Mile 20 - The story of a girl and her bus

This morning I woke up to Sara frantically calling me to tell me I need to get ready and come to Base because she is starving and wants to eat ASAP. "Okay Okay", I said. "I'll get up and take the bus, which bus do I take?" She answers with a short hasty tone, "just get on bus 1, there should be a stop across the bridge". It needs to be said that Sara has never taken a bus to base in the year that she's lived in Vicenza. Nevertheless, I trusted her to guide me in the right direction. So I get up and throw on my running clothes so I can sort out some kind of run today before I have to get ready to go out for dinner.

 I get to the bus stop across the bridge and of course everything is in Italian and completely incomprehensible. So I call Sara. "Sara, are you sure this is the correct bus stop? Am I on the correct side? I can't tell what stop I'm at and I don't know the name of the bus stop for the Base. Help, please, because I know in London if we're on the wrong side of the street we go the opposite direction and the bus will terminate forcing me to get off and pay for another ride!" Sara's response, " It doesn't matter, the bus goes around in a circle". Me, "are you sure".  Sara, "yes, duh. ha.duh".

Right, so I wait for the bus. The bus arrives. I have my two euro in hand, walk on to the bus, hand my two euros to the bus driver, bus driver shakes his head NO saying "finished". "Finished?". Having lived in London for almost a year, I am quite accustomed to the fact that buses re-route, terminate, break-down, daily. So of course I think "finished" means  the route is finished. I get off the bus at the next stop with the rest of the bus travelers. Suddenly it occurs to me that I'm in the middle of a main road and I don't have another two euros to get on another bus. I call Sara to tell her the situation. To which she laughs and questions my thought process. "How can a girl from London get lost on small town Italy transit? ha. ha." With my dignity in question, I explain that I don't..

to be continued...

(UPDATE)

To make a long story short. Sara left work to pick-up me from a gas station close to where I got off the bus. She continues to laugh at me in the car which of course results in my determination to prove my original point - that the bus does not always go in a circle! So, after lunch, I board the bus close to the army base with the intention of ridding it to the end or back to where I started- if indeed the bus goes in a "circle".

30 minutes later the bus stops in an industrial development outside of Vicenza near what I can only later assume is the A4. Just me and the bus driver lady. Eventually after exactly one minute, the driver turns off the engine, opens the doors, dismounts from the bus and walks into the porta-potty you see below in the picture.  

Completely confused, I get off the bus as well. Look around, then soon realize I'd have better luck performing heart surgery than trying to explain to someone where I am. Thankfully the bus driver lady walks out of the toilet just as I'm about to panic.I quickly walk up to her to see if the bus is going back to the city center. Not Surprisingly, she doesn't speak a word of English. She must have realized since I'm the only one left on the bus, and clearly I'm not going to work in a warehouse or office building, that I'm obviously just another dumb American lost on the bus again. So she motions for me to get back on the bus.- to which I oblige. 5 minutes later, after she reads a few pages from her- let's say trashy Italian romance novel-  the bus starts back up again. Off we go. Okay. Let's see where this goes.


Eventually we make it back to the city center, but still not to the bus stop we started from back at the base. So I continue on just  to see where this route goes.



All is lovely.......



45 minutes later........

Corn fields....

Rows and rows of corn fields. This time I have the company of two older slightly intoxicated Italian men. One of whom refuses to stop talking. Eventually we end up in Quinto Vecentino - a town north east of Vicenza. Awesome.  At least now I know the routine. The bus driver turns off the engine, pulls out her book.....then looks in the rear-view mirror. She spots me! Oh no. We make eye contact. She motions for me to come towards her. She still doesn't speak a word of English, and I still know only 5 words in Italian- grazie, prego, me despache, chiave, and vino di casa. She tries desperately to explain something to me. I keep smiling trying to pretend I know what she is saying. I have an idea that she is asking where I'm going. I say "Vicenza", she looks at me as if I said I was going to Italy. Duh. After a few more minutes back and forth- mostly her talking and me responding with "Vicenza". She hands me a magazine and a pen. I'm not sure if we had some kind of mind meld or if I finally recognize a word she's speaking, but I soon realize she wants me to write down my destination. First I write 'Vicenza', then laugh at the thought of her reading the word Vicenza after I already said it 6 times. So I quickly thought of the only bus stop I could remember from this morning's brief phone conversation with sara regarding the bus route versus the bus stops. I remember Sara saying the word Septembre. So I write 'Septembre', then show her the page. She looks at it and sighs a big breath of relief, 'ohhh SEPTembre'. A few more sentences later she motions for me to go back to my seat.

10 minutes late she starts up the engine and off we go, again.

Approximately 30 minutes later, as we're driving through Vicenza with a bus load of fresh customers, the bus stops at a stop in the center of town. I here ringing, then notice the bus driver looking back through her rear view mirror. A man walks up to the bus driver. The bus driver hands the man a magazine. The man looks back at the bus load of people yelling " Septembre Septembre!!!" - pointing to the magazine. I immediately realize, 'dear lord he's yelling at me!' I have to get off the bus now otherwise the bus lady is going to have me arrested and questioned on the grounds of insanity. So I jump out of my seat and run off the bus yelling " Grazie, Grazie!"

Septembre

" Well this is just brilliant". I decide not to panic, Instead I take a few breaths then a moment to get my bearings in place so I can navigate my way back to the apartment.  I soon make the executive decision to optimize this time by knocking out my mile while still trying to find my way home. With my pedometer in hand, bang goes the starting gun.

Surprisingly, I figured out the way home quite easily. Once I made it to the piazza in the city center, I knew exactly how to get home. No harm done, only a few hours of public transportation, a nice mile run, and a new appreciation for English language bus stops and maps.

Home

Moral of this story. Sara, the busses do not go in a circle. Thank you.