I came straight from Bratislava. Bus to Vienna and plane to Bari. It already felt good being in a place again where I speak the local tongue - so I spoke the language, but could understand less than what I could say. Rarely does this happen, but here, in the Mezzogiorno, how they call everything South of Rome, is such a place.
Boarding the bus to the local city of Matera was still quite straight forward. A timetable at the bus stop, a time table online and a bus driver that sells tickets. Good so far and I arrived for a 1.5 hour layover in Matera.
After a quick visit to the old town, having some, for local standards, tasteless pizza slice and a few pictures on my camera, I went back to the bus station. Now came the struggle. Once I boarded the bus, the driver wouldn’t sell me a ticket “you have to buy it there”, pointing somewhere behind him, with such a vague hand gesture that could have been anywhere apart from inside the bus. I held onto my camera and ran out of the bus in literally every direction. Luckily there were a lot of people helpful enough to tell me where to buy tickets.
The machine. But it was out of order. The tabbachio. But it was closed. Don’t worry, on the bus. Thanks for that, but no.
I ran back to the bus. Told him my story, he turned his head at me while holding onto the steering wheel. “Go to the ticket agency” he told me. I replied by pointing my finger at him and saying “but you will wait!”
After trying 3 agencies the last one would sell me a simple 3 Euro ticket. 5 minutes past departure time I was at the bus with a ticket and we could leave. Even the foreign kid has made it.
I have definitely arrived in South Italy. Life is much slower than what I am used to. Efficiency is not the priority here, but consistency. You can buy your ticket only at one small shop. And why? It is so, because it is so. It is so because it has always been so and it has always been so because everybody is already used to it.
It is 7pm and my bus has just arrived to Bernalda. A small town situated on the hills in the Basilika region. For the next few days I had the pleasure to visit Colin, one of my few truly good friends. He greeted me once we spotted each other with an immediate large smile stretching his moustache to an almost straight (thick) line.
He and a friend of his, Enrica, have rented a small apartment in the Centro Storico - the old town of Bernalda. Padre Pio is greeting from above the sofa. A small balcony is headed into an ally with a church tower just 3 houses down the road. The perfect vacation spot to slow down and practice my dormant Italian.
