I had last weekend free from work and decided to get out of town for a while instead of combating the hot Florentine sun. After several hours of researching online and determining how much money I could spend for the trip, I decided to give my friend a visit in Switzerland. It was the 4th of July, and since that means little to Italians, I thought it would be perfect to celebrate in the company of other expats in Europe. So I finished work around midnight and hopped on the 2am train to Lugano.

This particular voyage has convinced me that travel by night on the train is a terrible idea. I had to catch the bus from Piazza San Marco in Florence to the Campo Di Marte train station, instead of the main station. As I was standing at the bus stop alone with my backpack on and waiting for the bus, two sneaky-looking guys showed up. One went on his way and the other came to look at the bus schedule, but was standing very close to me. I kept half-turning to keep my eyes on him, and him away from my backpack. When my bus arrived, I moved toward the street, and so did he. We both boarded and I sat with my bag in my lap. At one point I got up to ask the bus driver to let me know when we got to the Campo Di Marte stop.

As we neared the station, the bus driver alerted me to the fact and I moved up towards the front to hear what he was saying. When I turned around, the sneaky looking man was very close to my bag, as if he had sprinted the length of the bus the minute my back was to him. Perhaps this wouldn’t have been as strange, since we were nearing the last stop, if it wasn’t for the fact that the exit of the bus is in the middle and there was no reason for him to follow me to the front. When the bus stopped (and I continued to keep my eye on Sneaky) I exited the front, and he followed me. He stayed behind me and I walked with one eye on him the whole time, zigzagging a little so that he couldn’t be directly behind me. As I walked in the station, I took the exit for the binario indicated, and he kept walking straight ahead the other way. I thought I might have been going crazy, until I looked down from the top of the binario to the underground passage and saw him turn around and go back the other way toward the exit. He caught my eye and I watched him leave.

Waiting at the stop for my train, I kept a constant pacing movement, and when I stopped, I did so only with my backpack against a wall or something solid. The train was 15 minutes late and finally I boarded, and found my seat next to the window. I set my alarm to go off a few minutes before we arrived at the Bologna station so that I could switch trains. From the Bologna station, I boarded another train and located my indicated seat that was occupied by a sleeping man. Irritated, I took the seat across from him. Then another man came and sat next to me. He had white hair and gentle eyes. A few minutes later a big ox of a man came in and grunted to the gentle man that he was in his seat. The gentle man pointed to me and said I was in his seat. I pointed across at the sleeping man and said he was in my seat. So Ox sat across from Gentle Man in the center.

Eventually, Gentle Man got off of the train and the disgusting man next to him took the opportunity to lie down in the two seats, head in my direction and drift into a deep sleep, to the accompaniment of his own chainsaw-like snoring. Ox man decided to stretch his feet out, and placed the left foot on the seat across from him, and his right foot on my seat and began to burrow his grubby toes under my thigh. No matter how far I shifted, his toes were burrowing, and flexing and un-flexing. I was smashed into the corner, a crick in my neck and irritation spreading like flames. Eventually I had to put my foot down (or more literally, my hand) and block his burrowing process. I know that sociologically, men take up more space to establish dominance, but on a night train in a cramped compartment I had enough. After a few minutes of contact with Ox man’s wormy little toes, he moved. Then, sleeping man got out of my seat, which I made a point to occupy and I drifted to sleep for about a half-hour before needing to change trains again in Milan.

The Milan train station was huge, and beautiful. Especially compared to the dimly lit stations where I had been waiting during the night. I got on my train, finally, to Lugano around 7:30 in the morning, and woke up as we were making our way across the Swiss border, along an enormous and sparkling lake. The tracks are right next to the water, so it felt as if we were sailing across the deep blue waters. The sky was clear and blue and I noted the spotlessness of the city, as it expelled the deep, contented breaths of Good Organization. The Lugano train station was equally beautiful, and the town, situated on the lake in the midst of towering mountains, was a sight to be seen.

My friend met me at the station and we spent the morning walking around the inclined streets. We bought a sandwich and sat by the lake, catching up and breathing cool air. It was the 4th of July, and there was a plan in action to meet up with some other American students a little farther out of town for a bbq and a swim in the lake. The day progressed nicely, with my relief at being out of the sweltering humidity that Florence takes on in the summer. I met a lot of nice people, and a couple that were a little more difficult. I was trying to be very nice to everybody, but especially the ladies, since there were men present and there was no way of telling what ties there might be between them all. I wasn’t looking to spark any jealousy or animosity, but sometimes it doesn’t matter how good your intentions. The ingrained nature of many American women to compete with and alienate other women often overshadows all else. Regardless of the few glances and looks I caught from the two who reflected these behaviors, I had a lovely time. Everybody else was very kind and funny and peppered with debauchery. It suited my personality perfectly.

The weekend was a delight and the good weather was only interrupted by a serious rain/thunder/lightning/hail storm that lasted several hours and cleared the next day. I caught the train back to Florence, irritated once more to find someone occupying my seat (though when she got off in Milan I managed to get it back), and settled myself in for the long ride home. Switzerland was beautiful and clean, even in the city so close to the Italian border, but I’ll take my chaotic and bustling boot country any day.