Once the Bari coastline came into view in the morning, an announcement was made regarding a "small delay" (I couldn't say exactly the contents of the message, as the loud tourist teens were yelling over it). Not too worried, as we had 3 hours before our train was leaving from Bari, I proceeded to read and Jay made his way to the men's room. Certainly his time spent embracing the toilet was unaided by the constant turns (ferry for taxiing)... which lasted a considerable amount more than "a small delay". At 9:30, an hour and a half after we should have arrived at port, I went downstairs to speak with one of the crew members.
"Perdón, Deutsch? English? Español?"
"English."
"Do you know how much longer the delay will be?"
"No one knows; it's due to the bad weather."
Now, I looked outside at this point to find not stormy or windy or even mildly cantankerous weather, but rather a sunny, calm, gorgeous morning. Mental response: "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that 2-inch waves were dangerous, but what do I know about ferrying? The weather's perfect - get your damn boat into port before I miss my train" ...Unfortunately (or perhaps fortuitously), my actual response was significantly calmer:
"Okay... I have an 11-o-clock train reservation that I've already paid for."
"Oh, well it's only 9:30; you should probably make it."
"Indeed. If that is not the case, is Superfast Ferries prepared to reimburse me for missing it due to a 3+ hour delay?"
(Unfortunately, I had neither the attire nor the composure to pull this off in an imposing manner -- my hiking boots-jeans-fleece ensemble could make no strong impression on the elitist crew of Superfast...)
"No one can control the weather."
Irritated (The weather's gorgeous, you wimps! Try Alaska!), tempted to make an indentation in the man's stupid red hat, and worried, as missing that train would mean missing our hostel reservation in Rome, I returned to my seat.
The ferry docked at 10:30, opening its doors 20 minutes later. Furious and rushed, Jay and I raced across the dock and jumped into the first taxi we found.
Just as a reminder, this is in Italy.
We inform the taxi driver of our destination and rush, and he takes his job quite seriously. Ignoring pedestrians, red lights, and lane designations (he spent most of that time driving in the bus lane designated for the opposite direction), the crazy bastard made it. We were on our train a scant 3 minutes before it departed. Go taxi man!
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