the peculiar Italian notion of how to queue…. but I digress!
So, there I am outside Bergamo train station being asked for documentation.... I tell them I don't have anything, seems like a fair and truthful response. He simply looks at me slightly confused and asks again. He then starts pointing at my bag, as he asks me in Italian and then smirks as he walks me over to two other middle aged and slightly pop bellied miserable Italian men. He tells these men of the current dilemma, I don’t have my ticket (alert the media!) and, god forbid, I don’t have any documentation either. The man simply looks me up and down and, holding up three fingers says “30 euros...” After realising he hasn't in fact mistaken me for a prostitute in my hard rock cafe Firenze t-shirt and €10 jeans (what a find they were btw!) I instantly become offended. Ok, I said I don't understand why I need a document but that's because, strangely enough I’ve never put myself in this predicament before not because I'm an idiot that can't understand the word 30 without the correct amount of fingers being rudely shoved in my general direction. After a failed attempt at finding a ticket I knew I had bought a few days and forgot to stamp (genuine mistake) I get out my purse and tell the grumpy men I still don't understand why I'm being asked for documentation I blatantly don’t have, and more importantly why I am paying what I consider an extortionate €30. I dubiously take out my English provisional driving license and hold it out as what must be a pathetically helpless expression sweeps across my face, the man that has bought me over to the others grunts before snatching it (yes really) and writing my name on a piece of paper shortly before scribbling €30 and signing it. Oh great! Now my actual name is on a document that's going to be kept in some stuffy office and stop me from ever getting Italian citizenship! ... Perhaps that's a touch melodramatic but alas it is what goes through one’s mind when they hand over 30 precious euros to the grumpy men who practical snatch it from my hands. I am handed a thin piece of yellow paper that will document forever this highly depressing event and I sheepishly walk off, trying to avoid eye contact with a semi attractive guy that has been watching the whole ordeal with a sympathetic eye. I shrug off into the station and go and buy my ticket to Milano. I've already missed the train I wanted to get so it annoys me that little bit more that I now have to pay an extra euro for my train ticket... Thank you atb! When the ticket is printed and I can regained some control over my facial expression which has turned into an involuntary scowl, I head to the platform to await my train. As I walk through to platform 6 I see the semi attractive boy again and he approaches me... Perhaps this is fate I think to myself; this is how I meet a new friend/ free Italian tutor/ boyfriend... But I was too riled at the way the grumpy bus men had treated me and this must have been written all over my face, still, for as he approached and smiled at me and we made eye contact, he quickly retreated, instead making eye contact with the seemingly fascinating clock to my right... Yup, another fine example of how not to live your life, thank you very much atb bus services! And really, don't feel obliged to meet me again!
No comments:
Post a Comment