Welcome to Italy

After traveling thousands of miles by car, plane, bus, and train, I arrive only to get stuck in an elevator!

It is night. Snow covers areas of the terrain. I am making my way up from the lower train platform to the ground floor, packed in the box with my laptop, backpack, and two large luggage bags in a tiny all-glass elevator compartment (like the kind you see on the outside of a hotel). My hosts, Iris and Gian-Luca, clearly see me through all the glass and wave. I arrive at the top to meet them but the door doesn’t open. After numerous failed attempts at opening the elevator door, going back down, going further up, rebooting, resetting, and any other button combination possible, I’m finally instructed by my gesturing hosts to hit the SOS button.

An Italian voice echoes inside the tiny chamber while my hosts, still on the outside, are yelling back attempting to communicate our situation to the voice inside.

Soon there are four Italians running around me in the elevator, speaking enthusiastically, waving their arms, trying various keys on the door, hitting the door, digging into the adjacent control box, and then there’s me, inside, laughing at the spectacle.

To be honest, I’m not sure what combination finally did the trick but it was my host Gian-Luca, (not the Trenitalia mechanics) who eventually got the door to open.

“What was wrong?” I asked Gian-Luca later.

His reply: “Trenitaila did not pay elevator utility. Welcome to Italy.”