Bus Ride from Hell and the Snoring Man

A beautiful photo I took on my way to the bus in Salerno to start this wonderful post out positive. These giant sea blocks were to protect the shore and give calm water for small boats I think. Around Amalfi they also came in the shapes of giant jacks (think the bouncy ball jack game) and other large geometric patterns.

I was simply going to call this one “Bus Ride from Hell” then last night happened and I avowed to call it “48 Hours of Hell” but decided that that was too dramatic because I had a good day just a bad night so now the title reflects that pretty well.

At 1pm on Tuesday I boarded a bus in Salerno, Italy. The drive was generally pleasant but I was going to be on the bus for 8 hours until we stopped at a place called Villa Constanza Terminal 1 in Florence. When I read terminal I was hoping it meant an Airport terminal and that I could have a place to sit, recharge, maybe buy some food, and just relax. The driver was a funny Italian dude who liked to swear and gesture at other cars and trucks on the road. I don’t mean flip them off. I really do mean gesture because Italians really do talk with their hands. I thought it was funny.

I managed to stay awake for most of this bus and it generally passed uneventfully. We initially travelled west towards Naples and passed the great Mt. Vesuvius which was a very beautiful mountain indeed to see. You can see how big it must have been before it erupted and now it looks just as you would imagine any mountain that quite literally blew its top off. What struck me is how green the whole thing is. It’s really quite beautiful.

8 Hours later we arrived at Villa Constanza Terminal 1 which ended up being an outdoor bus stop with a bathroom and small cafe that closed within an hour of us arriving meaning anyone still there had to stay outdoors. I was going to be there for 3 hours until midnight when the next bus would come. Luckily before the place closed I was able to use the bathroom and change into pants (I was in shorts before) and then just sat outside in admittedly what was rather cold and read my book.

The bus finally came around midnight and I was able to get a seat next to a lady who wasn’t too annoying. I fell asleep pretty quickly and was hoping for a none to exciting bus into Munich. Yeah. Right.

Apparently this trip was hell bent on being eventful. The first thing that happened was that at about 4am an old Italian man in the back started screaming his head off and shouting in Italian. It woke everyone up and he seemed to be making such a ruckus that it warranted turning on all the lights and stopping the bus. Everyone was turning to stare at him, the bus was stopped, and anyone near by was fussing over him. Being able to neither see nor understand him I couldn’t tell what was happening at all and thought that he might be having a heart attack or something. My guilty second thought was “oh I’m going to to witness something” but that was not the case. With a bottle of water and some talking they were able to get him to calm down so I think he either was in a very confused state of mind or simply a loud Italian (yes they’re all rather loud). I would only be mildly surprised if he had been simply yelling at someone near him for some assumed slight.

A lady on another bus yelled at me at the top of her lungs for brushing her bag with my bag even though she was fat and her bag was in the isle completely. I didn’t even try to stop and understand her. Italians can be so dramatic.

That was the first thing. The second was the border patrol in Switzerland. I was woken up by a tap on the shoulder. Looking out the window I was a bit disoriented and thought maybe we were there and someone was kindly telling me to get up. It was actually a soldier doing border patrol check with a red beret and green uniform. I told him my passport was in the undertow and that I’d have to go get it. He sized me up (he was easily 6 ft) and I was this tiny sleepy girl with a bright purple neck pillow he had had to wake up to even know the border police was there. He decided I wasn’t a threat to his country as a whole and let me just fall back asleep without checking my passport. As we left the border patrol area I looked out and saw beautiful mountains and green fields with adorable little towns nestled into hillsides with tall white churches. I thought that it looked way too pretty to be Germany but wasn’t sure our route.

I was right. That was Switzerland. Sorry Germany but I know Switzerland is usually the more breathtakingly beautiful. I fell asleep again until the real German Border patrol. The Germans were more strict than their Swiss counterparts (surprise surprise) and made me go get my passport from under the hull which is when I discovered that my shampoo had exploded in my bag. Wonderful.

One bald strict one asked me Italian or English (flattered thanks) and then told me in English that it would simply be easier for everyone if I traveled with my passport on my person. Believe me I’m aware of that but I blanked at 1pm and again at 12am when I was boarding my busses. I was sort of amused that no one asked me how I’d gotten into Switzerland without it though.

After they checked everyone’s passport we then were driving again, until we stopped… again. Now I was confused. We were then ordered off the bus and taken past a sniffer patrol dog which was NOT a German Shepard which I think is kind of ridiculous. German Shepards as we know them were bread in Hitler’s day as guard and attack dogs more or less and have been obviously a sign of Germany but also a well bread police dog ever since. The idea that the German Police didn’t use them was annoying in the way your favorite movie character acting super out of character might be annoying. I was bummed. The dog was however a cute black lab who was a little chubby and not that interested in being a patrol sniffer dog. The dog was adorable and excited but didn’t seem too interested in any of our bags and seemed to want pets and attention.

After sniffing us one by one we then had to get our bags out of storage under the bus and line it up where the dog was once again forced to scan and sniff all our luggage. I had a good amount of food in my bag and he didn’t even linger at my stuff so he was clearly well trained in that way but he kept wandering off and looking for pets from the officers until his leader had to put his leash on him and go bag by bag to get him to sniff things. It was cute.

Finally we were back on the bus. It was 9am which is the time that the bus was supposed to be in Munich. A quick check on my map told me we weren’t really that close to Munich. There were then 4 people who were not allowed onto the bus again. I have no clue what the issue was but they argued with our bus driver and the police for quite a while, being taken different places and going through their bags, whatever was going on I didn’t pay too much attention. After what felt like forever they were finally allowed onto the bus and we were heading to Munich.

The last thing was that at some point someone got off the bus and I was able to snag an empty row and sit in the window seat. I thought this was great luck until I found out I was sitting in front of an obnoxious woman child. She was awful. She sat directly behind me and would watch videos on her phone with the volume all the way up (who does that) and her ringer was on full volume which she would let ring in her hand before taking calls, loudly. She also would hold onto the handles on the back of my seat and use them to pull herself up to look at things out the window which was constantly jolting my chair. She also would stand up and lean on the back of my chair which I discovered the first of many times that she was lazy about her hands and would accidentally touch the top of my head which bothers me for A Million reasons… She would also somehow find her seat not good enough and stand up and look over me out my window. I was nonplussed. WHO DOES THAT.

We arrived at Munich and I walked to my hostel which was luckily quite close. This I planned well, the bus dropped us off right next to the Munich central train station which is where today I caught the train to the airport. My hostel was a mere 200m from that so I was able to walk really quickly. I wasn’t able to check in until 3pm and it was 11am so I left my bags and went off in search of food. I didn’t make it far. There was a Vietnamese place at the end of the street which served Pho so I stopped there for some much needed food and water. I packed food for the bus (I was prepared this time) but that ended up being 2 pears and a lot of packaged carbs and water. I drank water and ate the pears but only had some of the crackers and 2 of the cookies. I was desperately hungry and thirsty. I ate like a starved person at the Pho place and then felt 10000x better. Spent the day walking around Munich and seeing the Mairionplatz and a food market and doing a small bit of window shopping.

I grabbed German food at the food market which was good and sat behind a group of old Germans and started pretending I knew what they were saying. They were pointing at the sky and I saw that there were quite a few pidgins in the tree above us and figured they were talking about whether or not the pidgins were going to poop on them. I was far enough away (just barely) and under a roof edge that I figured I was fine. I watched them stare and point and mimic trajectories and try to decide who was safe when one of the pidgins above did indeed poop on the group of old Germans. One lady made a noise and jumped to get out of the way which put her directly in the way and the bird effectively pooped on her to the eruption of laughter from her friends. I left soon after. Pidgins can be deadly.

After my time exploring I went back to my hostel around 4 to check in and have a nap. It was warm and sunny out and I was sweating a bit as it was a mile back to my hostel. I fell asleep for about an hour and when I woke up it was dark and raining and I was honestly so surprised at the sudden turn in the weather. I spent the night downstairs finishing my book and just being out of the room. Had some sushi for dinner, and a bit later went back to start getting ready for bed. As I entered the room I heard what was the mix of thunder, a lions roar, and a chainsaw. It honestly scared me and I think I jumped before turning to the sound of the noise which ended up being just as alarming. Some dude was passed out asleep on the bed next to the door. He was a big guy both tall and a bit chubby and he barely fit on the bottom bunk. He had light hair that was cut short making him look a bit bald and a bit big headed. The surprising thing was though that his butt was half out his pants with the worst plumbers crack I’ve ever seen.

I was halfway amused halfway disgusted. The rest of the night is uneventful but this dude continued to snore like a thunderous lion chainsaw the ENTIRE night. I don’t know what was wrong with his airways but sometimes he’d breath really quiet then he would literally erupt into these huge snoring fits. I woke up around 5am because of him which continued my few days of poor sleep. The last (and only) time I’ve had to share a room with such a loud sleeper was in Croatia two years ago and there were 6 of us in a tiny room 4 bunk beds with two empty) This one dude snored non stop and once it woke you up it was hard to fall back asleep. In the end everyone was awake but him and some girl finally kicked his bed until the woke up and we all scrambled to fall asleep before he could resume snoring…

To me it raises an ethical question. There’s no way they didn’t know that they snored like freaking chainsaws. Someone in their life must have alerted them to their… habit. But is it really fair for the rest of us to have to put up with their obnoxious snoring? I know that other people in the room also had a difficult time falling asleep due to the large amount of groaning, dirty looks, and at 5am one girl simply giving up and leaving (I laughed at that one). On the other hand it doesn’t seem fair to force them to pay extra for a private room to accommodate us. I don’t think theres necessarily a right or wrong answer here but boy do I wish he’d’ve just gotten a private room haha. Miraculously he was gone by 7am when I woke up. I was impressed. At the same time I saw he wasn’t in his bed some dude in a black suit came into the room and I shocked myself into thinking the snoring but crack man had somehow donned a suit and was a normal functioning person turning a 180 from the night before, but it was actually someone else haha.

Beyond that though I’ve had a great two days and am currently waiting at the Munich airport to head to Jerusalem and meet Grant. Very excited for the next leg of this journey!