I know I know, never travel alone, but for some reason that day it seemed like a good idea. i wanted to go to a harmless place.. The land of the Cefalone's!!!! i woke up at 4:30 am to get on a train at 6:50. The craziness starts on the bus at 5:45 am. I am the only person on this bus. Some Indian Foreigner decides to get on and of all the seats on the bus, he wants to sit directly behind me. For some ungodly reason, I think he wanted to educate me on their music. He didn’t know that I listen to it and watch their movies every Saturday morning on channel 20. So he plays this Indian music on his phone and holds his phone right behind my ear. So I dismiss it and pretend I can’t hear it even though im going deaf. Then he moves his phone to my other ear.  I couldn’t do anything except laugh my ass off and wonder why he is moving his phone from ear to ear behind my head for me to hear it. I can hear equally from both ears, Are there noises in this song that can only be heard with the left or right ear? I dunno, So by the grace of god I arrive at the train station quickly and get off and head to the bar for my usual Cappuccino. The usual man waits on me and I always thought he was nice because he always put chocolate powder ontop of my cappuccino and would always put 2 packets of sugar in just the way I like it… and then, he asks me if I live in the center and I say yea, he says what street. I felt strange but I was still asleep so I accidently said my street.. He asks me what number, so I take a 1 sip of my cappuccino and walk out. PISSED! I had a whole 40 minutes to wait and I really wanted a cappuccino but that was ruined. So thinking I couldn’t be bothered anymore, I sit in the station on the bench in front of the departure screen. Some middle aged man comes up to me and tells me he has to go to Milan and the train is leaving soon but he doesn’t understand the machine and could I help him.  So I tell him you can select the language on the machine and thinking he is gonna abduct me while I’m helping him I walk away  and say I’m sorry and sit somewhere else. I cant even begin to tell you how this next guy bothered me but somehow we started talking and he is from Morocco, but his brother is studying in Milan and I know his whole life story and he asks me what I’m doing and where I’m going and why I’m in Italy for 4 months and this and that. He takes out his wallet and just gives me his Moroccan money… for a souvenir! Haha and then writes his email on a piece of paper because he likes to meet new people and learn about others and their culture. To get away from him I tell him my train is here so I go to the track and he comes with me. Unfortunately the train was a Eurostar. And what that means is its not a regional train so you can’t just get on whenever it arrives. You have to wait until about 5 minutes before it leaves to get on the train. So I am on the track, stuck with this Moroccan who asks me my name about 20 times and I tell him 21 times and he still cant remember it. Finally the doors automatically open so I get on. I get on the wrong cart, I’m supposed to be in cart 9 but I’m in cart 5 and I’m walking and I’m only going down… 4, 3, 2 and I was so flustered it didn’t hit me until cart 1.. so thinking it would take forever to walk through the train, I get off and decide to walk the track back up to cart 9. the conductor blows the whistle and I have to sprint all the way to the front of the train and get on cart 9. I pass the Moroccan as I’m running and he asks me where I’m going I say “WRONG CART CIAO!” and I book it, find my seat and head to ripi. I must have had a sign on my back saying “BOTHER ME” because it didn’t stop there.  I get to Frosinone which is the connecting city where a bus would take me up the mountain to Ripi. So after a bunch of confusion I meet a lady and she tells me to get on the bus with her and the driver will take me. So I get on and then she tells me I have to get off and catch another bus. Mind you this entire day is in Italian. I am writing this in English, but keep in mind this was all in the Italian language. So the bus stops, I get off and I wait. This was really wasting time  and there were no busses in sight so I go in and ask where the station is, they tell me down the street. So I walk down the street and stand at the stop which is right next to a bar. This is also wasting time and 10 minutes goes by and I say screw it so I go in the bar and ask them to call me a taxi. Apparently its not possible. And after 20 minutes of arguing in Italian and telling them that I NEED a taxi its still not possible. So a little old man comes up to me and asks me where I need to go and offers to take me with his car. I say no thanks and I walk back down the street to the first place. And this little old man is chasing me down the street shouting “signora, signora!” and he catches up to me and tells me its okay I can go with him he means no harm and he knows why its strange for me because I’m American but in Italy its no problem. After about 10 minutes I finally get this guy to go away and I go inside and ask them to call me a taxi. Its still not possible. I ask them WHAT IS possible.. they tell me I can walk. So I say fine, how do I get up the mountain. They tell me go to the end of the street, make a right and follow it to the top. So I take of my jacket, roll up my sleeves and start hiking. There are no sidewalks and every car that is passing me by is beeping and giving me those Italian grandmother hand motions and I am walking and walking and walking and hoping a bus comes up the hill and I can flag him down. I would say I’m about half way up when 2 little old ladies spot me from their kitchen window and they run outside to talk to me and find out who I am and why I’m here in ripi. I tell them my name and they say “il dottore??” apparently the Cefalone’s are a family practice and they are all doctors in that area and very well known. They thought I was their daughter but I said I wasn’t sure I don’t have any family here anymore but my family came from here and they understood me and so they told me all about their sons that are my age in America right now and this and that and we said ciao they gave me a hug and the 2 kisses on the cheek and wished me good luck. So luckily, I see a bus and flag it down, it picks me up and takes me to the top of the mountain in the center of ripi. I get off and ask the cop where the main church is and he points me in the right direction so I visit the church that my great grandparents were supposedly married in. I find a priest and ask him to see all the marriage documents and he doesn’t really understand me because he is old and I don’t know anything about them. I guess at how old they were based on my grandpops age and I have no idea my great grandmoms name and I have no idea how to tell him that it is my GREAT grandparents and not MY parents. The word for grandpop is nonno… so I figured if I said mio nonno nonno, he would get the hint that I was trying to say great grandpop. He has no idea so it was a mess. I had to give him all my uncles names and my fathers name and great uncles and this person and that person and he still couldn’t find it, but when he did, he told me it was latino… that’s when I knew I was at the wrong church, but he wrote me a copy of the document anyway and I just took it because I was obviously obligated after putting him through a stroke to find it. It was a mess and my brain was exhausted so I just walked around and saw the sights which were basically nothing. It’s a very old mideival town with beautiful views and old buildings so after at around 12:30 I had already walked around the entire city 3 times so I decided to go in and have lunch at the only restaurant there was. I figures why not there is nothing else to do so I’ll have a big lunch, relax and conversate some more and then go home. So I made friends with the little old mom who owned it and worked there and cooked me the greatest piece of sausage I ever had… some French fries, a big salad and some wine that she makes herself with her sons in their yard. We talk and talk and talk and I tell her my life story and she tells me hers an she was adorable and I asked her if I could buy a bottle of the wine and she said sure so I bought a bottle, finished up and headed back to the bus stop. There was a church across the way so I decide to stop in there first but its close and there are 2 old men outside who want to know who I am and why I am here and this and that so I talk to them. They tell me the church is closed and there are no more buses back to Frosinone. I tell them I need to get there my train is leaving in an hour and they tell me there is one bus at 3:30 it’s the only one on Saturdays…. It was 3:10… I was in the right place at the right time so I luckily got on the bus after being bothered by a news paper vendor who also wanted to know who I was and why I was there. I got the same response from every person. There was not one person that asked me who I was that didn’t ask me if I was the doctors daughter. So after saying goodbye from the vendor I got on the bus back to Frosinone. By the way, everyone I came in contact with loved me and gave me a hug and kiss and told me to come back anytime. Hahaha! I get to frosinone train station and get on  a train home. Thinking it is finally over and no one could possibly bother me now, a little old man comes up to me and sits across from me and wants to know where I’m from and why I’m here and this and that the usual. He tells me how beautiful I am and that he is studying English because he does agriculture and business and he wants me to take him back to Perugia with me. I tell him my boyfriend wouldn’t be too happy and he laughed and got off the train…. I get into Rome and find my train back to Perugia… I ask the lady at the desk what train I should get on because the screen does not say Perugia and it usally does, she tells me the Ancona train. And I’m thinking she’s nuts because ancona is no where near Perugia. So the ancona train comes and goes and I have to now get a train going to Florence, get off in Terontola and then to Perugia. So I get on the train… and at 11:30 at night I FINALLY arrive back in Perugia. That day was the biggest hassle of my life but also one of the most craziest and memorable times.