The Eleventh Day of Sisu – July 22nd, 2023

Daily Acts of Sisu:  trying to ask an older Italian woman for directions, advocating for myself and my flight in an insane throng of people at the airport

The 11th day of sisu.

Coming home. 

I was relieved to leave Italy. 

It had gifted me with some magical moments, some perspective, some peace.

But it had also been about one hundred times more stressful than the daily life I had been so excited to escape. 

It had been a lot.

Way more than a lot. 

Too much.

I was excited to sleep in my own bed, be in the comfort of my own home, not have to wash my clothes in the sink…it was going to be a good day.

But I was still worried. 

I still wasn’t entirely sure if or how many flights were leaving Catania. 

But I tried not to think about that. 

To live in the moment and say goodbye to the things I had loved about this city. 

So after one more free coffee from my hostel, I made my way out into the world.

Ready to leave, but excited to say goodbye.

There was a cafe that I sat at and loved and I speed walked my way back there. 

With a view of piazza il duomo, it was perfect. 

Recalling that my favorite hostel employed had strongly recommended trying arancini, I decided to order that along with my morning coffee.

I had also ecstatically devoured a calzone-looking wonder called cartocciata the other day so I ordered one of those as well.

My waiter tried to dissuade me from ordering both, saying of the arancino that “it’s big” and giving me a look to imply I shouldn’t order both.

But I am willingly hopping off the Tell Women What and How Much They Should Eat train at every opportunity so I kid you not, I replied, “GOOD. Let’s go.” 

Hard to hide an eyebrow raise of disapproval, but again, not going to be told by a man (or anyone) how much food I need or should want. 

Worth. Every. Moment.

Was I painfully full? Yes.

Was he maybe kind of right and perhaps even trying to help me? Maybe, but too late now. 

Truly a joyous breakfast and the arancino was easily one of the best foods I’ve ever eaten in my life. 

Phenomenal. 

Cannot recommend enough.

I am literally always there for cheesy carbs, but this one took the cake.

Wanting to get to the airport early, I decided to find the bus stop for the airport shuttle.

Now, my favorite hostel employee had given me incredibly clear directions to the bus stop, but I have this weird and often very annoying thing where someone gives me super clear directions and my mind is all, “what if we did this different thing instead?”

So of course I did that and got completely lost. 

But lo! What’s this?

In attempting to see if maybe my bus stop was down an alleyway, I attracted the attention of a lovely Italian grandmother. 

Clearly seeing I had no idea where the f*ck I was going, she asked me what I can only assume was, “Are you lost?”

Naturally I told her in English that I was looking for the bus stop for the airport shuttle and she responded that she had no idea what I was saying. 

Having traveled and learned languages for as long as I have, I find it quite easy and very useful to catch onto a couple of words that I think will help me.

Thus, I was able to tell her “bus stop” and “airport” in Italian along with the name of the bus company. 

Ahh!!

Even in Italian she was able to give me quite clear instructions on where the bus stop was, combined with accompanying hand gestures, but to prevent any further confusion she even WALKED ME TO THE BUS STOP.

I mean come on. 

Italians.

Fantastic people.

So helpful and kind.

Because after this trip I have major travel trust issues, I still asked three different bus drivers if they were going to the airport (even after looking up the schedule online and at the bus stop itself) before boarding the correct bus. 

Arriving three hours early to the smallest airport I’ve ever been in would normally sound like a complete waste of time, but being met with the chaos in Catania Airport, I was glad I did.

Absolute madness.

A completely packed airport with hastily erected tents outside for the spillover, I wasn’t sure if I would be getting out of Sicily after all.

This fear grew exponentially as I watched flight after flight get delayed, diverted, or canceled, often at the last minute. 

I wasn’t sure how the airlines expected someone to change flights to Palermo, a distance of over 200 kilometers, with less than an hour to spare, but I was equally sure this would happen to me. 

I settled in on an unoccupied space of dirty floor and spent the next two hours alternately reading my book, trying not to get stepped on, and frantically checking the board for updates.

As the last time I had called my airline help desk the woman recognized me and identified me by my booking number before I could even ask the question, I knew better than to call to see if my flight would be canceled. 

But still I worried. 

My panic peaked when I decided to finally join the throng of pushing, sweaty, angry passengers queueing up for security check. 

Straining my ears to listen to megaphoned announcements delivered exclusively in Italian, I tried to stifle my rising anxiety as time after time Amsterdam was not called. 

I even started desperately asking the Italians around me what the airport employees were saying, but even they didn’t always know. 

Luckily, in this mess I met a very kind local couple from England who lived nearby the airport. 

They told me they had taken a philosophical approach to the day and planned a day trip to the beach if their flight to Lourdes got canceled. 

Borrowing a bit of their calm, I tried to channel that mindset myself.

But eventually, ten minutes before the scheduled departure of my flight, I had to fight back down the bile rising in my throat and overcome my anxiety to push through layers of humans to ask what, if anything, was happening with my flight.

While I can see now how it wouldn’t have been the end of the world had my flight not taken off on time, at the time I had overspent my vacation budget by twice as much as I had planned and had spent the week living in stress and without everything I had packed for this trip.

I just wanted to get the fuck out of there and get home.

And by the grace of the travel gods I did.

After shoving my way to the front of the crowd and stretching my boarding pass into the face of the nearest airport employee, desperately asking, “AMSTERDAM?”, I was hit with immediate reply of, “Oh my god, yes! Go, go, go!”

Shooting back an apologetic look to my crowd mates, I ran under the security lane barriers and towards my gate, only to find out that my flight was delayed another thirty minutes.

Well, fuck it.

I may have been riding a chaotic roller coaster of high-level emotions, but at least I hadn’t missed my flight simply out of fear of advocating for myself. 

The tension rose again as our gate was moved but there was clearly some miscommunication between the airport employees and the bus drivers.

Having the boarding process halted yet again, my fellow passengers and I started worrying, the Germans around me cracking jokes about how for sure we were never going to board our flight. 

But FINALLY!

We made it.

I nearly started crying. 

The week was finally coming to an end and I could get back to my normal life and normal, far more lowkey, levels of anxiety. 

Bless.

Flying into Amsterdam was like being covered in a blanket of calm.

Amsterdam airport is my safe space, being the one place I always seem to fly into after flight disruptions. 

They welcome me home and often give me sandwiches (if you don’t fly KLM, please start!!) along my journey. 

I love it here.

And I loved it even more when a business team of Croatians started swearing up a storm about their current project behind md. 😀

Hey, I know those swears! 

Amazing. 

And finally, after the second most stressful day in Sicily, I made it home. 

The Tenth Day of Sisu

Daily Acts of Sisu: Going back to the Palermo airport to see if they have my luggage, staying calm when I want to break down, asking the waiter to charge my phone, asking a wonderful British girl how the beer tasted, surrendering to the universe and my lost luggage

Day 10: Friday, July 21st, 2023.

Back in Palermo.

I made the decision to come back to Palermo because I needed to do something.

I wanted to give myself, and give the universe, one last chance before I left Italy. 

One last chance to be reunited with my luggage. 

I’d been calling and emailing all week to no avail and I figured an in-person visit would be more effective. 

My initial experience in Palermo had been jarring to say the least. 

It was the city I had never planned to go to and also the place I found out my luggage was missing.

But it was also the place of gorgeous rooftop breakfast views and the best vegan blueberry croissant I’ve ever had in my life, Italy now being the home of the two best croissants I’d ever eaten.

Sorry, France.

So I decided to go back and I tried to prepare myself. 

Worst case scenario they won’t have it, but I can enjoy the day in Palermo. 

My favorite employee at my hostel had told me there wasn’t much to do in Catania and that was rining true.

Better to use my time wisely exploring all that Sicily had to offer than sitting around doing nothing. 

I had to try. 

I was able to enjoy this bus ride and reflected on how differently I felt when I last made this journey.

Eyes so puffy and painful I could barely keep them open, my heart scarred with the trauma of my trip. 

This time it felt easy.

I knew what I was doing, where I was going. 

I was able to remind myself how differently we experience travel, and life when we know what’s going on.

A terrifying time becomes a normal one.

An evil, scary place becomes familiar. 

I had experienced this before, the first time I’d traveled Europe, but it had been a while since I’d had a travel mishap and I had forgotten how consuming it can be. 

This time, transitioning from the bus terminal to the train station was seamless. 

It did help that they are next to each other, sharing a walkway, but of course it’s much simpler when you know that going into it.

I also had the added expertise of having used Tren Italia’s website to purchase my tickets to Taormina the day before so I was able to do the same to the Palermo airport whilst literally walking up and onto my train.

Wow, I thought. Okay. Maybe things are finally going well.

I did panic a bit that I had missed my stop and was now touring Sicily for fun, something I did not have funds for, but thanks to Google Maps and the EU roaming agreement, a quick check of my location diverted a minor heart attack. 

Once I got inside the terminal I lived the feeling of the music coming to a screeching halt when the main character in a movie realizes their mistake.

Oh, fuck.

I had been through and past the Catania airport on an almost daily basis since my arrival, but that still did not prepare me for Palermo.

I had flown in originally at night when only my flight and one other were landing. 

My memory of the place had thus been empty and underwhelming. 

Nothing like the midday high season mad panic that awaited me. 

I was shocked at how calm I was able to remain as I followed the signs to lost and found. 

I was both excited and relieved that I recognized the employee at the window.

After I explained to her my purpose, she helpfully directed me on the complex path of to their office (through security check? Are you sure??) and even scribbled some notes in Italian on my claim form.

The notes that I didn’t know I needed and would come to save me when English failed. 

Thank god for helpful Italians.

As she had seemed calmly confident about the necessity to enter security, I didn’t expect any resistance as I queued up with the least luggage I’ve ever had going through an airport. 

I felt oddly free even though it was my lack of luggage that brought me there in the first place. 

My presence, unfortunately, caused massive confusion and a major line build up as every security guard tried to figure out what the hell I was doing there with a boarding pass from several days ago. 

I felt very badly as I held up a huge line behind me, but Italian customer service would not let me leave the line as I found out every time I tried and was met with, “no, no, no, you are here” every time I tried to take my box of things and say, “maybe we let them go”, gesturing to the dozen or so people behind me. 

Eventually they did relent, but while I apologized profusely, security did not look too happy at this disruption of The Way of Things. 

After finally agreeing amongst themselves and consulting my Italian-scribbled note several times, the one man who spoke zero English whatsoever led me through to the airport to lost and found, much to the humor of his colleagues. 

Truly, I cannot express enough how kind Italians are, even when they cannot communicate with you. 

Which led me to my next kind, but unfortunately fruitless interaction. 

Back at the lost and found window for the second time, I actually had some great conversations with some very kind Americans.

I have a tendency to be wary of traveling Americans as I know we can be quite entitled compared to other tourists, but this gang was awesome. 

It helped to boost my spirits both talking to nice, chill people, but also being able to offer my own advice and experience on the situation and receive theirs in return. 

They also gave me some insight into the large quantity of not-my-bags that still decorated the lobby, indicating a greater failure of the Italian travel system that just the fire in Catania. 

When it was finally my turn at the window I was fully prepared to launch into my spiel of the story of my lost luggage, but had gotten no further than, “I was here on Monday” when the airport employee interrupted me with, “Yes! I remember you!” 

I remembered him as well, but his admittance was slightly more embarrassing for me as I had broken down crying in his office in the middle of the night. 

But, hey, at least it was a start. 

“Yes,” I said, “So, we’re back!” 

Saving time without having to explain the situation again, he took some time to check the system then led me around the airport.

I had just seen the two nearest sections of lost luggage, but came to find out more than 100 bags were sequestered around the airport, waiting to be reunited with their owners. 

It was an interesting dichotomy having a very pleasant chat about the woes of work life in high season for airport employees (two months of ten-plus hour days, each one filled with lost luggage and complaining customers) while managing my own internal emotional roller coaster each time we approached a new luggage stack.

I was honestly surprised at how well I was able to maintain my calm, as well as my good spirits after being met with one disappointment after another. 

Although I will say nothing was worse than when I saw my suitcase’s twin and ran across the aisle towards it only to find out it wasn’t mine at all.

I still checked it three times, just to be sure. 

Kind as he was, he still had to be the bearer of bad news as he told me he had no idea where my bag was, that it wasn’t in the system at all and therefore completely untrackable. 

I had to fight hard against the wave of emotions that washed over me, but as it wans’t his fault and there was nothing to do, I thanked him and turned away before my anger and stress could betray me. 

Nothing to do then but try to enjoy the day.

What I thought would be an uphill battle, and indeed, what my loved ones thought as well as I came to meekly realize, turned out not to be nearly as hard as it seemed. 

Making it back into the center of Palermo, I was able to comfort myself with the familiarity of the streets and make my way confidently to exactly where I wanted to go.

A hard feat considering the no-rules aspect of Italian traffic. 

How do you just have to walk out in front of all of them and they don’t hit you but also don’t really stop??? Terrifying.

But I made it. 

To the hotel I cried my eyes out on my first day.

To the dessert stand further on where I had a phenomenal cannoli for 3 euro.

Truly unreal. 

Italians are just giving away their coffee and delicious desserts. 

Deepest thanks. 

I had forgotten how eating a cannoli feels like the equivalent of eating a large lunch so while my plan had originally been to head to a cute restaurant for exactly this meal, I settled down for several large glasses of prosecco instead.

And my god.

Giving. It. Away.

Cheap and amazing food and drinks are the thing I love most about Italy.

 And while I assume it must be baffling for them as it is just their normal food, they have truly mastered everything in their repertoire and I will gladly give them all of my money.

I didn’t really explore much this day.

I sat in that restaurant, letting my phone charge, and just absorbed the day.

Read a good book, journaled, drank delicious sparkling wine.

Lived the Italian dream that made me want to come here in the first place.

I still wanted my luggage back. 

I was still broke in a country I had planned to enjoy a lot more than I was able to.

But finally, I had found my bit of bliss.

The Ninth Day of Sisu

Daily Acts of Sisu: Asking a woman on the train if I could sit next to her when everyone else just assumed the seat was taken because her bag was there, asking a janitor at the train station where the toilet is, “sprinting” across a thousand blazing hot knives of glass rocks to get to the water at the beach in Naxos, asking every waiter if I could charge my phone, trusting myself to find something beautiful 

Taormina. 

The day trip that saved my mood and overall mental health in Italy. 

I have to give full credit to the amazingly kind man at my hostel for this recommendation. 

I’ve gotten in the habit of just wandering around and have developed a weirdly fierce independence when it comes to traveling that is truly to my detriment. 

Call it years of being conditioned by Czechs that unless you speak someone’s native language fluently you can fuck all the way off if you must, but I have generally stopped asking for help and assumed I will be seen as annoying if I do so. 

I realized in Italy that I have developed an actual fear around this which will prevent me from asking for help even when I genuinely need it. 

And it is honestly a shame because so many Czech people, especially millennials and gen z are rad as hell and would gladly help someone or offer them advice on where to go and what to see while traveling around. 

And yet. 

Customer service doesn’t really exist here, especially for non-Czechs and non-Czech speakers. 

To be honest it is one of the contributing factors to why I gave up on Czech, confusing as it may be. 

I didn’t want to get further ingrained in a culture I didn’t see as welcoming. 

As you can imagine, I’ve really fucked myself here as I’ve let my level of Czech fall to a level that basically ensures I won’t get help in any situation.

But I digress. 

Realizing very quickly this aversion to asking for help would leave me homeless and helpless in southern Italy, I had no choice but to overcome it and was genuinely shocked with the experiences I did have.

Time after time, even people who barely spoke a word of English went out of their way to help me.

I did my best to use the few Italian words I know (please, thank you, etc.), but even my getting close to the word I wanted or somehow indicating what I needed, every Italian I encountered was ridiculously helpful.

After several days of living the Murphy’s Law of traveling and stress crying more than I have in the past year, I decided to take the beach day trip suggestion if only to try to create some peace and joy in my life during an otherwise hellish week.

All I can say is that it worked.

I live for the water, I always have. 

When I lived in California and had a hard day or even just a small problem I couldn’t see a solution to, I would go to the beach and sit by the water, staring out at the Pacific and waiting for guidance.

I would often find it. 

So I knew that while my week had started out far worse than I could have imagined, the sea would do me good. 

I decided to commit the day to it and, again upon recommendation, took the train to Taormina as I was told (correctly so!!) that it would drop me off directly at the beach whereas the bus would take me instead up to the town, about a 25 minute walk away. 

One of the things I love the most about Italy is cheap (really fucking good!) coffee everywhere. 

Bearing that in mind I headed straight to the train coffee shop before my 8am trip to Taormina and enjoyed a delightfully inexpensive double cappuccino. 

Energized and ready to go, I quickly discovered that no amount of coffee in the world could prepare me for the Hunger Games-esque mad dash onto the train.

After the week of stress I had already been experiencing, I started to panic. 

Fuck. Of fucking course I would book a relaxing day trip to the beach and end up not having a space on the train. Fucking of course.

But as we crowded onto the train like it was the last escape from a plague-ridden city, I noticed something quite interesting and possibly to my advantage. 

While there were almost no seats available, everyone seemed to be looking down at the one seat with a bag on it and walking straight past. 

As I prefer to travel next to women than men due to a lifetime of creepy experiences, I thought this seat was the ideal option for me. 

Worst case scenario, the woman who owned the bag would tell me her friend/partner/child was in the bathroom and coming right back, but no one else was even asking so I went for it and immediately she moved her bag and allowed me to sit.

Things were looking up! Maybe there was something to this whole assumption people won’t verbally attack you if you stand up for yourself and your needs thing. 

Huh. Who would’ve thought?

That successful experience fresh in mind, I decided to speak up for myself again upon arrival to Taormina. 

I have a travel motto (that I also take into trail running) of “use the bathroom whenever you can”. 

Assuming that there will be some later, equally good restroom option has fucked me on multiple occasions.  

That being said, I figured it would be easier to ask the janitor than continue wandering around not finding it. 

Again, a wonderful Italian man who didn’t speak English, but still did a fantastic job directing me to exactly where the bathroom was.

Huh. 

Turns out you can actually ask for help and receive it rather than being yelled at by someone because they don’t speak English.

Truly such a treat! 

Naturally, as soon as I got to the bathroom I had the world’s hardest time actually getting into the bathroom because I walked right past the token machine without seeing it and spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out why my 50 cents wasn’t the same size and shape as the machine at the door that was asking me for 50 cents. 

Hilarity ensued as I turned around and realized my mistake. 

But look! Finally made it!

This trip to Taormina was exactly what I needed. 

A chance to forget the stress of the week and the fact that I had most likely lost the vast majority of my most treasured clothing and personal items. 

Floating in the sea and just being in the glory of the moment. 

Finally experiencing the exact thing I had wanted from this trip all along. 

A feeling I truly cannot put into words except for peace. 

A reprieve from the chaos of this holiday. 

It made me reflect and relax in a way I so desperately needed and gave me the opportunity to actually fully and genuinely enjoy myself for the first time on this trip.

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that the running theme in the Italian section of my quest for Sisu is asking waiters to charge my phone. 

Again, this can be tied back to the intersection of my lost luggage and the hostility I have come to expect from Czechs. 

Now, to be fair, I have never actually asked a Czech waiter if I can charge my phone, but from my experience living and dining here I don’t imagine they would be thrilled about it, if they would even agree.

But upon recognizing that Italian customer service is even more in favor of the customer than American and that my charging cable for my portable phone charger was lost in the ether along with my checked bag, I decided it couldn’t hurt to ask. 

The last thing I needed on this trip was to be lost without a phone. 

I truly do not think I could have handled the stress as the experiences I did have pushed me so far outside my zone of tolerance that I felt physically ill much of my time in Sicily. 

And each and every waiter I asked accepted this request as if it was perfectly normal. 

It was something I had remembered from my first trip to Italy years prior.

The sheer competition between neighboring restaurants for your business and the shouted offers of free wine, wifi, and places to charge your phone, not caring if you were there for 30 minutes or three hours. 

Despite the travel hassle, there are many things I love about Italy, this being one of them. 

After taking a break from the heat to have a beer and charge my phone, I walked further into Naxos (the neighboring town from Taormina) and decided to check out the beaches there. 

I had been blessed in the morning with a mostly empty beach, but these beaches looked even nicer and at 36 degrees, the sun was begging me to go back to the water.

Bring on my next Sisu-related challenge.

From above, the beach I found looked like a pleasant, sandy beach which I thought would be a nice change from the rocky beach I had enjoyed in the morning. 

I got so excited about going back in the water that it hadn’t even occurred to me that I was now back on the beach during the hottest part of the day and that what had looked like sand was actually millions of tiny rocks that, wouldn’t you know, had been heated to a thousand degrees by the beating sun.

It wasn’t until I was walking, then trying to run, to the water’s edge that I realized that they were also as sharp as tiny butcher knives.

I may have literally had to stay in the water until the throbbing pain from the soles of my feet subsided, but I did actually enjoy this beach as well. I would just recommend water shoes. 😀 

I finished the day in a beachside restaurant that should have easily cost me double what I paid.

With a view like this and dinner and half a liter of wine for €‎30 including a generous tip, the day ended on the highest note I experienced in Italy. 

It’s truly incredible how restorative a positive experience can be during a hard week. 

The Eighth Day of Sisu

Daily Acts of Sisu: Walking to Lidl in 38 degree heat to get snacks, checking out the beach even though I had nothing to experience it with, going to the Catania airport to ask directly for my luggage, asking several airport employees for help even if I wasn’t sure they would understand me, asking the security guards to charge my phone, trying to figure out Italian transport on my own, Getting an Uber to the airport when everything else was just too hard, admitting I was struggling, booking a trip to Taormina because I deserve to enjoy myself even in hard times, going to get clothes from H&M even though I wanted to just go back to my hostel and cry, going back to my hostel to eat and chill even though I wanted to go drown my sorrows in beer, washing my clothes in the sink so that I would have something clean to wear

Breaths of fresh air. 

Forcing myself to explore.

Enjoying some very good food and even better buildings.

The stress of the first 24 hours of travel still hung heavy on my shoulders, but I travel to experience new things and I didn’t want to let that stand in my way.

I was surprised how much my knees hurt walking around, but to be fair, I did walk a lot. 

I like to think in these moments how good of training this is for future ultras which definitely helps keep my motivation and spirits up.

By this point in my trip I had gotten quite used to the heat, although it was quite aggressive. 

I just couldn’t bring myself to hide at my hostel for half the day and hope it go cooler.

I had to do some hard things on this day. 

I had already tried emailing and calling about my lost luggage, but I couldn’t just sit around and wait. 

I like to take action and that’s exactly what I did. 

The employees at the lost and found office in Palermo had told me that they would send my luggage to Catania on the next available flight so while they hadn’t answered my emails, I hoped and assumed that my luggage would have already made it to Catania. 

After a full morning and early afternoon of walking around Catania, I thought it might ne a good idea to catch the bus to the airport.

It was, after all, 38 degrees outside.

How hard could the bus system be? I live in Europe after all.

Well after about ten minutes of walking around and toggling between the local transport app and Google Maps, too hard to figure it turns out. At least for me and my overheated stressed out brain. 

Uber it is. 

At this point in the trip I was in an almost constant state of stress with how much money I was spending trying to get my luggage back and replace what I had lost, but I also just needed to do something and as I couldn’t bring myself to walk across three lanes of a busy Italian highway just to find the bus stop, I had to give up and call a ride for my mental (and probably physical) health. 

To be honest, I’m so glad.

Not just to reduce the stress I was feeling, but because my Uber driver was easily the nicest person I met in Italy. 

Barely spoke a word of English but did his best to start up short conversations when he could and maintained a friendly smile and demeanor the entire time. 

Almost everything made me cry in Italy, both the stress and the kindness in equal measures. 

It was a time of extremes and I couldn’t stay in one place long enough to get comfortable. 

Neither mentally nor physically. 

But I am still grateful for all of it. 

At the time it was horrible and I raged and stressed and cried against it. 

It was not pretty.

I apologized to the people supporting via text more than once. 

I didn’t like the versions of me that were on display, but I couldn’t seem to stop it.

I learned a lot on this trip, both about myself and about travel and while the darkness wasn’t pretty, I think we sometimes need the light shined upon it.

Back at the airport, I finally saw exactly why my flight had never made it there. 

While the news was reporting a “small fire”, to me it looked like a bomb had gone off in my intended terminal.

Oh.

Okay then. 

So now what?

Naturally I went to the only open terminal and was immediately assaulted by chaos. 

Fuck.

Not wanting to get in the way of everyone scrambling for their flights or those who had clearly already given up and were sleeping on the floor, I looked around for anything that might remotely resemble a lost and found.

Finding nothing, I decided to practice my confidence and ask an employee. 

Predictably, the woman I asked spoke almost no English, but was able to tell me to go to Terminal B.

I profusely thanked her, grateful at least to have a place to go and one step closer to my bag, or so I thought.

But as soon as I got outside and walked past the fire-shut terminal, I ran out of buildings to go to. 

Okay…

I asked the next visible worker if she knew where Terminal B was and she told me in broken English that Terminal B did not exist.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck no please don’t cry, we can do this. 

My emotions barely regulated, I attempted to relay what I had been told and what I was looking for without my voice breaking. 

While she didn’t seem to understand most of what I was saying, her face lit up at the words “lost and found”.

Finally! A way to help! 

She carefully tried to explain to me where to go for which I was endlessly grateful.

Back on the right track!

While she had used the word “place” I had wrongly assumed she meant building, but just didn’t know the word for it, so when I came to a security guard hut I was more than a little confused. 

Again, I repeated why I was there and what I was looking for and was told that “for now, this is lost and found”.

I tried not to let the hope fall from my face as there was a small crowd gathered around and I had brought both a book and a bagful of snacks. 

Prepared, I thought. 

Show strength, show courage. 

Build up your resilience. 

After about an hour I started to get a bit more worried and a little more impatient in the 38 degree heat, although my hope remained as I continued to see travelers leaving with their luggage. 

In the spirit of courage and confidence, I asked the guards to charge my phone and they graciously agreed. 

Another hour later and it was finally my turn.

Don’t worry, I told myself. This all will have been worth it when you leave here with your luggage. Never mind the wait, never mind the stress, extra expenses, and sunburn. You will have your things.

Knowing I didn’t speak Italian, the guard who let me charge my phone even went with me to speak to the warehouse workers who were responsible for locating lost luggage. 

As they lowered the massive door to the building, I stayed on the outside, happiness and hope filling my heart. 

I could have cried in that moment.

Finally.

But each time the door raised, the fear grew. 

Something was wrong.

Finally the kind man who was helping me came out, without my bag, looking concerned.

Shit.

After asking if I spoke either Italian or French and being answered in the negative, he made to flag down a colleague who spoke English.

The start of this interaction set me off on the wrong foot as the man he was calling out to (from a distance of about three feet) did his level best to completely ignore him. 

Not a great sign.

When he finally turned and aggravatedly acknowledged our presence he quickly turned to me and told me my luggage was in Palermo.

I wanted to stop time, to rewind to the moment before when I still had hope.

No. Not again. Please.

The conversation did not improve, neither with additional helpful information nor a kind attitude.

As I tried to ask questions or find out more information, his patience wore thin within seconds and told me in kinder words to fuck off and that he would contact me if he received my luggage, a sentiment I found hard to believe.

I made my way back to the only open terminal like a dead body, trying not to cry and losing the battle. 

Nearly dropping my phone in the toilet I almost screamed at whatever god or power of the universe exists.

Haven’t I been punished enough?

I was already deeply regretting coming on this trip and each day, each moment seemed to get worse. 

The moment things started looking up, the immediately worsened again.

It was fine to read about the Buddhist path to happiness or Finnish sisu, but when your entire life is completely fucked in the present moment, none of that really matters, does it?

I forced my way through the thick evening heat to the train station, mind a swirl of darkness and hate. 

Fuck it, I thought. I’ll just go to a bar when I get back and drown my sorrows in beer. It’s the only thing that will help me feel better now and I don’t think anyone could blame me.

But as the train rattled towards the station, the heat wore off my anger and it became harder to convince myself that drinking my pain away was a good idea.

Damn you personal growth reading! 

Bitterly, I made my way to H&M for the second time this week so that at least I would have something to wear to the beach the following day.

After a snappy, short interaction between myself and a salesperson that I’m not proud of, I left the store in tears and walked the few blocks back to my hostel completely dejected to shower and wash the day’s clothes in the sink.

I felt nothing but small and went to bed with the tiniest available hope for a better day tomorrow.

The Seventh Day of Sisu

Daily Acts of Sisu: resting, waiting for the later bus to give me a chance to explore the city, accepting help and trying desperately to believe I deserved it

I think it can be very hard when you’ve fallen into a limiting mindset to come back out of it. 

Your thinking becomes narrow.

It’s easier to see yourself as a victim. 

It’s harder to see a way out. 

It can feel like an attack, even, when someone else does.

You stop looking for solutions and only want to receive validation of why you can’t live any better than you are.

See how fucked everything is? 

I believe in the power of complaining, of venting it all out. 

I think we need to do what’s next.

That necessary next step of finding a way out of our struggles.

Of empowering ourselves to affect change.

We need to eradicate our frustration, to transform that energy into something useful so that it won’t stay inside us and fester. 

It all comes back to the reason I started this challenge, the reason I picked up this book in the first place.

I want and need to work on my mindset. 

To live in everyday life the way I show up inside an ultramarathon. 

With unwavering belief that I can do the impossible. 

That my success is already predetermined and that I am just catching up to it. 

But in Sicily I found this strength nearly impossible to access.

I was pushed so far and fast outside of my comfort zone, out of my zone of tolerance, that I felt like I just couldn’t. 

It was one thing after another with brief respites into normalcy.

Positivity even.

But the strength of the tide moved my focus in favor of the struggle. 

The problems.

The impossibility of it all.

I told him in the darkest moments that it was a mistake to come here.

That maybe I shouldn’t go on birthday trips anymore. 

That it wasn’t worth it.

An extravagance that I somehow thought I deserved that was now blowing up in my face.

No matter that I am far the only person to experience travel woes. 

No, bring it back to me.

I am the only one and I am suffering. 

It’s funny how self-centered our struggles can make us.

But he held strong, a calm in the storm I’ve gotten used to.

Yes it sucks, yes it’s hard, but do what you can then tomorrow, do more.

Fight this.

Without the support that poured in from all aspects of my life, I think I would have wallowed.

It’s a pattern I’ve developed. 

Maybe we all have it to varying degrees.

Feel sorry for ourselves until we get sick of ourselves and have to do something about it. 

The biggest challenge for me on this day was to accept the offer of a very expensive night in a hotel. 

A bed to sleep in. 

Rest.

A shower to take, breakfast to eat. 

There really is no one like mom when it comes to support. 

Allowing myself to just take a breath for a moment rather than spending the night huddled in the lobby in my tears, escaping as the light of day graces the city of Palermo. 

So I took the rest. Tried to swallow my anxiety and see if there just wasn’t something to see while I waited for the next, later bus to arrive.

And I loved it. 

With eyes so puffy and painful they could barely stand the light, I bore witness to the waking of Palermo.

The beauty of the buildings, the chaos of the city in motion, in complete disregard of generally accepted traffic rules.

I breathed it in, yes even the foul odors of the trash-lined streets, and I appreciated this gift I had been given.

These lifelines of support that my family and friends gave willingly and without thinking. 

And again I wondered if doing things my way, the harder way, the narrow-minded way, wasn’t keeping me stuck. 

I wondered the city and felt my smile again finding its home upon my face. 

An easy joy I’ve always had access to.

I thanked the man who would not let me fall off the edge, who would have let me stay in that lobby, weeping and charging my phone, desperate and done, and I caught the bus to Catania. 

The place I was meant to go all along.