Night Train to Naples
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
82
120
Trip End
Sep 02, 2008
Napoli,
Italy
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Chris had been travelling in Europe on an interrail pass (his first mistake) with his Swedish girlfriend (his second) a few months before coming to Québec. It astonishes me now to think that at one point I thought a European girlfriend was a good idea... live and learn. Anyway, back to the topic. They were going through Italy and after a day trip to Pisa, they were on the night-train to Sorrento or somewhere South. They were exhausted and Chris remembers seeing some sketchy guy creeping around the train before he nodded off. At some point he fell asleep and when he woke up, his day pack was gone. With it were his passport, wallet, camera, train pass, and his pleasure to be in Italy.
Bro met another Canadian from New Brunswick when we were in Tirana, Albania. I didn't get a chance to talk to this guy, named Adam, because I was on an ATM run. But Bro told me the story as we trudged to the bus station. Adam had just arrived in Albania by ferry from Bari, Italy. The week before, he was on a night train in Italy. He had booked a sleeping berth and he was pleasantly lying in bed when he remembers hearing the "ppssssss" sound of gas entering the berth seconds before he passed out. When he woke up, his bag was slashed and all of his valuables were gone. He spent the next week in Rome getting a new passport and bank card, all the while living off of Western Union money transfers from his parents.
What were we thinking, getting a berth in a night train, to take us from Venice to Naples? Experience told me that I ought to know better. We wanted to get to the South of Italy all at once and then work our way North city by city. We could have flown, but that would have cost us four hundred Euro plus a place to stay for the night. The night train cost 122 Euro for the two of us, and we didn't have to get a place to stay.
Our spots were the top bunks in a four bunk berth. In the bottom two bunks were two middle aged Australians named Jeff and Gloria. They were only going as far as Rome, for their month-long Euro vacation was at an end. In Gloria's little day pack were her passport, diary, wallet, and camera. She put the little bag at the head of her bunk, just by the door. When it was time to let ourselves fall asleep, the Australians duly passed out. Bro and I were not feeling all that good about going to sleep on the train so Bro offered to take the first shift and let me sleep a few hours.
Around three in the morning, he woke me up and turned over to fall asleep. It was nearly completely dark in the chamber, except for a dull blue light by which I read the book The Devil Wears Prada, which we picked up back in Zagreb at the book exchange. It was about five thirty when I looked up from the novel to see a band of yellow light from the hallway piercing the door. Three tawny little fingers had pried through the gap between the door and the wall and they were reaching to turn the lock.
I should point out that Italian doors are crafted with the least competent engineering in the world. If you're an Italian door engineer, take offence because you suck. The doors on the trains are made out of plastic and they lock at the top and the bottom, but not in the middle like normal doors do. The locking mechanism is a dial that has to be turned 90 degrees to lock or unlock it, and this is situated in the middle of the door. Because the door is plastic, strong fingers can be wedged between the door and the doorframe, enough to ply the door open enough to permit those fingers to reach for the lock.
To be continued...
