I was studying in Paris and decided to take a jaunt to Cinque Terre, Italy, to meet up with a girlfriend in my program who was visiting some of her friends there. Ready for a banner weekend, I headed out on the train and met a couple French guys on the way down. I was young and naive. They were cute and seemed fun, so I short-stopped with them for the night in Marseilles to go out and party.

I woke up the next morning in a random apartment, grabbed my backpack, snuck out the front door, hailed a taxi, and high-tailed it to the train station.

Got on the train only to realize that they had stolen everything of worth from my bag, with the exception of my passport, which I had kept in my pocket. I had no money, no credit cards, no train ticket. The wallet they stole also contained a piece of paper with the name of the place I was supposed to be meeting my friend, as well as her contact info.

Somehow, through well-timed trips to the bathroom and tearful pleadings to the ticket takers, I managed to get to Italy without getting booted off the train.

There are, as the name would indicate, five towns in the cinque terre region. I had no idea which one to stop at, and was terrified if I got off at the wrong one, I'd never be able to get back on without a ticket or any money.

I had no choice. I guessed. I got off at Monterosso, assuming that if I was wrong I'd have to find a creepy Italian dude to sleep with so he'd give me a place to stay for free and maybe enough money to make a phone call to the US to get money wired. At the end of the train platform was a towering, shiny, older (40s?), bald man who appeared to be holding a sign advertising a hostel. I will never forget his sweaty, clingy, yellowing, whitish t-shirt and the sinking feeling in my gut that I was going to have to let that man do terrible things to me in order to get out of the mess I'd created for myself. In my best, broken Italian, I explained my situation.

Amazingly, not only had he seen my friend, he knew where she was staying. Luckily, he was also a decent guy. Instead of raping and murdering the dumb 20 year-old girl that followed him into a random building, he took me to a small hostel a few blocks away, where I found my friend. Didn't even have to give him a grazie blow job!