Monopoli

I hop off the bus, throw open the hatch, dig out my backpack and... Phew.  My trusty Flip cam in there.  We hop another train and it's onto Ostuni. The train is smaller and traveling south along the coast. There no conductor and as we reach the time when I was suppposed to arrive in Ostuni, 5 hours from Rome, I am worried I missed my stop.

A few weeks earlier to conserve money for this trip I switched to Boost Mobile's basic $50 per month service.  I find myself kicking myself for not sticking with my Blackberry Verizon phone as I have no way to know where I am and can't call the resort to know if the delay with crazy bus detour is going to mean I am going to be stranded if I am in fact on the way to Ostuni.  Finally I tell myself to shut the hell up and that it will all work out somehow.  Enjoy the Italian countryside, bitch.

Amazing little cities pass by the train window and we are now 45 minutes late.  I figure if we keep going south the end of the line I can always backtrack and make my way to Ostuni again if I missed it.  We pass an amazing town I want to visit on another trip.  Beautiful architecture that looks like giant layered tiramasu in a town called Monopoli.

It looks like a paradise.  A paradise I've never heard of before where life goes on every day without ever a thought about we people working like slaves to a dream that died a while ago.

Then Monopoli is gone and I wonder why I was ever worrying about making it to Ostuni.