The Bullet Train to Naples

July 27th, Urth Caffé, Orange, CA

The music is inconspicuous, a light and steady beat humming underneath the voices of strangers. At the cold, clean, marble bar sits a couple, so serious in their business linens, never smiling, just typing away like there’s no tomorrow. A pair of teenagers sits to the right, laughing and filming each other making silly faces. One is dressed like the threat of Y2K still looms above our heads. A girl who looks ready to climb a mountain walks in, clutching her dog with its soft, curly black hair in her arms. She sits down with her friend and tells her she wants her life to be about spending time with beautiful people.

I like that sentiment.

There is a giant copper hood coming through the skylight, braced into place by some thick support beams. It looks like something that would hang in a vast Italian kitchen, somewhere in the Tuscan hills. The base of the island is decorated with happy tile, all white and vibrant-hued blue, with traces of a soft and delicate yellow throughout. It, too, looks like it came straight from Italy, but this time from the narrow alleyways of Capri, guiding us North, South, East, and West as we navigated the island. If I close my eyes, I can feel the cobblestones beneath my feet and smell the limoncello and taste the crisp white wine on my tongue.

I often think of that beautiful week in Italy. In spite of the fear of getting into Naples at midnight and the panic of not having a bed to lay in when we reached Sorrento at two in the morning, it was still one of the most beautiful weeks of my life. Wandering through Rome with people I’d never met before. Navigating a foreign train system at eight o’clock at night, mentally preparing to spend the night in a McDonald’s booth. Fresh pasta and sharp, salty olives and pizza with ham and mushrooms and house wine that sends bubbles all throughout your body.

Bone-crushing reunion hugs in hostel courtyards while sipping coffee and warming butter between our hands to spread on our toast. Climbing around Capri, completely exhausted with full packs on our backs, taking in the sun and the crystal blue water. Smelling the lemony-sweet perfume, but being too afraid to buy it in case they wouldn’t let you on the ship with it.

The way that Italian man, who didn’t have a lick of English, lit up when I said “Bruce Springsteen.” And how the teenagers we volunteered with bought us coffee and croissants and asked us who “A” was on “Pretty Little Liars.” Practicing my rough Italian with the girls in their house in the village on the hill while they fed me pasta and baked chicken and straight espresso.

Buying myself a cappuccino and sitting at a table, not unlike what I am doing today. Sitting in a cafe, by myself, but not alone. Drinking a fancy latte that definitely cost me more than two euros.

Italian opera is playing through the speakers now. People are dining and talking and working and catching up with old friends. I’m in a completely different place, but at the same time, I never really left that little bar in Italy.

I never left the streets of Capri.

I never left the bullet train to Naples.

If anything, I just stepped back onboard.