The Italian Job

I never thought grade 5 Italian would save my arse- In fact if my Italian teacher would have told me back then that If I didn't learn the phrase "Apri la porta, per favore!" I would be lugging my 30 kilos of baggage across a foreign town completely lost and looking for my sister, I'd have called her a nut job. After getting off the ferry at Ancona, we jumped on a bus to try and head into town. After the bus finished its second complete round circle of town, we realised that wasn't going to work for us, and at the last minute we decided to bail from the bus at what looked like a station. Lyn got off successfully and as my day pack slipped from my hands and fell on the floor of the bus I watched as the bus doors closed, the bus pulled out and we were back off on our way. As I contemplated how I could complete the rest of the journey without our beloved shared toothpaste tube and umbrella, I realised I was lost and attempted my own variation of makiton for "wait there". Luckily the articulated city caterpillar that made up our bus got a red light further up the street and I was able to display my fluent Italian skills to the driver that could barely understand my rendition of "Ciao- tu parli Ingleze?" and I managed to get off in the middle of an intersection. I'm not sure what further surprises I'll be coming across today- maybe I'll actually find a use for being taught the formula for calculating the area of an arc or something.

We shifted plans again today- due to coming into Ancona (half way up the back of the boot that is Italy) we are waaay north of our intended destination of Bari, so now its back onto a train to Rome, then another train to the Mafia run city of Napoli, then hopefully a day trip to Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii.