The door story

It took me two days of searching to even find the Archivio di Stato, as it is in the corner and not necessarily easy to see. On Tuesday, I hadn't slept well on account of being ridiculously nervous. The first day of apartment living was super stressful and difficult, and it had become all too clear how inadequate my grasp of Italian was and is.

I had to run a couple errands in the morning, paying the rent at school, etc. I didn't get started as early as I wanted, so I was later to the archive than I wanted. They opened at 8:30, I got there at 10:30.

I walked about as fast as I could for 20 minutes to make it there, and at the end had to climb a decent hill and then ascend about two stories worth of steps. When I got to the top, I was totally out of breath, so I sat down for a minute. Then two. Then three. Finally, I screwed up my courage and walked around the corner to enter the archive.

It may not be clear from the picture of the archive I put below, but the entrance is a pair of metal-studded double doors. There is a little box on the outside with a button next to it that says "Archivio."

The doors were closed. They don't have a proper handle either, just a big metal ring in the middle of each of them. I tried the ring. Locked. Hmm. As I said, there was a box, with a tiny speaker on it. I was definitely not prepared for this - now I had to speak Italian with someone I couldn't even see through a tiny metal box that would make every pronunciation error I make between three and five times worse?

Temporarily daunted, I walked a lap around the parking lot. Then over to the church of Innocent IV. Then back to the archive. And back to the church. As it became increasingly clear that I was being a little (just a little) crazy, I finally turned around went back, and stood looking at the doors, willing my arm to push the button and mentally preparing to divine the magical Italian words that would, Ali Baba style, open the door to the treasures within.

At just this moment, a man I now know to be one of the archivists (and incredibly nice and helpful to boot) walked up briskly, pushed the button for only the barest fraction of a second, pulled the door open, and said (in Italian so fast I barely understood half) what I have to imagine was the equivalent of, "so are you coming in or not?"