Roma Central, or how much I hate TrenItalia

Over the course of the next 36 hours, 35 of them where spent in bed. I made a short trip to the outside world to get some food and attempt to capture the setting of my island prison, but beyond that, the rest of my time was spent sleeping or vomiting up all the mucous that had settled in my stomach.
At 12 o’clock two days later, still sick but not nearly as bad as I was before, I checked out, boarded a train taking me to the eventual destination of Rome. From there I would then make a connection 2 hours later to a night train taking me to Munich which in turn would allow me to catch a train towards Koln. I went to the front desk at the train station to reserve a seat to Rome, the standard procedure because even while I had my Eurail pass, the Italian train system was so subpar that in order to ensure a seat you had to pay a 3 euro reservation fee. Language would not be a barrier this time, I would merely say hand them a piece of paper saying “8:30 roma reservation” and then show them my visa card as I was now out of euros. I was aware that no places in town accepted my debit card, but for the train station not to, a place that regularly handles hundreds of euros, seemed insane to me. As I had been before, and as I would be again, I was taken aback by the ineptness of TrenItalia. Not only did they lack the capacity to take my debit card, the internet was also not working so I wouldn’t be able to find out what terminal my connecting train would be at. I sighed as the woman tried to explain it. Too frustrated to let her finish spewing out the Italian words that meant nothing to me I walked away and boarded the train knowing that it was going to be another long day. The train ride to Rome was uneventful for me, most likely because I was asleep.
I woke up just as we were rolling into Rome Central. I instinctively looked at my watch, a habit I’ve picked up to find out what time it is due to my sans-cell phone lifestyle, and felt a knot in my stomach begin to form. It was 7 o’clock. Three hours later than when we were supposed to arrive in Rome and 1 hour later than when my train to Munich was supposed to leave.
I got off the train as fast as I could and made a b-line towards the ticket booth thinking that there was a possibility that I could catch another night train to Munich that would allow me to arrive in Koln the next day, given it would be a few hours later. I thought to myself how much I hated the Italian train system, of how DeutscheBahn, the German system, and SBB, the Swiss system where light years ahead of them. I had heard stories from other travelers of being stranded in cities because, at the slightest whim, the train workers can go on strike, and government intervention stops the train stations from hiring replacements. All these factors, including that there were only 2 windows to service a 75 person queue, caused a special sort of hate to be made inside of me, a wish for the entirety of TrenItalia to be sent to the seventh circle of Dante’s Inferno, and for them to be chewed on by Satan for all eternity.
90 minutes of maneuvering later- once yelling at an American for cutting and twice yelling at Asian tourists for trying to enter in the exit- I found myself at the front of the line, waiting to be serviced next.
“I want to get to Koln, is there any way I can do that?” I asked a fat man behind the window.
He looked at me with a blank stare. “Maybe if I offered him a cheeseburger he would be more receptive” I thought to myself.
“No English” he said
“No English” I repeated, almost mocking him with my disbelief, knowing that in any other country it would be normal ticket salesman to know the basics of a language that was responsible for a hefty amount of it’s revenue.
He pointed me in the direction of a young woman next to him, a minor delay, but one that was quite representative of the system.
She told me that there was, in fact, a train that could take me to Munich then Koln, and it would actually get me there only a few hours later. This was amazing- possibly the first thing that TrenItalia did that was in unison with all that is right. It would be a sleeper train, like the one I took to Naples, and it left in two hours. Knowing the pains that a train like that can cause, I reserved a bed in the first class area for 40 euros more. After I bought the ticket she found an apt time to explain to me that this train also left from a different station, one I would need to take the subway to. Once again, a minor inconvenience, but still, I wondered how many metaphorical straws it would take to break the proverbial camel’s back. I bought my 4 euro subway ticket and made my way to Roma Tiburtina, the station where my next train left from. I was tired, but happy that I would soon be on my way to Koln, and more importantly, out of this wretched country. I arrived an hour early and sat alone on the deck. 45 minutes had passed, and still no one else was there. 50 minutes, and no one. 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, until finally the 56th minute came to pass and still no people. This would have been fine if the train had come, a bit unnerving that no one else was taking the same train as me, but fine.
I say “if” the train had come because the train didn’t come.
I figured that it was because the train was late- I had been on late trains and from what I understood about the Italian train system, being late was a thing of regularity. Someone had thrown a rock threw the light-up sign that hung above my gate that would have normally said if there was a delay, so I had to walk all the way to the main station at Roma Tiburtina to see if there was any Ritardo, the Italian word for delay.
“Quite fitting” I thought. The entire Italian train system was Ritardo.
There was no delay. Still, I thought, maybe this was something that went unnoticed. I decided I would stay for another hour to see if it would show up.
I only lasted 45 minutes before I stormed my way back to the Rome Central. It was past 11 o’clock now and ticket booth was closed. I found my way to a group of police officers- people whom I would be more accurate to describe as three cronies drinking beer on a golf cart.
“Do you know who I can talk to about a train not showing up?” I said.
“You mean you missed your train?” he replied
“No, I mean my train didn’t show up, I want a refund and another ticket”
“Oh, you missed your train. You must stay here, office closed. Wait here, I get you hotel information” he said turning away to me and talking to his two fellow officers.
“No, I didn’t miss my train, I would have said that if I did. The train didn’t show up”
But it wasn’t any use. He never turned back and they drove away.
Fastly losing more and more faith in the Italian populous I made my way over to the Information office. The shade was pulled down the front window but I saw the shadows of two men smoking inside. I knocked on the door, and suddenly, as if my vision was only receptive to movement, they froze.
“I can see you. I know you are in there!” I said, trying to sound friendly, although my attempt that that was a miserable failure. Anger had taken hold of me.
I saw that there was a way into the back via a door that was open because a janitor was inside cleaning. Trespassing was the least of my worries as I entered the room, the two men inside shocked that I was capable of such civil disobedience. One wore a suit coat, the other in a sweat-stained button down. The man in the coat squatted down on a small stool and his less dressed counterpart was given the office chair in front of the computer. I decided the second man would be the best to talk to as he seemed to have the majority of whatever authority they possessed, irrelevant of his grubby attire.
I explained to him my story, about the train to Rome being late, about waiting in line forever, about needing to be in Koln, about the train not showing up. I made sure I included all the details, every last bit of information I could include, so much that it took me almost 20 minutes to recite my day’s journey.
And he looked at me with his sunken, baggy eyes. He stared at me and I couldn’t help but notice his partially opened mouth- one that was outlined in dry saliva- evidence that it had been in this agape position all day. The thin white ring of his own dried spit broke when he opened his mouth to say,“No English”.
This was the man in charge of anyone who has a problem in the entire train station, the man who gave directions to hotels, hostels, attractions, and restaurants. A man who had most likely worked his way up through the system, who had been around the English language his whole life, who listened to my speech and reacted with facial expressions. And beyond all that, this was a man who could not speech English. To say I was furious would be an understatement akin to saying Joe Jackson is kind of cashing in on his son’s death.
I stormed across the table and went onto his computer, he mildly objected but the directness of my actions told him that it would be better to avoid physical confrontation. I pulled up an online translator, changed the setting to “Italian>English” and attacked the keyboard with unchained rage. I wrote several hundred words and clicked “enter”
“Now do you understand?” I said
He faked reading it and then, in almost perfect English, responded,
“The train came, you just missed it”. I looked over to his squatting friend, “yes, or tren ritardo”
“You are Ritardo”, I wanted to say.
“No, you don’t understand, it never came, I was there”
“Where you at the correct station, you know that it wasn’t at this station”
“Yes, I was there. When I say it didn’t come, I mean it didn’t come”
This bantering went back and forth for some time, him questioning every detail that I said, me maintain what had happened, until finally he said, “The train must have been transferred to another terminal” he went over to his computer and looked it up, “Oh yes, the train was transferred to terminal 3 in Rome Central- why weren’t you there?”
“Because I was told that it was coming to Tiburtina, because I tried to check but your sign at the terminal there was a rock through it, and because you don’t have speakers except for the main station there!”
I grabbed my tickets out of his hands. “You know what?” I yelled, “I’ve had enough of this… game- you are a moron. This train station is full of morons. I cannot deal with you and your broken system. I realize that you do not believe did not show up, I realize that you will not refund me.” I stopped and caught my breath, “I also realize that you are a human completely void of any reasoning skills. You have denied, not only me, but also Logic itself. All I ask now, is that you validate my ticket so I can take the next train (which happened to be a 4 28 AM to bologna).” I thrust my ticket into his face and, unwillingly, he scribbled his name on the back of it and wrote “Bologna, 4:28”. I left that office the angriest I have ever been at an individual.