4inworld – Quitting Suburban Life for the Unknown

Well, guys, I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now: a lot of life is just one big game of expectations vs. reality.

And that’s honestly one of the reasons we love to travel. What you think a place will be like—based on movies, guidebooks, or that one Instagram reel with dramatic music—is almost never what it actually is. Not necessarily better, not worse… just completely, weirdly, unexpectedly different.

Basically: you don’t know until you go.

And oh boy, were we about to learn that lesson a zillion different ways. Over and over. Sometimes gently. Sometimes like a frying pan to the face.

Hopefully, it’s something you’ve both learned too and something you have taken with you from our adventures…

You just don’t know… until you really, really know.

With that said, upon our arrival in Minturno train station what I had envisioned: stepping off the train into a charming little seaside town, where a lovely Italian woman named Beatricia would be waiting for us—maybe holding a sign with our name on it, maybe offering a warm smile and a cheerful “Benvenuti!” The sun would be shining, birds chirping, maybe a Vespa zipping by in the distance. We’d exchange pleasantries, she’d help us with our bags, and we’d stroll off together toward our picturesque new life.

What actually happened

We stood there on the platform—a narrow strip of cement dividing several train tracks—with our bags piled beside us. We were sweaty, overloaded, slightly dazed. No one else had gotten off at our stop—or if they had, they’d vanished like smoke.

It looked… like the middle of nowhere.

No Beatricia. No sign of anyone, actually. Just patchy concrete, the smell of hot metal, and the sudden silence left behind after our train roared away.

Then we noticed the actual station—about four tracks over, on the far side. A proper concrete platform, where presumably normal people disembarked like civilized human beings.

So, naturally, we decided to haul our stuff across the tracks.

We divvied up the bags—each person saddled with their assigned load—and prepared for the crossing like we were heading into a war zone. Honestly, it felt dangerous. Because in the few short days we’d been in Italy, we’d noticed how fast trains came barreling through stations, especially when they weren’t stopping.

Still, we “looked both ways” (as if that would actually help), jumped down from the platform, and started marching across the first track.

That’s when we heard yelling. Loud, frantic yelling—in Italian, obviously—and a whistle blowing. Repeatedly.

We couldn’t see where it was coming from, so we did what any completely overwhelmed tourist family would do: ignored it and kept going.

Then a man appeared. Sprinting toward us, waving his arms like a human air traffic controller and shouting his head off.

We stopped mid-track—now about two lines into our trek—and just stared at him, while also sneakily glancing left and right for any incoming death-by-train.

For a split second, I panicked—Are the tracks electrified? Are we about to be fried like pigeons on a power line??

We were closer to the far platform than to the yelling man, and we knew—we knew—we were doing something very, very wrong.

But we were also standing on live train tracks with two little kids, 300 pounds of luggage, and no clear escape plan. So we just… kept going. Because honestly? Finishing the illegal track-crossing was probably the safest thing we could do at that point.

I mean, yes, we were breaking rules, risking death, and being screamed at in a foreign language – but we were making our way toward safety.

That’s when another man came barreling toward us on the platform, looking like a train conductor straight out of the 1940s. Cap, vest, the whole vibe. He was red-faced, furious, shouting and pointing like we’d just tried to hijack a locomotive. A few moments later he was joined by the first yelling man, and the two were wearing matching uniforms and were equally furious with us. We figured out it was for crossing the tracks. Yeah, we got that…but Dad and I were completely baffled.

How the hell else were we supposed to get to the station? Fly? Leap?

We stood there, sweating and stunned, bags strapped to our backs like overloaded sherpas, trying to figure out why this was apparently the crime of the century. We took our tongue lashing – even though we were so confused as to how we could have made it right.

It would only be later that we’d realize: there were stairs.
Leading to a tunnel.
Under the tracks.

Ahhh yes. Much safer. Very civilized.
Super smart of you, Italians.

Would’ve been great to know that before crossing four active train lines like a bunch of morons!

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Communication Breakdown

We apologized profusely to the 1940s train conductors (in English, of course—of which they both understood exactly zero), and after they stormed off in disgust, we gathered what remained of our dignity and made our way to the actual station.

Now, we did have a smartphone – cutting edge at the time! but no SIM card. So it was basically a glorified calculator. A sleek, high-tech paperweight if you will. No GPS, no maps, no cell, no ability to actually use it as it was intended.

Our grand plan was to use a pay phone at the station – as instructed, to call Beatricia for our pickup.

Sounds simple, right?

Oh. Love. Of. God!

It was a complete shit show.

There was indeed a pay phone at the station – as promised. However, it was this hybrid of an old-fashioned pay phone with some higher tech functions. It was like a two in one phone – it was bizarre looking and something we had never seen before. The booth itself was dirty, covered in graffiti, but once inside the phone (dirty and sticky) was miraculously… functional. Or at least, it made a weird dial tone when we picked it up, which felt promising. There were other buttons and gadgets on the phone adjacent that seemed to be attached or something to the actual phone…it was all something that we were not familiar with, but there wasn’t a slot for coins. None. Just buttons and confusion.

The “instructions” (we think that’s what they were) were printed on a half-torn, sun-faded piece of paper that had been glued haphazardly to the bottom of the phone. It looked like steps. It was definitely in Italian. Which, to be clear, we did not speak.

So we did what any confused, overheated, possibly delusional tourists would do:
We lifted the receiver.
Pressed random buttons.
Hoped for a miracle.
Hung up.
Repeated. Many times!

Clearly, we were ignoring the “pay” part of pay phone, assuming it was somehow a free courtesy call to Beatricia or it was like the Bat phone where we just lifted the receiver and it automatically called this woman.

Each attempt led to beeps, static, angry error tones – or just… nothing. Finally, Dad noticed a tiny slot on the side of the phone machine thing and had a flash of insight: It needs one of those prepaid card thingies! It looked kinda like a credit card swiper…but it was a different size. A regular credit card wouldn’t fit in the slot. Believe me. We tried. It needed a special card thingy.

Which, of course, we did not have.

And had no idea where to get.

So we gave up on the platform and shuffled into the station to investigate further.

The train station was old – like, dust-covered-tile, ghost-of-Mussolini-era old. The ticket window was closed, the metal cage pulled down. There was a kiosk, the same kind that we got scammed at in Rome, but we weren’t after train tickets this time. We needed the mythical phone card. The card thingy.

Inside the station was a small café that looked like it hadn’t changed since the 1920s. A few elderly men sat at the counter, gulping an orange-colored liquid from mismatched glasses.

And then we walked in.

All four of us. Overloaded with backpacks, sunburned, shiny with sweat, visibly rattled. In a small, non-touristy town. In the off-season. It was the kind of entrance that probably prompted a call to someone’s cousin to exclaim “you are not going to believe what just walked in to this place”.

I’m pretty sure everyone in that café had witnessed our public shaming by the 1940s conductor and our tragic pay phone debacle. They had front-row seats to the hot mess express times four. Honestly, they were probably placing bets on what dumb tourist move we’d pull next!

So when we walked into the café – bags in tow, embarrassed and slightly defeated – it was no surprise that every head turned and conversation screeched to a halt.

We played it off and moseyed up to the counter like a band of dusty outlaws walking into a saloon.

Behind the bar stood a young guy—muscles, tight T-shirt, and a frown so permanent it may have been chiseled on. Mr. Frowny Muscles.

I smiled big, and asked with bold confidence:
“Parlo English?”

Yes. That’s how I said it. Not “Parla inglese?” English. Not the Italian word for English. Just English – idiot!

Mr. Frowny Muscles just blinked. Blank stare. Nothing. So, I thought I would try again. I can communicate this to him in Italian. Sure I can!

I leaned into the universal strategy of the clueless traveler: If you don’t speak the Italian, just slap an “o” on the end of your English words and go for it.

“Needo to use-o the phono?”
“Card-o? For the pay-o phono?”

Shocking absolutely no one, this approach did not work.

Mr. Frowny Muscles just kept staring. Somewhere between confused and vaguely offended.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure I may have invented an entire fake dialect of Italian that day – equal parts gibberish and a low-key linguistic offensive crime.

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Lost in Translation

Defeated by Mr. Frowny Muscles, we sulked back outside to the train platform and gathered in a protective circle. Dad had an Italian-to-English dictionary- I shit you not. A real, physical book. Pocket-sized. Glossy cover. He’d insisted on keeping it close like it was the holy grail, while I mostly rolled my eyes every time he pulled it out like some linguistic Indiana Jones. It turned out (as much as I hate to admit it to him) to come in super handy – often!

And this time, that tiny book was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

We stood there, watching Dad flip through that little dictionary like he was decoding the Da Vinci Code, trying to piece together a sentence for Mr. Frowny Muscles behind the café counter. It felt like time froze—Dad squinting, pages flipping, hopeful muttering.

He made not one, but two brave and painfully awkward attempts to communicate. We all shuffled back inside with him, stumbling through some mangled Italian while he thumbed through the book mid-sentence. Nothing. No reaction. Mr. Frowny Muscles didn’t budge.

Defeated, Dad would trudge back to the platform, dictionary in hand, his little loaded-down ducklings trailing behind. Zero progress. No card thingy. No mercy. Mr. Frowny wasn’t having it.

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A train pulled into the station.

Our life line had literally just arrived on rails! This was it. Our rescue party. Surely someone would come up those stairs (yes, the ones we now realized exist) and save us from ourselves and guide us to the card thingy and we would be on our way.

We stood there eyes wide, hoping for a magical solution in the form of a kind stranger. Passengers started to trickle up onto the platform – maybe five or six total – minding their business, briskly walking past the sweaty, wild looking, American family blocking their paths.

“Parlo Inglese?” (using the correct term) we asked, over and over, hopeful and slightly unhinged.

A young girl paused, nodded. YES.
We practically tackled her with relief.
We started rambling about the phone, the card thingie, Beatricia, being stranded, maybe now homeless. It came out in a flurry of half-English, half-panic. I think it was too much for her.

She stared at us blankly.

Then she gave a tight smile, shook her head, and just… kept walking. Like we were part of a performance art piece she wasn’t really into. I think she was willing to help until we acted like crazed lunatics!

So close. And yet, once again, so deeply screwed.

Time was ticking. Patience was dwindling. A resolution? Not even on the horizon.

We were sweaty, exhausted, stranded in a train station that seemed to exist in both nowhere and 1954 simultaneously. The two of you were slumped on top of the bags – hot, tired, bored, and starting to lose it. And who could blame you?

I guess the realization hit hard—there was no Beatricia waiting with a sign, smiling as a gentle breeze rustled her hair while birds chirped in cinematic harmony. That fantasy shattered right in my face.

It would take me time to really lean into situations and understand that having expectations – about a place, a moment, a person – is often just a setup for disappointment or stress. I needed to learn how to be more present, to relax. And I would learn that… eventually. But not yet. And definitely not in this moment.

My expectation versus our reality collided in the most brutal way—like a gut punch. Or worse—a gut and throat combo punch. The kind that knocks the wind right out of you.

Four giant backpacks. Two smaller rolly bags. Two small backpacks
Two sweet children who didn’t ask for this.

No working phone.
No card thingy for the ancient pay phone.
No English-speaking help.
No sign of Beatricia. No Fucking Vespas and No fucking signing birds!

I looked at the two of you – red-faced, sticky, silent in that “we don’t know what’s going on but it feels bad” kind of way kids always seem to just know – and I thought:

What the actual fuck are we doing to these kids?

Cue: Mom Meltdown – LEVEL 10!

Tears-in-my-eyes.
Voice going high-pitched.
Hands flying around.
Full spiral. Way worse than the Munich airport!

I shouted, “what are we doing? What are we even doing with this ridiculous idea? What made us think we could actually do this?” (It was way more “R” rated than that though)…

We’ve dragged our kids across the ocean, to a country where we don’t speak the language, to live in an apartment we booked on a website that honestly might be fake. We can’t even operate a pay phone. A pay phone for fuck sakes!
We don’t even know if this Beatricia person exists!
Do we just live at the Scauri train station now?!
What the fuck?
We are essentially homeless, useless, and dragging our children through this slow-motion implosion of a dream! – this is not how it was supposed to go.

I mean… we’d crossed an ocean for a fresh start. And now, here we were – being emotionally destroyed by a piece of public infrastructure from the fucking Roman Empire or some shit!

I don’t know if it was my full-blown meltdown – the tears, the swearing, the wild hand gestures – or the trauma on both of your faces – or maybe just his own breaking point, but Dad had finally had enough. He whipped out his imaginary hero cape (you know the one – it would make many appearances on this adventure) and marched into the café to face Mr. Frowny Muscles for the third time – dictionary in hand.

And this time?

Dad emerged victorious – card thingie in hand. For real.

I wiped my eyes, pulled myself together, and joined him at the phone. We inserted the card. Tried. Failed. Took it out. Put it back in. Pressed buttons. Repeated. Sixth try, seventh, and after more and more failed attempts later, with both of our heads practically glued together under the sticky, graffiti-covered pay phone—

RING.

A real ring. On the other end of the line.

We froze. Stared at each other. Hope flooding in.

And then –

A woman answered, bright and cheerful:
“Pronto!”

Dad leaned in. “Beatricia?”

“Si!” she replied.

He explained, as best he could, “We are at Scauri. At the train station.”
She spoke only Italian, but somehow, we knew: She was coming.
She existed.
She understood.
She was on her way.

Existential crisis: averted.
At least for now.

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