Miraculously, Keira made it to the busy train station in Naples without incident. She was almost surprised when she made it there in one piece, having navigated her way successfully, without getting lost. Or mugged.

But now she was confronted with a new hurdle, and that was the confusing train station itself.

If the main streets of Naples had seemed busy and noisy to her, they had nothing on the crowded conditions of the station. It felt to Keira as though every single resident and their grandma had decided to take a train today. She was jostled around, shoved, elbowed, and cursed at (in Italian, thankfully, so she couldn’t understand the extent of the rudeness). Babies squealed. Dogs barked. Armed police officers paced around with menacing expressions making Keira feel just that little bit more on edge.

And it wasn’t just people she had to contend with. Keira was quite confident she saw a rat scuttle past her.

All the display screens were in Italian but she recognized the place name she was looking for and went up to the ticket machine. Unlike the machines she was used to back home, this one didn’t have options to select different languages so she had no choice but to struggle through with the Italian directions. She used her translation app on her phone to help, something that seemed to cause the queue behind her to grow extremely impatient and disgruntled.

“I’m sorry,” Keira said over her shoulder. “Scusi. Scusi.”

Just then, someone fought their way to the front of the queue and stopped beside her. Not her Romeo, sadly, but a young man in glasses giving off a studenty vibe.

“Need help?” he asked.

“Please. I just need a ticket to Salerno,” she told him.

“A day return? Or are you traveling for longer?”

“One way, actually. I’m not coming back.” She said the last statement with a tone of perhaps too much relief. She hoped the kind stranger didn’t pick up on it. She wasn’t trying to insult anyone.

“Okay,” the stranger said, punching some buttons on the screen. “Get your wallet. Are you paying card or cash?”

Keira rummaged through her purse for her wallet and pulled it out. She didn’t want to get into a situation whereby she was fumbling with foreign currency, further holding up the impatient queue behind her, so just used her personal card to pay. She was sure Heather would let her claim it on expenses at a later date.

“Okay, the ticket will pop out here,” the young man said once Keira was done punching in her PIN. He pointed to a slot at the bottom of the machine.

Keira put her wallet back inside her purse and crouched down to collect the ticket from the slot. Once she’d fished it out, she straightened back up.

“Thanks for all your help,” she said. But the stranger had already gone. I guess he was in a hurry, Keira thought.

Paying it no more attention, Keira pulled her case through the crowds in the direction of the platforms. She found the gate she needed. Several failed attempts to scan her ticket later—during which she realized she’d been trying to put it into the machine upside down and back to front—she finally managed to get the gate to open. As she heaved her case through, someone shoved into her back, making her stumble.