I woke to see a guy in the door of our train compartment.

He apologised. My first thought was that he was just checking to see if there was a seat free, and when he saw us sleeping he apologised for disturbing us. But when I looked on the floor and saw our day packs missing, I immediately put the pieces together. It was our day packs in the hands of that thief that had brushed against me!

I jumped up, ran out of the compartment, at the same time yelling to Matt “Our bags, where are our bags!”

I ran down the train in the direction that I was pretty sure the thief had gone. When I reached the doors connecting the train cars, I realised that I was in bare feet. Pretty fucking frantic at this point, I ran back to our compartment to find a very dazed and confused Matthew looking under the seats for our bags.

I yelled at Matt to run, to find the guy.

“What guy?”

“The train guy, quick, we’re pulling into a station!”

Matt ran, and I put my shoes on.

I followed. When I got to the section between the cars, there were two guys there having a smoke. They must have been there when the thief ran by.

“Did you see somebody take our bags?”

No response.

“Our bags! Some guy took our bags did you see him run by!”

Shakes of the head. Not very convincing. I was quite suspicious. I began to imagine a brilliant sting, and that every one on board was involved. Like I said, I was frantic. If this was a sting, then maybe the day-bag thefts where just a diversion to get us out of the compartment so they could really work on our big packs! I ran back to the compartment, stood there for a second, and realised that I was being completely paranoid. Matt’s jacket, which he had been using as a pillow, was the only stray object, so I put it on. At this point the train came to a stop. I got off the train and ran to the next open door, where a train guy was standing.

“Someone stole our bags!”

He ignored me completely. I guess he was doing his job or something, but I felt totally invisible. Or maybe he was in on the sting too!

I ran back into the train, back to our compartment, and just stood there. Ok, so I’ve lost my digital camera, and all the books, and it will suck not having our day packs, but really we will survive. That’s when Matt came back, the gallant hero, gasping for breath, clutching our day packs. It was like a dream. For a second I thought, well maybe the thief dropped them in another compartment or something, but when Matt told me he chased him down, I was literally dumbfounded. I kissed him over and over and told him that he was the most amazing person ever! Which he is.

A little while later, while we were hanging out in Brindisi, waiting for our ferry that would take us to Greece, I laughingly said to matt, “Sure we may loose our bags every now and then, but we always get them back!” (referring to a canoe trip we took a little over a year ago). “I can’t believe you said that!” yelled Matt, who I’ve noticed has become more and more superstitious of late, as he jumped up to look for some wood to knock.

Then it was onto Rome, a great rummage sale of mind-blowing antiques. On the way to the St. Peter’s Basilica, Martha said, “So this must be pretty big for you, eh? Kinda like Mecca?” Really, it didn’t hit me until I got in, the overwhelming religiosity of the place. I had to bless myself at least once. I had to. After five days, we barely scratched the surface of what Rome had to offer.

While in Rome, we took a day-trip to Cassino. Both of my grandfathers fought in a nasty battle there in 1944. The Second Polish Corps was assigned the task of fighting their way up a mountain to the Abby of Monte Cassino. This was the fourth Allied attempt to take this spot from the Germans over four months. It was a very key place as its capture led to the capture of Rome a week later. One of my grandfathers either loaded or fired artillery (I can’t remember which). The other grandfather drove a truck. After seeing Italian drivers and taking a bus up the crazy mountain road, I think the truck driving was the more dangerous job. At the top of Monte Cassino was the lovely Abbey, completely restored, and a large monument/cemetery for the Polish soldiers. It was a nice way to spend my birthday.

Then we decided it was time to put some hustle in our bustle. It was well into July and we had places to go. We motored over the eastern coast to Italy (see drama outlined below and above). We took a 18 hour ferry from Brindisi, Italy to Patras, Greece. I thought of all those adventure tales about running away to sea. I was very into it for a while. We slept on the deck of the ferry, under the stars with exhaust from the stacks washing over us. I’m not sure if it was the rocking of the boat or the carbon monoxide that lulled me to sleep.

We are in Athens now. Like Rome, there is lots of cool, old, broken stuff. Tonight, it’s off to the Island of Naxos, then Rhodes and then Turkey.

Mar woke up.

“Where are our bags?”

Our day-packs were not on the floor where we had left them. We were on a train somewhere between Foggia and Bari, coming up to the eastern coast of Italy. The train was minutes away from pulling into some small town.

We had a booth to ourselves, one of those six-person jobs where three of you stare at another three. Since we had the place to ourselves, we crashed out on the two benches. Our big packs were locked to the luggage racks above. On the floor, our day packs were locked to each other, but not to anything solid.

When Mar noticed that the day bags were gone, I spent a few seconds wandering in and out of the booth. Since I’m never one to believe that someone would steal my stuff, I checked under the benches. Surprise, nothing was there.

Mar had actually seen the guy walk out of the booth. While I was in a daze, she walked down the car to see if she could see him. She was in bear feet. I slept with my shoes on.

Martha has a beautiful and very quick mind.

“Go that way and talk to one of the guys. Hurry, we are pulling into a station.”

I do not have a beautiful quick-thinking mind.

“What guy?”

“The train guy.”

“Right.”

By this time, I put it together: find the train guy/find the bags before the train takes off from the station. If not, the bags are really gone.

I walked down the train glancing in open booths as I went. I found the train guy two cars down.

“Our bags have been stolen,” I said in my best any-other-language-but-Italian.

He said, “Train?”

“No! Bags. Stolen.”

“Train?”

“No”

Charades time. I pointed to his bag.

“Bags…”

Then I made a grabbing gesture with both hands and finished the move off with my best tip-toe-the-football-into-the-endzone impression.

Train guy got the picture. We craned our necks out of the car, up and down the platform. There were only a few people getting off at this one meatball town, all of whom looked very law abiding. I was feeling desperate.

Then, the train guys made the universal noise for “There he is!” It seems the train exit for bag-snatching fuckers is not the platform but the tracks on the opposite side. The wise Italian train system makes both sides available at the station.

I yelled, “Those are our bags!” Can you tell I’ve studied too much Shakespeare? (Now thou hast slain me!) Thankfully the track-side door was open, so I lept from the train and ran across the train tracks without first looking both ways (sorry Mom). Shithead bolted. I sprinted after him out of the station. I shouted, “Stop that fuckerrrrrrrrr!” I think I’ve seen too many cop shows. Obviously that lady with the stroller hasn’t; she didn’t help out in the least as dickhead ran by. I followed him across some street without looking both ways (again, sorry) and up another. All I could think was, “ Stay on him.”

I don’t know what asshole was thinking when he lifted our bags. He was very good to place my glasses, which were on my bag, on the window sill. But for all his care, I don’t think he had a clues as what was in those bags. Now, I’m not a good packer and I like books—bad news for a travel-bag. Martha’s bag was reasonable: it had a digital camera and some odds and ends. But” to this bite-sized bag of booty was my nasty ballast: a journal, a notebook, a can of tuna, a jar of olives, a phrase book covering twelve languages, the mediaeval classic Gargantual and Pantegruel, the Lonely Planet travel-guide that covers every country in Europe, including Luxembourg and the latest copies of NME and The Ecomonist. So I was gaining on him.

Thankfully, numb-nuts fell hard on the road. I think he scraped his face. I gave him a good shove to the side. The shove was effective. I was surprised, as I’m sure those of you who know my level of pumptitude are also surprised. He gave some whiny protest. I think there was a cop walking (!) towards him. Maybe I should have left him my phrase book. It has “Do I have the right to a phone call?” and “Can I speak with my lawyer?” in twelve languages.

In my daydreams, I always imagine that I kick the crap out of the bad-guys. But I’ve never been in a fight. I don’t think I know how the kicking out of crap is done. I was dazed. I picked up the bags. There were people watching. The train guy was waving me back. Another train guy made me stop and look both ways before crossing the track. I gushed many breathless “grazie’s.”

There’s a moral here somewhere. I think it’s, “Read lots.”