(This is part 2 of a three part story. See
part 1 here and
part 3 here.)
The trip to Innsbruck was supposed to be 6 hours from Milan, with 2 connections, getting us there at 10pm. Our first train out of Milan was cancelled. Then the next train out of Milan was cancelled. After waiting in the long ticket line (Thanks Milano Centrale Santa!), we got a ticket on a third train, and that managed to depart only 70 minutes late. Welcome to Verona, Italy! Fictional home to Romeo and Juliet!
By now we’d of course missed our connection. Must stand in another long ticket line in Verona. Get directed to different long line, this time for “train information.” Informed that the only way we’d get to Innsbruck in the next 24 hours was if we stood in long line #1 again, exchanged our onward Italian ticket for one on a German train set to leave at 1:00 am. Yes, leave Verona at 1:00 am, three hours after we thought we would be in Innsbruck. Keep in mind that we were paying for a hotel in Innsbruck (whose reception closed before midnight), and we might still be paying for a hotel in Venice. Given the late hour, we chose to upgrade to the fold-down seat option (“couchette”) on the train, giving us a make-shift bed for a few hours that night until we could stumble into our Innsbruck hotel room.
We had 5 hours to kill on a frigid Sunday night in Verona. We didn’t think anything would be open in the city, so went down to the train station McDonald’s. I know, I know, but at least McDonald’s had heat. And maybe wi-fi. Our Bulgarian cell phones wouldn’t work (thanks Vivatel, for not even giving us the option of paying through the nose for roaming charges). None of the shops that might sell a SIM card for the Italian cell phone networks were open. Neither could we buy a calling card for the pay phones. Internet cafes in town were closed on Sunday night. If we could just get on the internet, we could figure out how to contact Meghan & Justin to tell them we would not be meeting them in Innsbruck that evening, and maybe be able to call/write our hotel in Innsbruck to beg for a late check-in and or room cancellation.
Below: Can you tell how happy Shannon and I are to be at the Verona train station McDonald's? Mmm, mmm, can't wait to get me one of those "il Mac"s.
McDonald’s has wifi. It is free. But you need a password. And you can only get a password by getting a text message sent to your Italian mobile phone. If we had an Italian mobile phone, we would have used it to call our hotel! I would have happily paid to use their internet, but there was no way to use their free service. Grr. Happily an English-Italian traveler eventually helped us with the pay phone (calling internationally from a pay phone using coins is harder than you might think), and we were able to call the hotel in Innsbruck to warn them of our late arrival.
Below: Shannon and I had an impromptu photo contest to see who could best capture the mood of the moment from our seats in McDonald's. Some of our favorites are below. In the middle picture, note how excited the girl on the right is to also be stuck at McDonald's, and that the girl on the left appears to be camping for the night. The bottom picture is the douchey guys sitting next to us, who of course left their trash on the table.
At 10:30 pm they kicked us out and closed McDonald’s. Out into the cold station. The only semi-warm place was the waiting room, which reminded me of a 1970s DMV waiting room, except the only people waiting to get their licenses renewed were winos who had recently soiled themselves.
Oh, the stench! Sweat, stale smoke, urine, shit. Too many people packed in, watching the sad old monitor blink more train delays. Every so often you’d get overwhelmed by the humanity, flee the room for some fresh air and space, only to humiliatingly shuffle back to suck up some fetid warmth.
As it got later and later in the evening, the ratio of stranded passengers to actual winos decreased, while the stench increased. We couldn’t take it anymore, so we decided to go walk around Verona. We figured everything would be shuttered up, but at least the exercise might keep us warm.
Up next - Part 3: "Where the hell is the train?"
At 10:30 pm they kicked us out and closed McDonald’s. Out into the cold station. The only semi-warm place was the waiting room, which reminded me of a 1970s DMV waiting room, except the only people waiting to get their licenses renewed were winos who had recently soiled themselves. 
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