I'm hoping stupidity will not kill for a while more

I will write about my "absatively" (The Anansi Boys) fabulous weekend after I have been rested. After I have gotten a modicum of sleep. Because this morning at 6 I looked at my reflection in the bus, and the only adjectives that popped into my head were "haggard, exhausted, and pallid" instead of the usual "cute, fun, and intelligent." I looked like a raw piece of prosciutto.

Last night at 7:53 PM, I boarded the train that would take me from Florence to Rome in 1.5 hours. I alighted 1.5 hours later at 6 AM in Rome. You do the math.

I realize that my 21st birthday is coming up. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I am painfully so. By the age of 21, I feel like I should have my wits about me. I should be forging ahead in life, living by the motto "Be smart" instead of "Just try to survive, dummy." I have every intention of waking up on my birthday an unbearably chich new woman, pop out of bed, slip into a dapper business suit, and make my way through the streets in almightily high stilettos to drink coffee in some awesomely chic coffee store before going to tell oogles of business men just where they should be investing their money. My motto shall be "Nothing less than the best!"

However, I just have to make it through these couple of weeks.

Last night, I boarded the wrong. bloody. train.

To Venice. Not Rome.

This meant I had to alight at Bologna, wait 4 hours until 12:44 AM, then take a train in to Rome that arrived at 4:41 AM. Then I had to wait for yet another train at 5:38 AM that would take me to the station I needed to be in in Rome. And of course my godawful, hideous, peice of poop phone was not working. The display has been turning off of its own according because WHY ON EARTH NOT? Someone in my previous life put a curse on me, and is now just having fun with me. He's saying "Let's not only give Adrianne 1/8 of the brain usually allotted to man, let's ALSO give her the crappiest phone created!"

Do you happen to know who takes 4 hour long train to Rome at 12:44 AM? I do now. They are definitely not American. Nor tourists. Nor English speakers, for that matter. They are people who assume you speak Italian after you grunt out an answer to a question that could pass for something between Pig Latin and Gibberish with rolling R's, and proceed to innundate you with a sheerly one-sided Italian conversation where all you can do is nod understandingly and just wish that you could wail to someone in English.

Then I got onto the train where I was fully intending on spreading out and getting some sleep. The only spot I could find was squashed in between some old people who decided that their legs, measuring about 2 feet long, needed a mile-long space to be accomodated, and decided that fresh air was the creation of the devil. So I got to spend my 4 hour long train ride with my knees knocking against my teeth as the old woman in front of me luxuriously stretched her legs till they dislocated from her body, and wishing I had an oxygen mask. Had I been gutsier, I would have just walked over to the window and opened it. But if I've learned one thing, it's not to mess with the older generation, unless I wanted to join their musty house in the form of a skinned rug upon which she could dry her feet after laboring out of the shower.

I still have a ways to go until I'm an extremely cool 21-year-old. There's only room for improvement, and I've still got a few days.

So a note for those going to Florence: There are two trains to each platform. Believe me.