The day went sour fast. First thing in the morning, John called me on Skype. It was the middle of the night for him, but if he missed me half as much as I did him, that would be enough to keep him up. I was so happy to get his call, I nearly spilled my cappucino. But when I tried to answer, nothing happened. I pressed the icon. I pressed it again. I started pressing it like my life depended on in, but it wouldn’t connect. My tablet was ringing and ringing, and there was John’s picture with the words “John is calling” beneath them, and there was nothing I could do. Finally, it disconnected. My heart sank. But wait! He was trying again! And once again, I was frantically trying to pick up the call, and nothing was happening. He finally gave up. He probably went back to bed disappointed. And I just sat there in a lonely gray funk, thinking how much I missed him and how far away he seemed.
I was swallowing disappointment as I walked to the Foundation to register. That went well, at least. They had my information. I signed on the dotted line. I picked up the music for the course. That was when I saw this notice. “Students should have the following music prepared by the first day of class,” followed by a long list of compositions. I thought, Prepared? Like, I was supposed to practice it ahead of time? Let it never be said that I don’t understand the sick, panicky feeling one of my students gets when she realizes she has an assignment due in an hour and she forgot to do it. I’ve been there. I’m there now. The only thing I could do, I figured, was get to my dorm room as soon as possible and practice like a maniac for the rest of the day. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was all I had.
It turned out, the dorms weren’t nearby, after all. University classrooms are in the old walled city of Urbino, but the residence halls are outside the city. The guy at the Foundation desk told me to take Bus 22 from the square, that they leave every 20 minutes. So I checked out of my hotel and went to the square with my luggage (the most useful invention of the 20th century: the roller suitcase). I didn’t see anything that said “bus stop” in Italian, but there was a group of people who had that waiting-for-a-bus look, so I stood with them. Bus 7 came. Bus 8 came. Bus 6 came. But no Bus 22. By now, it was way longer than 20 minutes, so when the next bus came–another 6–I asked the driver if he went to the university. “University?!” he barked. “It’s right there!” He pointed to a sign just over my head and, sure enough, it said “university.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t the part of the university I wanted.
I gave up on the bus after that and took a cab. Ten minutes later, the friendly driver let me out in front of the dorms, right by a sign saying “office.” Things were looking up . . . or not. I soon discovered I was at the wrong hall. “The one you want is there,” said the guy at the desk, pointing up. Yes, up. To the top of a very, very high hill up a very, very steep road. And me, with my backpack and my two-ton suitcase.
So, up I went, my pack on my back, my suitcase rolling behind up and up and up, until I came to the end of the road and found–stairs. Lots and lots of stone stairs leading far up what was beginning to look like the highest mountain in Italy. So I climbed, ignoring the ache in my shoulders and thighs, up approximately a thousand stairs. Okay, maybe 80. By the time I got to the top, my arms looked like Michelangelo’s depiction of St. Catherine of Alexandra. She’s the guy in green, holding the wheel:
Finally, I signed into the dorm and got my keys, and discovered that my room was actually back down at the bottom of the hill. Of course it was. Because that was just the way my day was going. So I headed back down. By now, I wasn’t carrying my suitcase: I was ga-thunking it down the steps after me, ga-thunk, ga-thunk, ga-thunk. I shouldn’t do this, I thought. My suitcase is going to brea–oh. The moment I thought it, it broke. Not so bad I couldn’t drag it to my room, but bad enough so it’s never going home again.
I arrived at my room in a hideous mood. I would love to have drowned my sorrows in a glass of wine, but I had practicing to do. I got out my recorder and the music for the class and turned three shades of white. Ten years from now, I may be able to play this. Right now, it’s way over my head. This did not help my sense of panic. I started picturing some cruel maestro ordering me from his classroom and telling me not to return until I learned to play.
So, here I am. I can’t get the wifi to work in my room. The dining hall seems to serve all-meat all-the-time. I’m missing John like crazy.
On the bright side, when I was going to dinner, I heard someone practicing some sort of medieval trombone, and they were way worse than me. So maybe all is not lost.