Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

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My friends let me keep the crackers. They were preparing to spend the night on a warm steam vent in Rome’s Termini Station, and I was boarding a train to Bari.

“See you in New York” I said as we did our best to hug goodbye with an extra 30lbs on our backs.

It was the first time on this trip that I would be alone since Barcelona. The train I was taking was headed for Bari on the South East coast of Italy where a ferry departs bound for Dubrovnik. That was the plan, catch that ferry and catch a ferry back from Split four days later. Dubrovnik and Split are two cities on the Dalmatia Coast of Croatia and according to every review is a place not to be missed; so naturally, I didn’t want to miss it. Croatia is also a country recovering from a war, and recovering well according to an acquaintance of mine who worked with refugees in the Dubrovnik area several years ago.

I chose a seat in a little cabin with a Canadian backpacker. Not long after, we were joined by a man who informed us he was from Punjabi. He had a way about him that made a warning alarm go off in my head. He had an insistance in speaking in English, a language of which he knew absolutely nothing. His smile did not match his eyes, which could barely stay open except when he forced them every few seconds.

We were soon joined by another Italian man whose seat I had apparently taken, but he assured me it was fine, and the four of us arranged ourselves in the most comfortable manner possible, stretching across the aisle, my purse as a pillow for my shoulder crammed in the corner.

Several hours into the ride, I was jolted awake by the Indian who had begun shouting and kicking the Canadian, and the Italian, who, lucky for me, was a buffer. The Indian, still seemed to be sound asleep as his hands began to work their way towards the Italian and Canadian’s pockets. I moved myself out of that car first chance I got.

As I disembarked at 7:30 in the morning in Bari, I went to the information office which was locked and dark. Like magnets, the other English speakers, two from Canada and two from the US, and I picked each other out of the crowed. Together we warmed a stone bench as we waited for the bus to the port.

When we were almost to the port, the bus driver had a confrontation with another Italian.  His hand gestures and tone of voice were the kind you would see on an episode of the Sapranos.  The only word I could make out was “respect.”  Five minutes later, he finally sat back down, and continued the two minutes around the corner to the port.

I sat with the Canadians and Americans, waiting for the information to open at 10.  But it seemed all the ticket booths were for ferries to Greece.  so I asked.  And sure enough I was at the wrong ferry terminal, so I left my newfound English speaking friends with my leftover crackers as peace tokens, you might say, and headed to the other ferry terminal. 

When I arrived, everything was closed.  The company I would need to buy the tickets from to Dubrovnik (the only company with ferrys to Dubrovnik) didn’t open their office until 6pm.  9am, I wasn’t ready to wait.  So I went back to the busstop to wait for the bus.  That’s when an old Italian man on a bycicle came up to me and told me to go to the information desk, which was closed, to take another ferry to Montenegro and catch a bus to Dubrovnik.

A younger man joined him, telling me, “Listen to me.  I tell you stay here take the ferry tonight.”

The men at the baggage drop told me that the ferry wasn’t running today, Sunday.  THe next ferry would be running tomorrow at 10pm.  Two days in Bari, and two days to spend in Croatia?  Not worth it.

THe younger man, piped up, “listen to me.  I tell you stay here.  Take the ferry to Albania.”

The older man asked me if I wanted to come get some food.  He patted the seat of his bycicle for me to sit down.  He wrapped his arm around me and kissed me on the cheek, but it wasn’t the sort of kissing both cheaks greeting I’m comfortable with.  So I was done with their ‘help.’  I had formed a plan.  I got on the next train to Milano and fell asleep in my seat.

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