It goes without saying that taking the train to outlying villages in a country where only a cursory attempt at listening to a Berlitz CD separates you from total immersion in a foreign language carries inherent risk. Factor in that this would be our last day in Italy before spending a day at sea and then returning to Barcelona, Spain, and the margin of error becomes quite small.
Nonetheless, we caught the train to Cefalu as planned. One stop before Cefalu, the train was delayed by some problem which seemed to involve computers, based on what we could tell by visual observation.
Absolutely no one spoke English, or if they did, they weren't telling us. After a long delay, the train started back up, and we headed to Cefalu.
Getting to the village was a longish walk from the station, but it was certainly pleasant enough.
Julie and Amy bought delicious gelato, but I thought I would hold out for lunch on the seaside. By the time we made it down to the cafes on the water's edge,
Julie had become exceedingly worried about the delays in the train system, thinking we should catch an earlier train back to Palermo which had, after all, proven to be a great city to visit.
We hiked back up to the station, and Julie's fears proved well-founded. The trains were all delayed according to the electronic sign.
Asking anyone waiting on the platform or who worked in the station was to no avail, as no one spoke any English, and I had no idea how to ask about this situation in Italian.
We waited and waited and waited, looking at the electronic sign for some better news.
Then the electronic sign went black.
The sign didn't even flash on occasionally.
Whatever problem had delayed the train had spread to the sign's electronics.
Having only two hours to get back into town, we decided to find a taxi, but when we walked to the other side of the station, none were there. We asked around, but no one understood.
A long ten minutes later, a taxi pulled up, and we pounced on him. “How much to Palermo?”
"Palermo?" the driver asked, followed by a lot of indecipherable words.
We pointed to a map and a picture of the cruise port. "Si, Palermo."
“Seventy Euro," replied the driver.
“Si.”
And we were off on a scenic drive back into Palermo. Occasionally glancing at the meter which the cabbie allowed to run. I became a little concerned when I saw it tick past 100 Euros, but I must have understood his price, right?
He drove skillfully through the city rush hour traffic we encountered and took us all the way to the port, and it was a well-spent seventy Euros avoiding what could have been a major disaster.
This was Thanksgiving, a day not celebrated as special in Europe, which is why this cruise was priced so modestly. Nonetheless, when we sat down for dinner that evening, we enjoyed a turkey dinner with all the trimmings in the beautiful dining room. It was delicious, but admittedly not as great as the ones that had been lovingly prepared every year by my beloved mother, who passed away earlier in the year.
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