group morale

"It felt so magical I couldn't help myself from singing and lighting cigarettes on fire while running figure eights down the street."

We had been on the euroline for what felt like fifteen hours but probably came closer to five. Maria and I turned to Kim (whose idea the whole trip had been) and began to wonder aloud about her trip-planning skills. So what do you really know about Naples? We wondered in her general direction..."Nothing!!",(as if for her to know anything was a gross and innapropriate expectation) she returned, "It was in the guide book." Are we there yet? we began to wonder out loud in five minute intervals. "I think its the next stop," Kim said, at least three times, before ceasing to answer. Naples was not the next stop, nor the next next stop, nor the next next next stop after that, but we kept up our questioning without the hope for an answer.

Two or so hours later, after passing a beautiful ocean surrounded by promising hilly cities which we all assumed must be Naples or very nearly Naples (but as it turned out were not Naples), we arrived at a stop overlooking the Industrial Revolution of Italy gone awry.

"Ah, and here we are in the city of Naples," joked Maria. We all laughed and turned to look out the window in jest, only to see the sign which silenced our giggles and confirmed our darkest fears. Welcome to Naples, said the sign...only it didn't say Welcome to Naples, it just said Napoli (in a desolate manner).

We consulted our euro line pamphlets. This was the last stop on the rail. We were here. We turned to Kim. "I dont know!" She shouted.

Warily, we exited the train. It was around 6 o clock. Somehow, we had believed we would arrive in Naples shortly after 3 pm, where surely, a youth hostel would inevitably appear directly across from the train station...where we would conveniently drop our things and jet off into the city. Coming out of the station into the hazy light of Napoli, we were immediately and narrowly avoided by a stream of cars and pedestrians; a current which streamed constant through the trash filled streets. "This is great," I said, "its like New York." Maria and Kim had either hopped the first train back to Spoleto or had fallen into a resigned silence behind me, so I lit a cigarette. "Well then, where to?"

"Maybe we should find a place to stay," Kim (the travel agent) suggested.

We looked directly in front of us, where our place to stay was supposed to be as it had genially been in the last Italian city we had mistakenly visited, but there was no hostel, hotel, or enterable builidng facing back at us. "We'll find something," I said in my most assured tone. With Kim obviously in defeat, I was resolved to now pretend to know my way around Naples. In a pinch I can be great at pretending to know things I do not know about a person,restaurant, event or town until some kind of desirable outcome occurs. Often this requires some minor, less desirable events as well, but in my experience, things usually work out. The key is to not give up, and often, to not let on either.

Soon enough a squat man riding a motorcycle pulled up and offered us assistance. The good thing about being an American girl in a non-American city is that you are frequently very obviously American and often everyone assumes you are lost. This is good because you usually are. We told the squat man we were looking for a place to stay. He looked a bit discouragingly at us before instructing us to meet him three stores back down, on the opposite side of the street, assuring us that he would pull around on his bike and have a friend make a call for us. He owned a bed and breakfast, and for a minute I wondered if his job was involved poaching clients from off the street (those looking desperately lost around station Garibaldi). Unfortunately, the B&B was booked to capacity.

I started off down the street, following his directions, when I heard Kim making strange guttural noises behind me. "Whats up, Kim?" I asked, "We're in your dream city." "I don't think this is a good idea," she murmured into her handbag. "Do you have a better one I asked?" (not at all peeved). "I think we should just walk down the street back at the stop light," she said. This would have been fine if I did not feel a horrible, horrible guilt in promising anything to complete strangers without fulfilling that promise. I lie to my friends and family all the time; strangers, however, I hold in higher regard, especially old men, especially old men who ride motorcycles, and this one had been all three. The concensus was that we would go it alone, however, and I was not about to start an argument now, when team spirit was already dwindling. "Ok, Nicoteam!" I shouted thinking we could all stick our cigarettes into a huddle before taking off farther into the abyss but my hoo-rah was met with half-laughs and drudgery. Instead we quickly turned down a side street and I instructed the others that we were now in hiding from the old man and anyone who happened to catch his eye would be responisble for the immense shame such an occasion would cast down upon us all.

We proceeded down a series of narrow streets that did not look promising in terms of finding a place to stay, but which did look vastly more interesting. This change in course may have been my fault. The first thing immediately apparent about Naples, is that everyone owned a motorcycle. Everyone. Teenage girls, old men, grandmothers, theives, all on motorbike and maybe about to hit you.