Viva Liberazione!

I arrived in Cefalu around 5pm, after another boat & train transportation day that started at 10am. I headed straight to the rental agency to check in and pick up the keys to my apartment. After checking in, a boy brought me to the apartment and reviewed everything in it. He showed me where all the dishes were stored, how the lights worked, and how the washing machine worked. Then he was off. The apartment is amazing. It is the top floor unit of a building basically on the beach. There isn’t anything in front of me so I have an unobstructed view.
There is a great terrace with chairs too. That is why I chose the place. That and the screaming deal. I was so excited to be here. The town looks incredibly cute too.
I decided that I would take care of business first. I needed to go to the bathroom and then I would head to the grocery store and pick up some supplies. I wanted to celebrate my great spot.
I popped into the bathroom and shut the door. It didn’t shut so I pulled the door shut. I don’t know why. I’m the only one here.
I did my business and then went to leave. The door handle just spun. It wouldn’t engage and open the door. I thought maybe it had come loose and needs to be turned a few times in one direction and it would tighten up. I tried that and it didn’t work. Okay, no problem. I’ve been able to open doors with a driver’s license. I don’t have my purse with me though. I surveyed the bathroom and there is Nothing. All I see is a cardboard box with a hairdryer in it. I pull off a flap of cardboard and try that on the door. It’s too soft and bends too much. I try pulling the door handle or twisting it. I move it in all sorts of directions. Nothing. Okay. I’m starting to worry.
Door hinges. Right. I could pull those out when I was a little girl. I put my fingers around one of them and it’s covered in rust. All the sea air has rusted them completely. Okay. Starting to worry more. How am I going to get out of here? I go to the window. All Italian windows have shutters on the outside. I can’t open the shutter portion of the window. The handle is also rusty and incredibly stiff. I am really worried. No one knows me here. The agency won’t check on me. They won’t notice anything until the day I check out which is a week from today. I am incredibly tired, hungry, and still fighting this stupid cold/cough. At this point, the thought does cross my mind that I could spend the entire week in this bathroom.
Now, I’m really mad. I just got here. I’ve literally been here for 10 minutes. This place is exactly what I was wanting and I’m stuck in the bathroom.
I go to the window again. I adjust the shutter slates to open and I see a man on the balcony, across the street, at the same level as me. I don’t know what else to do so I start to yell to him in my most polite Italian. “Scusi! Auito! Auito!” It takes him awhile to see me threw the shutters. “La porta in il bagno, non funzione!” This is all I got. I really don’t know what else to stay or more importantly how to say it. I yell “il solo” and repeat my statement again. He’s acts like “what do you want me to do”. I yell again, “parlo un poco Italiano” and repeat my statement. I tell him that there is another person on the first floor, thinking he’ll ring their bell and maybe they can let him in the building or help or something. He kind of has this look like, “oh man, do I have to”. He begrudging leaves his balcony and heads down to the first floor and across to my building.
In the meantime, I am racking my brain for the name of the company I rented from. It was a vrbo.com rental that is managed by an agency and I can’t think of the name. I’m starting to think that the only option is to tell them the address of the agency and hope they are willing to go there for me.
I look out the window again and there is a woman on the balcony below the guy who’s helping me. She starts rapidly speaking to me in Italian/Sicilian. It sounds a bit like she’s yelling (which it does most of the time). Sicilian sounds like an auctioneer speaking Italian with marbles in their mouth. I tell her I only know a little Italian. She makes some motion about my hands sticking out of the shutters. She does this a lot. I copy it once because I thought maybe they needed to see what floor I was on. Then I start to think that she thinks my hands are stuck. I repeat my same sentence to her a few times. She rapid fires Sicilian at me again. I have no idea what she is saying. I lose it. I just start sobbing. I don’t know if anyone is helping me. I can’t understand anyone and they can barely understand me. I’m exhausted, sweaty, hungry, and sick.
She can tell I’m sobbing and seems to mellow out. She’s still trying to tell me something but I can’t understand her.
I keep trying to get the stupid window open too figuring that it will give me more air and maybe more access to yelling at other people on the street. Maybe someone down there speaks a little English and we can work this out with both languages.
I finally get the window open and it is a huge, huge help. I think the woman across the street things I’m going to crawl out of it though. She gets a little more worried and concerned and rattles more Sicilian at me. I don’t understand any of it and I tell her. She gives the Italian hand gesture of two hands forming a triangle that you motion back and forth near your stomach. This isn’t a good gesture.
She is talking to people in my building on the floors below me now. I can’t see them. She says to them that she thinks I’m French. Ha! I understood. She says some more and I understand “agenzia” and “aspetta”. Ha!! They telephoned the agency and I just need to wait. Yeah!!! I didn’t think you were going to help me!!
Then this man leans out of his window, one floor below me and speaks to me in English that it’s okay and the agency is coming. I’m saved!! I want to cry again.

The agency boys arrive and the first one is very young and opens the door for me and then proceeds to come into the bathroom and close it behind him with me still in there. I guess he wants to see what’s going on. Normally, I would have freaked but I could hear another person coming up behind him. I should have hit the kid though. I think he thought he was funny. The other guy comes and opens the door. I run out. They start talking and working on the door to fix it. They are having a grand time and I am just so excited to be out of the bathroom. They fix it and ask me to come into the bathroom to check. No thanks. I believe you. I won’t be closing the door all the way anymore anyway.
I hear the neighbors downstairs yelling for me. I don’t know how I figured that out. I can’t even remember what they said. This is the same man who leaned out of the window and told me in English that it was going to be okay. I ran down there and told them all thank you and shook their hands. I wanted to hug them but I didn’t know if it was appropriate. I wanted to cry again too. They asked if I wanted coffee and I didn’t, but I said “yes”. I went into their home. It was the man and his wife and the neighbor from the first floor. They all retold their stories of hearing me. The wife of this man offered me her homemade strudel that I didn’t need, but I said, “yes” to having a piece. I learned my lesson in Rome, that you never refuse an Italian woman’s food. Plus, it was their way of making me feel better and I gladly accepted those terms.
I told them I had only been here 10 minutes. They spoke in Italian/Sicilian and an occasional English word here and there. The boys that were fixing my place came down when they were done and had coffee and cake too. Of course everyone knew everyone. They young boy is trying to set me up with the older agency representative, Stefano. He keeps asking me what I’m doing that night and if I’ll be in the piazza. At this point, I’m exhausted and tell him I don’t know what my plans are yet.
The strudel maker kept saying that it was “liberazione” and we had to have cake and coffee to celebrate. I agreed!
I don’t think I’ve ever been stuck like that before at least not in a foreign country or in a situation where the chances of getting out felt very slim. I was really, really worried and didn’t know how it was going to resolve itself. I’m so thankful that man was on his balcony watching the people go by. I’m so glad that Italians are the types of people who get involved, talk loudly, and help out. Lastly, I’m so thankful to the man downstairs speaking those few words to me in English, “you are okay”. I felt so good that they brought me into their home and shared their food with me. I feel that I have friends in Cefalu and in this home away from home.
I saw my friends/neighbors tonight as I was walking to the internet cafe. They live in Palermo and just come to Cefalu on the weekends. They will be back on Friday and will call me. It felt so nice to think about someone in this little town being that nice, friendly, and sweet to me. I'm looking forward to seeing them again.