#ryainair

May 22nd was supposed to be the first day I saw my mom in 9 months. Our actual reunion was the 23rd, and what happened in between was arguably the longest 24 hours of my life. 

It all started about 6am in Rimini.  The night before we had gone out dancing, and Chris' friend Jesse taught me how to salsa! Although I was tired that night, I never actually fell asleep.  This was partly due to my excitement to see my momma the next day and partly to the earthquakes shaking my mattress from the snoring bear on the hostel bed below. 

So I caught the train early that morning from Rimini to Bologna, where I proceeded to the Ryan-Air check-in.  Let the rocks start sliding. 

The man briskly took my passport and examined every stamp, arriving at my student visa and pausing.  It had expired May 14th.  After pointing out the expired visa to me, I explained to him that every American citizen has 90 days of visa-free tourist travel in Europe.  He made a call to the Polizia Statale.  Still, as an American citizen finishing up her legal studies in Italy, I wasn't nervous.  What could be wrong with that?

After Mr. Man got off the phone, he informed me that I would not be allowed on the plane that day.  In order to start my 90-day tourist visa, I needed to exit and reenter the European Union.  My passport was missing the stamp with my date of reentry in the EU.  "Next customer please."

Shocked, bewildered, and teary-eyed, I wandered out of the building.  How was I going to get out of the EU and back in in time to meet my mom in Paris?  I imagined her walking the city alone, waiting for her only daughter that would never should up.  Stood-up in Paris after traveling halfway across the world...

I called my program director, Riccardo, who has lots of connections in Ferrara.  Maybe he would be able to talk the Polizia into letting me onboard.  I held back tears as I explained to him what happened, which was the first time I've had to speak Italian while crying.  He rushed to the Questura (police station) where he was informed on the current law.  Twenty minutes later he called me back to confirm the bad news:  I would not be getting on that plane.  

However, he advised me to catch the first train to Switzerland.  Because Switzerland is not part of the EU, I could enter the country via train and upon exit receive the reentry stamp. From there, I could find the cheapest flight to Paris.  And Via!  I was off to the train station.  

I hopped on the first, fastest train for Milan from where I would catch the northern line up to Lugano.  Buying fast, last-minute train tickets is not cheap, but at this point the image of my stranded mother in Paris overrode every fiber of frugality in my body. 

By the time I got to Lugano it was about 6pm, I hadn't eaten all day but I was not about to convert Euro to Francs, not to mention the waste of time eating would entail. Yanking my luggage off the train, I exited the station for a total of 5 minutes. To my left the Swiss Alps stared intimidatingly at me, like ominous border patrol police.  "Don't worry, I'm not here long," I promised them.  Below me Lake Ceresio mocked me in it's tranquillity.  Enough of Switzerland and it's regal condescendence, I was here for one thing: my stamp. 

The border town of Switzerland and Italy is called Chiasso, and it was there I could find the elusive stamp.  So I backtracked a bit, marched off the train at Chiasso and went strait to the border control checkpoint.  The Italian border control police didn't even ask for me passport, as I should have expected, but I stopped the line behind me and demanded my stamp.

The three men looked at me bewildered.  "We don't give stamps anymore.  That stopped years ago."

I refused to believe them.  There must be a damn "timbro" somewhere in this pitiful little office!  Please, please, find it!  At this point they realized how distressed this poor American girl was and offered the help of another office where they might still give stamps.  I've noticed that when Italians don't know the answer to a question, they assure you that someone else does and confidently send you there.  True to this generalization, they directed me to checkpoint on the autostrada, so out I stomped dragging my trolley down to the highway.  Crossing the road, the feeling of dread arrived for the first time since the Bologna airport.  What if this stamp didn't exist?  What would I do? 

Shaking the idea out of my mind I knocked again on the door of border control. 

A disgruntled border-patrol officer answered.  As I explained my issue, that I needed to get a stamp of reentry to the EU in order to live legally in Italy this summer, but more importantly travel via airplane, he started to put on his jacket.  It was closing time, and he had no stamp. I begged for some kind of letter, note, signature, anything that would prove I had left the European Union.

"Te lo ripeto: non lo facciamo più." 

Translation: "I will repeat for you: we don't do that anymore." 

Crestfallen, I wandered meekly back to the Chiossa train station.  My mom had been in Paris 12 hours without me.  I hoped she had gotten my email that I wouldn't make it, but I couldn't be sure.  It was getting dark.  All the officers were going home.  Instead of being in Paris eating snails and drinking wine with my mom, swapping stories after almost a year of separation, I was stranded in a shady border town, illegally, stamp-less and hopeless. 

Criss-crossed on my luggage, I struggled to hold back tears.  The first border-patrol officer that I had talked to approached me on his way out.  Trying to cheer me up, he explained that my mistake was not a stupid one.  Switzerland had become part of the Schegnen-zone in 2008, meaning that passport controls were abolished at the border.  I'm sure this is of great convenience to Europeans traveling within the continent, but it seemed to me at the time like the most bastardly thing the country could have done. Or maybe the bastardly thing was that the police office in Ferrara wasn't aware of this five-year-old law and advised me to come here.  

Mr. Border Control did have one good idea: take the train to Paris.  In reality, it was my only option.  

So there I went, back to Milan, where I caught the 11:30pm sleeper train for Paris.  It was my first time on such a train and they stuck me in a cabin the size of a small walk in closet with five Pakistani men.  There were three bunks on each wall, and I grabbed a top one.  They were nice enough to encase the blankets and pillows in plastic to give the illusion of cleanliness. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, we all crammed in like folders being filed.  Then slam - the drawer was shut and we were off to Paris. 

The men's chattering in Urdu combined with the gentle rocking of the train lulled me right to sleep. 

9:30am, May 23rd, 2013, I took my first step in France.  I had emailed my mom from Milan telling her the arrival time and hoped she had found a way to read it. 

I scanned faces in the Gare de Lyon station, looking for her suntanned Hawaii skin and purple polyester jacket... Then I heard it: the whistle!!  My name!  My mom!  There she was!