Italy

If somebody had sat down and planned a scavenger hunt for me in on how to get settled in Florence in the most challenging and least likely way for me to succeed, I don’t think they could have created a better scenario than what actually occurred. It began favorably enough, as I stepped out onto the cobblestone, squinting through my hangover to see how beautiful and clear this gorgeous Italian day was. Laurent, my high school friend who had picked me up from the train station the night before and had been kind enough to let me crash with, scoops up my two fifty pound bags (thank you, Lord) and marches confidently down the street towards my school (of where I have NO clue is located) and where I will receive my apartment key. Things go smoothly as we part ways and I get all of my paperwork.

I share a cab and eventually find my apartment building (you would think it was a secret hidden gate to the underworld it is so hard to find, but I manage). A friendly Italian working at the Pizza place next to me offers to help when he notices me struggling to get my key to work. After convincing the 500-year-old lock to give, we are inside! The building. I have another door to get to the second floor, another to get onto the outside corridor, another to get into my apartment suite, and another to get into my room, for a total of 5 ancient, defiant locks.
I eagerly twist the final key into the final lock, and as I am doing so, can already feel the hot water of my first shower in 3 days, releasing the weight of these inhumanely heavy bags, and falling onto the heaven that is my single bed. And then there is a snap. I look down to discover that my ancient key has broken inside my ancient lock.
I am silent, and frozen, hoping I don’t cry in front of my friendly Italian pizza man because I don’t know how I can survive another ten minutes without. A damn. Shower.

Friendly Italian Pizza Man asks can I call anyone?
Well. Considering my phone is dead, no. And considering I was dancing the night before away at a discotheque, my thoughts weren’t exactly on precautionary measures to bail myself out in the event that I lock myself out of my apartment before I ever even get into it. Maybe I should rearrange my priorities.
So pizza man calls my landlord on his phone, speaks with her, and tells me that maybe she will have somebody come by in the next few hours to have a look. Maybe?

He recommends a good espresso place around the corner, where I can wait, I “Grazie” him in my best Italian, and I stop inside the café, hoping I can at least eat while I figure out my next move. After digging through my purse I realize that I had only one Euro. And my debit card is nowhere to be found. So I use the one little coin Euro I find to buy a water bottle, which of course, is actually disgusting sparkling water, and ask the man behind the counter where I can plug my phone in to charge it. He plugs it in behind the counter for me, and a moment later, it is back on!

But low and behold, I have zero service in the little café. After repeatedly trying and failing to call Athena’s Emergency number, Laurent, my mom, and my landlord, I give up. I can’t shower because I can’t get into my apartment, I can’t taxi back to school because I have no more money, I can’t take out more money because I don’t have a debit card, and I can’t get ahold of anyone to ask for help because my phone doesn’t work. And I can’t do anything else because I am in a foreign city, speaking foreign language, and don’t. Know. What. To. Do.

So I cry.

And the father-like chubby Italian man who had plugged my phone in for me, notices, and comes around the counter. He wipes my eyes and says “don’t cry, Bella, don’t cry”. And so I stop. Because he is right and I shouldn’t cry and I am happy to be on an adventure even if it sucks at that moment. I “Grazie” him for his help, and go back to my apartment. I realize that the Gods must have finally tired of messing with me and thrown me a bone, for my first roommate of six had arrived, and I am suddenly, no longer alone.


Moments later a key repair man appears, lets us into our spacious apartment overlooking the Duomo church (aka magnificent), and all the trials of the morning are ancient history as I am finally standing under a cascade of hot, perfect, water.