Things were going as planned: we entered the Frankfurt Hahn airport, found some truly capital blue hard plastic benches upon which we could wrap ourselves in scarves and burrow into the scooped chairs for the night. Friday night passed as one might expect for a night spent in such a manner, and we emerged from a tossed 3 hours of sleep to some cheap McDonald’s airport coffee the next morning.

Things commenced with the pattern of going as planned: we boarded the flight to Pescara around noon, finding ourselves backpacked-up and roaming around the beautiful downtown area by 2. To our utmost happiness, a large bustling chocolate market greeted us from the moment we entered the square, and as we munched on true Italian canolis, we knew that these 11 hours of which we must find means to entertain ourselves would pass well and in a fashion echoing our Munich layover.

We zipped to a small market, purchased some Italian wine, meandered some more, found delicious pizza, and made our way to the shores of the Mediterranean. We chucked our travel weary packs down upon the soft sand, excitedly wiggling out of our socks and shoes and digging our slightly crusty toes into the grains. Katie and I reminisce gloriously on our past month together, passing the bottles of wine and exchanging words on how much we appreciate and love the other.

At 9pm, we take back to the streets, searching for a sturdy gelato stand to conclude our truly stereotypical Italian meal. We clamber into a small shop and emerge successful in our searching; cafe and Oreo gelato for Josie and dark chocolate orange gelato for Katie. As we sit and people watch on the terrace of the shop, a band of four Italians, all roughly our age, come and sit down in our vicinity. Our fondness for other humans takes control, and Katie and I find ourselves emerged in a miraculous conversation with the Italian equivalents of Russell Brand, Cedric Diggory, Michelle Monihan and Tyler from Fight Club.

They grab us by the hands and gallop us off to their favorite hole-in-the-wall wine bar, purchasing a bottle of Chardonnay; we pass it around, basking in our new friendship and learning tricky rather racist Italian phrases.

More Italian buddies come to join the group, and we bustle our way to an outdoor market concert venue where an Oasis cover band is riling up a group of 70 or so beautifully dressed Italians. We jump up and down and dance wildly amidst the throng of leather jacketed gorgeous human beings, our large packs bobbing up and down from their perch on our backs.

We probably should have been more self conscious of the fact that we had been wearing the exact same clothes for the past three days and that the showering hasn’t been all that consistent. But in the light of our friendships, it was absolutely trivial.

We bid them a farewell around 2am and head to the train station on top of the world. The tight fisted police man gestures to the cold cement outside the train station doors and tells us that we can “wait for the bus not inside my train station” here. It is nearly a miracle that Katie and I found ourselves on the 3am bus to Pescara with all of our baggage and packs accounted for; despite the rigidity of the cement ground, the lack of sleeping took precedent and both of us fell asleep for a time waiting, wrenching ourselves to a grinding alertness at the capital timing of 2:53am.

Things further appeared to be going as planned: we reached the bus station of Udine at precisely the aforevisioned time and waited our expected 45 minutes until the bus that would charter our final leg would arrive.

Unfortunately, as it happens, this day was Sunday, March 5th: it was not the Wednesday, February 22 that we had mistakenly bought the bus tickets for.

And here is where the adventure began.

…to be continued in Part 3: Train Hoppin’ Home