you win some & you lose some.

GIORNO VENTITRE

The Albinia train station... Vacant, per usual...

You are probably wondering why my blog is titled, "You win some and you lose some..." Well I will tell you straight up that today, we lost some.

We woke up fairly early this morning with intentions of returning to Monterossa for a nice beach day, but when we checked the weather forecast we saw thunderstorms across the board, so we decided to head over to the train station anyway with anything we may need in our backpacks and no true plan.  We went straight to information at the train station and learned three things: 1. Some jobs in Italy are just for show... they actually don't do anything at all, 2. It is hard to do it yourself because trains are tricky and so is the Italian schedule, and 3. NOTHING IS EVER CLEAR.

We talked to several people before finding the hidden information desk and talking to first an unhelpful employee and than a helpful lady who pointed us in the right direction.  We had two ideas of things we wanted to do: either go to the aquarium in Genova or the mineral baths in Saturnia in the South of Toscana.

We wound up choosing the mineral baths because the route seemed simple and the price was right. WRONG.  Of course, we didn't know this at first...  From what we looked up online, the directions to the mineral baths were literally: "take train to Albinia, catch bus to Satunia, enjoy!"  It is that simple?  No!  We took the train to Albinia, excited and ready for a beautiful day at the hot springs.  We expected the two hour journey from Pisa, but we didn't expect the town of Albinia to be so small and so, so isolated.  The train station practically looked deserted and in fact, the whole town seemed to be empty.  Where are all the people? 

Too bad we couldn't appreciate it, but it was pretty!

Allora, we found a convoluted route to the bus stop near the city center and waited about fifteen minutes until this bus pulled up filled to capacity.  We asked if he was headed to Manciano and he said yes, so we jumped on the giant bus with every single high school and middle school kid who just got off school.  These kids were crazy.  We felt so out of place.  These kids were real and we didn't know how to handle all the activity on that bus... It wasn't until we read the street signs that Saturnia was abit beyond Manciano so we would have to take a second bus in order to arrive at Saturnia hot springs.  Sounds easy, again... NOPE!

LOST

We roll off the bus at our stop in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily there are some Italian kids that speak a little English and help us walk into the actual city of Manciano so we can catch the next bus.  Hills... this was the hilliest town we have been to.  Ten minutes into our walk to the actual city, my calves were burning!  And on another note, the town was empty.  A ghost town.  Not a single person visible throughout this tiny little city.  You don't understand the meaning of an Italian siesta until you go to an actual Italian small town like Manciano.  The whole world shuts down.  And you guessed it, so do all the buses.  After searching for forty minutes relentlessly for the bus stop, we found a restaurant and asked for directions.  The buses don't run again until after four.  Great.  Our return train leaves at seven and we have to leave the hot springs around five to get there in time.  We weren't going to make it to the hot springs in time.  Well played Italy.

It was awful knowing how close you were to something, precisely twelve kilometers, and you c
an't make it because NOTHING runs between two and four!  Exasperated and frustrated we turned to gelato.  Yes, we became "the girls who eat their feelings."  Not even gelato could handle our disappointment... nor could the quaintness of the little town.  The sub-par gelato did not fulfill the void of the hot spring in our lives... We even contemplated hitchhiking... JUST KIDDING MOM, or maybe not?  Anyway, so far nothing had been working out and we all needed some positivity in our day.  We waited around for a while until four o'clock rolled in and we caught the bus back to Albinia.  Fail.

Forty minutes later, we were back where we started... in small Albinia with growling stomachs.  Nothing was still quite open so we ended up at this little Pasticceria with some little flat breads and hazelnut things (sorry that is as detailed as I can get about those, but they were yummy!).  I knew we were close to the sea because I had seen the water from the train so I made the executive decision that we check out the beach here in Maremma.  And according to the lady from "Under the Tuscan Sun," it is one of the nicest areas for beaches.  We still had two hours to kill... so why not.  Let's have one thing work out for us!!!  We began heading west and hit a highway... oops!  Luckily, this nice lady on a bicycle led us to the foot path to the water...

It wasn't as close as we thought...

We walked under the highway, down a long bicycle trail through pretty grasses and poppies, under another overpass, past a smelly receptacle, and finally hit some sand(ish).  We kept walking along until the *ahem* dirt *ahem* turned into sand granules.  It was actually really beautiful and I was so happy that something actually sort of worked out for us.  It only took us forty minutes to walk there from the city...

We had thirty or so minutes to hang out and stare out at the water before we had to head back to Albinia for our train.  Pretty plain Jane day.  The water was cold, but not too bad and Danielle took a dip while we relaxed on our towels!  We finally used something we brought with us!  Score!  Italy was still in the lead (647847546-1), but hey, we had time to kill, so we might as well go out in style.

I walked along the beach for a bit and saw further down that there were camping places for people to sleep at the beach and rows of chairs and stuff for people to sit on.  The beach was prettier down there as the sand got finer and lighter, but we were content in our location close to the exit so we could leave forty minutes ahead of our train departure.    

Our bright side

We walked back to Albinia, everyone still a little "grump gills" and returned to the train station for our direct train back to Firenze.  Small, three cart train rolls up to the track all sketchy... guess this is us?  Of course we would get the creepy train back with one person on it, it was just that kind of day.  Three and a half hours later we returned to Firenze, tired and slightly cranky at eleven-thirty.  It was a long day and nothing went as planned.   

But hey, we learned a few things and not everything in life is easy.  You can always find a bright side and you can ALWAYS choose happiness.  Like I said before, it is what you make it.  Our day was an adventure... a stressful one, but I think we gained some character along the way.  

"Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

--A Cinderella Story