“Bienvenuto in Italia,” said the airline greeter.

Then she air-kissed both my cheeks.

We deboarded our plane in the Fiumicino Airport at 1 a.m., US Eastern Standard Time. Although it was mid-morning in Rome, so my internal clock was all screwed up. I couldn’t have been more disoriented if I’d awoken with my face sewed to the carpet.

Almost everyone we met spoke English. So we were in business, language-wise. We had no problem getting around.

We traversed the massive airport, searching for anything to eat because we were starving; all we had been served on the flight were four strands of gnocchi pasta, and one unidentified brown vegetable that looked, more or less, like it had fallen out of a diaper.

We found a restaurant in the food court. And I was noticing the Fiumicino airport doesn’t feel all that different from an airport in, say, Milwaukee. All the signage was in English. All the people spoke English, most a Midwestern American dialect. Everyone was wearing Packers T-shirts and calling their spouses Harold.

“Where are all the Europeans?” I asked the server in our authentic Italian airport restaurant.

“Beats me,” he answered. “Thank you for choosing McDonald’s, may I take your order?”

Soon, we were out of the airport, looking for the train station. And this is where True Europe began.

The adjoining airport train station is a genuinely multinational experience, about as organized as an Afghanistani war zone. There are, literally, tens of thousands of frantic people with roller suitcases circulating throughout the station, who are all—hard as this is to imagine—not American.

You hear every language. You see all kinds. Likewise, you can easily spot the random American tourist couples because these are the only couples nervously clutching phone GPSs, having elaborate arguments with each other about “DANGIT! Don’t tell me how to read a map, Ethel!”

Also, I located the bathrooms and discovered that Italian toilets are pay-before-you-pee toilets. Sort of like Coke vending machines. Except these toilets are not toilets, but Third-World-style holes in the floor. God help the man with bad aim.

We finally found our train. We were like anchovies, cramming and elbowing each other. Everyone was toting a carry-on bag approximately the size of a Volkswagen.

I tried to shimmy into an open seat and bumped an older man with my backpack and I had my first brush with a local.

In America, if I bumped someone with my bag, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. We would have exchanged a few pleasant words like:

“Whoops, pardon me, sir.”

“No problem.”

“So how about them Packers?”

And that would’ve been it.

But Italian people are—how do I put this?—animated. The older man gave me a violent hand gesture, then barked something in Italian. And although I don’t speak Italian, I knew exactly what he was suggesting I do to myself.

Out train arrived at our first stop, Roma Termini Train Station. We located our next train easily. It was a nice train with lots of amenities including a bathroom and beverage service. And even though it was only 9 in the morning, the beverage attendant made no attempt to hide that he was serving me beer.

Next stop: Napoli Centrale Train Station. The place was not as fancy as our previous train. This place was like visiting a Monty Python sketch.

At any given moment, five eighths of the entire European population is jammed inside the Napoli train station. There are 25 tracks on the station’s top level, and even more underground railroad tracks.

But here’s the catch: None of these tracks are marked. You’re evidently supposed to just KNOW which train is which.

Moreover your train ticket has no identifying numbers, no times of departure or arrival, no terminals, and no identifying marks printed. So you have no idea where to be, what time to be there, where you’re going, who to call, or what.

Your outbound train could be headed to, for example, Bolivia, Katmandú, or Conway, Arkansas, and you would have no way of knowing.

Here is what was printed on my actual ticket stub:

UYTY6-PIY-67292600
EU729034527899-67288
L-8115-OP5582377-5782635
GIPKJYRWPORUBMNSDFLL

We boarded the train, assuming it was the right one, along with roughly 346,298 other passengers, and discovered there were only 9 total train seats. Which meant we had to stand shoulder to shoulder.

“How long is this train trip?” I asked one of the precious few attendants who spoke English.

“Two hours,” he said. “No stops.”

“We’re standing on a train for two hours?”

“No,” he said. “Sometimes you will be kneeling, praying for the train to derail.”

Two hours and 16 minutes later, they let us off the train. At which point we were tired, stoved up, disheveled, hungry, cranky, and in desperate need of a public potty hole. But none of that mattered. All that truly mattered was that we were here in…

To be honest, I have no freaking idea where we are.

“Welcome to Italy!” I announced to my travel-weary wife.

When I air-kissed her cheeks, she showed me a new hand gesture she learned on the train.