The Acireale Incident
June 9, 2017
During our second full weekend of the excavation, a large group of my beloved Americani and I decided to leave the landlocked town that we live in for seven weeks each summer and head to the beach. This episode kick started the “bad things come in threes” saga. As a preface, no one was injured in any form (at least no one from our group…), no one’s things were stolen, and we were lucky to have returned to Catania in time (sort of) to have a place to sleep. Let all of your potential concerns be at rest for now.
We decided to call the event the “Acireale incident,” for reasons which will become apparent. As with my Palermo adventure, (my) hubris plays a large role in the story. The day began with a herd of excited excavators getting on the bus to Catania, only to take another bus to Giardini Naxos, a nice little beach resort town just south of the very touristy Taormina. Giardini’s beach is immaculate and worth the two bus rides it takes to get there. In addition, there is a lovely restaurant/deli-esque restaurant called T. Consiglio on the main drag that serves piles of delicious meats, cheeses, and veggies for a ridiculously low price. If you’re ever in Giardini Naxos you need to go here, but do so on an empty stomach and ask them to prepare portions for half of the number of people present. This is not an exaggeration.
Anyway, we were a group of 11 (would have been 12 if it were not for a certain excavator’s enthusiasm for a drink called “Klamour Sunshine”), which, as one can imagine, is a difficult number to find housing for, especially for just one night. It had been especially difficult to find a place that would take all of us, but finally we found a very cheap and nice looking hostel/hotel in the center of Catania, so we had planned to go back to Catania at the end of our beach day. The biggest hurdle seemed to have been past us. Well, we were wrong. The size of the group had been the biggest concern of mine, especially since by the time we had gotten to the beach three disparate groups had formed and all were in different locations. Of course, we had made no plans to meet, considering that we had to all check into this hotel in Catania at some point. So this became my new biggest concern. It now seems like not that big of a deal, but wrangling 11 people in three different locations without the use of texting/calling in a foreign country is not easy. But – lo and behold! – the other two groups decided to come to the beach in Giardini and somehow found us (by spotting one of our number’s very white skin in a crowd of tanned Italians) and we all laid on the beach together in a giant mass of pastier-than-most on the beach.
So, all seemed well – my worst fears about reuniting the group were quelled and all we had to do was take the train back to Catania to make it to our hotel by 8pm, the end of check in time. Easy, right? NO! First, the train did not go all the way to Catania, as had seemed to be the case (and as is usually the case), but for some reason it stopped in Acireale, where we would have to get off the train and take a bus to Catania instead. Okay, no big deal, right? NO! When we arrived in Acireale we saw that there was a hoard of people waiting for the bus – far too many to get on the bus that was supposed to arrive in five minutes. It also seemed that no one had been keeping track of how many people were buying the bus tickets, therefore there was no mechanism to understand how many bus seats were needed… Sicily… So, we waited for the next bus only to see that it arrived with people on it already, so even fewer seats would be available to the mob of people waiting for the bus. A few people entered the bus and it was full within what seemed like seconds. Chaos ensued immediately. People started yelling at the remaining bus attendant, who didn’t know when the next bus was arriving (great!) and seemed un-phased by the fact that people expected to be able to take the bus that had just departed. The bus attendant began calling his office, trying to get another bus to come pick up the angry mob of travelers, but no one was answering (who wants to work on a Saturday night, right?) so he kept leaving messages. Finally, we found out that the next bus was supposed to arrive at 7:20pm, which would (in theory) leave us enough time to arrive at our hotel before check in ended at 8pm, assuming we could get on it… but the masses suggested otherwise.
Our group of 11 Americani handled the situation surprisingly well. No one panicked and everyone was quite entertained by the whole event. We began to start making plans to stay in Acireale for the night (if it came to that) and looking at the map to see what the town offered, which soon evolved into talk of ditching the bus and going to see a puppet show in Acireale instead, then to staying in Acireale forever. “We’ll start our own excavation here! It’s got everything we need – puppet shows, the sea, probably some B&B’s we can stay at, probably old Greek stuff buried 10 feet below us – we’re set!”
In addition to plans to start new lives in Acireale, a plan to get us on the bus formed as people poured shots of vodka while we sat on the dirty sidewalk and chased them with Coke from the station bar. After all, it was aperitivo hour. We would set up camp near the area where we anticipated the bus door opening, link arms, and box out anyone who tried to get on the bus ahead of us. We soon realized that it would be difficult to get us all on the bus and that I was the one who absolutely needed to be on the next bus in order to check into the hotel that was booked under my name. 7:20pm came and went. We started calling taxis after seeing a group of six Germans crammed into a tiny cab, but still hoped to get on the next bus. Getting a taxi for 11 people could be difficult, to say the least. Most of the taxi companies didn’t answer and the few that did said that their cars were not anywhere near Acireale. Great. One said that she would call me back. Hope! I kept calling the very understanding receptionist at the hotel, informing her of our situation and trying to give her time estimates. Finally, a purple bus arrived at maybe 7:40pm (not surprisingly late), but the bus turned out to be bound for Syracuse, rather than Catania, which didn’t make sense since a bus going to Syracuse would pass through Catania and probably make a stop… but that is what we were told. It delighted the faction of tourists who were Syracuse-bound, but angered the red-haired Italian who seemed to be the most vocal about his feelings about the bus. He repeatedly yelled at the bus attendant, telling him to do his job and get us another bus. We decided that when we started our new lives in Acireale, the ginger Italian would be our leader.
As chaos continued to ensue near the supposed Syracuse-bound bus, another pulled up on the roadside – it was the same color as the previous Catania-bound bus! “It must be Catania-bound,” I thought. Time moved slowly in the next ten seconds. Two opposing thoughts ran through my head: “I need to get on that bus,” and “I’m going to get trampled if I run for the bus.” I risked it. At once I sprinted for the bus door, not even making time to say a word to my fellow Americani, another Americana yelled a kind of war-cry, and we all ran for the bus, beating the mob behind us. We were all at the beginning of the “line” (there are no lines in Italy), huddled together in solidarity. We were getting on that bus! I made a friendly alliance with the man in front of me, who nodded at me in solidarity. At least we had an ally.
Somehow, we all made it onto the bus. I was one of the first five people on the bus and made a bee-line for the back of the bus, which I hoped would allow for all 11 of us to sit together and speed the process of loading the bus. Our group fought through the crowd to board the bus and packed into the back few rows, finally content that we were about to be on our way to Catania. We looked out the window at the masses of people who were still outside and felt their pain. As we sat down another train must have arrived and unloaded its cargo of passengers, as the mob grew substantially as we sat and waited for the bus to fill. I wondered how many hours that last group of new arrivals would have to wait before boarding a bus. They did not know the long wait that was presumably ahead of them.
After what seemed like an eternity the bus began to move and we were on our way to Catania. It was sometime after 8pm. I called our hotel again to inform the poor receptionist that we were finally (!) on our way and apologized profusely, although clearly the mishap was not at all our fault. She informed us that there would be a 15 euro late charge for our late arrival, which all of us agreed was well worth her time, especially since she had been so understanding of our situation. All seemed well.
Or not. About half way through our packed bus ride some commotion began to break out a row in front of us. Two men were sharing a seat on the bus and seemed to be arguing over a couple inches of space. They began yelling at each other and soon yelling led to pushing. We all watched in silence, wondering whether it would continue to escalate and if we should take action or hope they would stop on their own. They did not. Pushing led to punching and one of the men throwing the other onto the floor of the bus and punching him some more. Two of our very brave Americani leapt up; one jumped in front of one Americana to protect her and the other did the same to block another Americana from the punches and also grabbed the instigator from behind in an attempt to restrain him. The rest of us who were trapped in the inner seats and unable to move could only yell at the two to stop fighting. The bus driver flicked on the interior lights as if to say, "I know what you're doing, but I'm not going to actually do anything about it." Eventually they were stopped by others on the bus, but the fighting was only temporarily subdued. The two were not split up and sat back down on the same exact seat together – clearly not a good move. More fighting broke out, but was quickly broken up by the other passengers, clearly due to the bus driver's quick flick of the interior lights again. We held out breaths and waited in silence as we approached Catania. Occasional nervous laughter broke out amongst our group, but we tried to keep silent, assuming that anything could set off the two seat sharers again. We had already had a long day and didn’t want the attention of the two seat sharers to be directed at us.
It seemed like ages before we arrived at the bus stop in Catania, but finally we were able to get off the bus from hell and speed walk to our hotel to meet our very nice, but exasperated receptionist. After some brief confusion about where our hotel actually was (the address online was wrong, of course), we were directed to it by a man running the bar next door, who somehow knew that a large group of Americani were arriving at the hotel next door. Everyone knows everyone in Italy. We climbed the stairs and turned over our money and passports to the poor receptionist, who had to watch us all sweat through our clothes while she processed our documents as quickly as she could. We took in the amazing little room as we waited – a beautifully painted ceiling and nice views of Catania from the balcony. The hotel that I had randomly picked without giving it much thought seemed to be okay so far. She directed us to our cute little two person rooms after finishing with our passports and left us to divide up the rooms amongst ourselves. We were all pleasantly surprised to have properly functioning showers, comfy beds, small balconies, and generally cute accommodations, especially given the price. It was a nice reward after a chaotic last few hours. We all promptly showered off the beach and the Acireale incident and went in search of food and some adult beverages to help us forget about the insanity of the day. And then, finally all was well, but we would never forget the Acireale incident and vowed to never go there again.
So that was bad thing #1 of three. Wondering what the final element of the bad things trifecta was? I nearly concussed myself on my friend’s deceptively angled ceiling, then fell on my ass onto the hard floor, and immediately smashed by elbow on the ground. I can still see and feel all the bruises and it was at least three weeks ago. Bad things come in threes.
