6:30 a.m. 22 August, Albergo Lenno

Our last day. I’ve woken early to see the sunrise. Our window blew open in the middle of the night, letting in the lullaby of the lake’s rhythm. Add to that the gentle rain and a perfectly grey morning. There is no sunrise to speak of but a soft, growing light. Out our three windows, vistas of this fairy tale place, the only other sounds to be heard – a few birds chirping, the occasional bump of two boats together, a duck now and then, and every half hour the beautiful church at the center of this village tolling the time. I’ve never felt so much a part of a fairy tale scene – never found myself enveloped by the peace of a place. I could stay here forever. Instead, I will carry it home with me and let it last in my imagination, shaping me by its peace and beauty. It reminds me of all the loveliest lines in European Romantic orchestral music – like Smetana’s Moldau or Mendelssohn’s sweetest moments. I don’t think I believed before that places this idyllic actually exist – unstained by even so much as a telephone wire cutting through the panorama. It is perfect. I think this is what people have in their mind’s eye when they imagine they are going to “see Europe.” I’ve seen Europe.

We lingered awhile in our room on Friday morning, sleepy and enjoying the ridiculous luxury of a large bathroom, complete with a “rain” shower head and an actual sink counter where we could both stand. Our ferry was due to leave from just beyond the hotel doors at … Breakfast was served in an unbelievable dining room on the second floor of the hotel, its large windows overlooking the pool below. The buffet offered completely blew us away: everything you could imagine was available, including a gorgeous array of meats and cheeses and raw vegetables. We are an enormous meal, planning to make a lunch out of nothing but the small remainder of salami & cheese from the day before.

By the time we’d returned to our room for our bags and checked out at the front desk the gentle rain had turned into a downpour, and we fumbled through it to the ferry ticket house with our umbrellas and our ridiculous number of heavy bags, drenching a couple of them thoroughly. After a few minutes we saw the ferry emerge from the dense fog and made another dash through the deluge to board. We sank into the first seats that caught our eye, but I wished through the whole ride that we’d taken the trouble to lug our bags just a few feet more to situate ourselves right near a window. With the rain sliding down the windows, and our position in the center of the wide boat, there was not much chance to glimpse the coastal hillsides we’d been awed by on our drive the day before. We hadn’t bothered with photos telling ourselves it would be a better view from the water the next day. The ferry sped down the water, covering the 15 miles of lake in about thirty minutes.

Even so, we were incredibly anxious. One final mad dash lay before us, the last tight connection of our trip. (I suppose not counting the distance from our shuttle to the ticket desk at Malpensa airport.) To make it even more interesting, this dash was going to be an improv. We didn’t have a clear sense of where we needed to end up or where we’d be starting from, only that we had to get from the boat to the train platform in under fifteen minute, on foot with all our bags. We used our mediocre map to form a rough plan and then set off running from the dock. (I was wearing a dress and sandals with a small heel.) If we missed that train we’d wait several hours for the next (slower) one and lose a large chunk of our short time in Milan. We made it with several minutes to spare, despite the several flights of steps that lay between our winded selves and the train station’s entrance.

The train ride was quick and we were in our terminal city: Milan. It took us as long to navigate Milan’s huge central station, ride a few stops on the subway, and emerge onto the city streets as it did to ride the train from Como. So we emerged from underground by an enormous flight of stone steps and sprawled before our eyes was the Duomo, Italy’s largest cathedral, and the fifth largest church structure in the world. It was a staggering welcome to a fascinating city. But we didn’t get there without a quick taste of local culture:

Saturday 23 Aug, 6:15 a.m., Malpensa Airport

Now all that remains to be told is the story of Wednesday. And the tale of the un-uniformed man helping people with tickets to board the metro under Milano train station: he smoothly, quickly guided us, then reached in the machine to retrieve our tickets for us, handing them to us and then taking the 2E coin of change and motioning as though he’d eat it, asking us to give it to him. We wouldn’t have dared say no, and so for the second time we were conned on the streets of Europe. Those streets more than made up for it five minutes later, though, as we listened to a violinist positively dancing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on the subway. The many kinds of street music we’ve heard and seen have been an amazing part of this trip, not least the saxophone plaintively rising as we climbed the Duomo yesterday, loud enough to match the immensity of the place.

Finding our hotel was a nerve-wracking experience, and another evidence of the small holes left in my obsessive preparations for our trip. We had no map of Milan and only the address of our hotel and a general sense that it was about a half mile southwest of the Duomo. So we began following our noses into a tangled web of strangely-angled streets, bouncing back and forth ideas for how to achieve our goal, eyeing various shops with the thought of going in to try out our English on a local and hope they’d know. We ended up asking an old man sitting in a public transit booth. He’d never heard of the hotel or the street, which we found alarming at first, but later when we saw the diminutive alley it was it made sense. He pulled out a tattered street atlas and helped us look it up. We thanked him and, like the quintessential tourists, snapped a photo of his map before setting off down the road he told us to follow. By this time the cobbled roads had finished their destruction of one of the wheels on our large suitcase so we were basically dragging it along the cobbled streets. It was becoming obvious that our journey was at its end.

Saturday 23 August, 6:15 a.m. Malpensa Airport

Our hotel last night was plain and old but completely satisfactory for what we needed. It was deep in the heart of Milan’s narrow streets, just a quick walk SW of the Duomo. They graciously gave us our keys at 11:30 when we arrived yesterday and then we set out, stopping on our way to the Duomo at the most glamorous grocery store imaginable, in part only to wonder at it, but also to find our last gift: coffee for Mike’s Dad. We bought some bread, too, which we ate with the remainder of yesterday’s cheese and salami on the Duomo’s piazza after a couple hours wandering its interior, “reading” its tremendous stained glass, standing in awe beside the underground remains of the baptistery where Ambrose baptized Augustine. A pilgrimage, for sure. I think this was my favorite church. It was unspoiled by plaques to educate tourists and much of it was inaccessible to us. It felt sacred. The size fascinates me, too: built large enough at its time to contain every citizen of Milan, because of course all the city should gather in its walls simultaneously. Fires the imagination. After a rest we wandered the dim, immense, but rather unrewarding museum, and then climbed the stairs to walk the roof.

Afterwards we walked through the massive covered shopping streets – glamorous and immense as consumerism gets – the USA of Europe. From there we walked past La Scala but shamefully didn’t bother to gain access, and then past Sforzesco Castle into Milan’s “Central Park,” where we rested in a quiet spot and I fell asleep, exhausted. We returned to our hotel, navigating the surprisingly empty streets as best we could with the terrible map our hotel had to offer. The streets wander so haphazardly, giving way to confusing piazzas and perpetually changing names and directions.

We relaxed awhile and found a well-reviewed pizza place 2km south on the famous canals – a street that comes alive at night with Milan’s happy people out for a good time and sprawling buffets – “tapas,” free with drink and cover charge: Italy’s definition of happy hour. It was an ugly district, though, and like so much of what we’ve seen, clearly poor by comparison with what we know in the states – not just poor, or maybe not poor at all, but old, unpolished, less pretentious and tidy: humanity at its truest and a melting pot, too, of many cultures. America and monoculture – not just in farming!! We were tired yesterday and happy to take an easy peace.

We enjoyed the day as much because it was our last as anything. We didn’t love Milan but we were glad to experience it for a day. We felt satiated, and even our appetites were poor, our stomachs weary of endless cheese and brioche. Abstractly, we had high hopes for dinner, having saved pizza to be our farewell experience.

As we waited twenty minutes for the restaurant to open, perched on a bridge over the canal, we talked of the day, the trip, the city… And then we took a table indoors at Pizzeria La Tradizionale and what a farewell it was!! The best pizza in the Neapolitan style we’ve ever dreamed, the wood fire easy to taste with every bite of perfect crust. Mike’s was slathered in ricotta. Mine, fresh mozzarella, capers, olives, mushrooms, ham, anchovies, artichokes, oregano. It was marvelous, and the chianti alongside was perfect and exactly what we’d wanted. We bought a second bottle to bring home and drink in ten years. I think our waiter thought were on our honeymoon.

Our waiter!! Garon, from Croatia, thoroughly endeared himself to us. Though tipping is not customary in European restaurants we eagerly tipped in five euros. He took such good care of us, worked tirelessly to overcome the language barrier that arose when we tried to explain our desire to age a bottle of wine 10 years. (Would it keep?) It was an ordeal sorting out that enormous miscommunication, but he wasn’t happy until he’d gotten us exactly what we wanted. We’ll raise a glass to him in ten years, and remember all the laughter together. He sold us an unplanned piece of tiramisu when we’d finished, sold it like a pro. It was to die for. Better than the serving I had Thursday night at the fine trattoria in Lenno. When we’d finally paid our check he came out with two limoncellos, frosty-cold, a gift to us.

What a night!! We left enchanted, beyond pleased with our farewell meal, thoroughly in love with that restaurant and the Italian way: when we’d arrived the staff was dining and laughing together, like a family having dinner before their night’s work. Obviously they’d honored their siesta, too. A sane way of life. We laughed at the popped collars, ubiquitous here, but some are simply up and some are carefully styled with all the pains we might take tying a tie at just the right length, with just the right know. One of the waiters sported the most amazing specimen we’d ever seen and we laughed at his personality to match.

We left the restaurant in high spirits and walked north again, stopping to indulge in gelato one last time, feeling it almost a duty since we’d been so un-Italian as to go two days without it. Mostly, I was in search of a repeat of the perfect, barely sweet milk-flavored gelato I’d had in Manarola. It was not as good here, but still, gelato in Italy!

Not being the sort to settle for a normal amount of activity in any given venture, we were easily drawn towards a “quick little detour” in our itinerary as we planned last year.

Deciding where to go in Italy was a tough process. It became clear early on that we couldn’t afford the time to travel far in. Our friend and professor, who was leading the London expedition, had waxed poetic about the beauty of the Cinque Terre as we told him of our unfolding plans and it soon became our first destination, since we realized that travel as far as Florence, Venice, Rome, Sicily – all the famous cities – was impractical in our short time frame. Cinque Terre was easy: A quick flight into Genoa; a quick train down the coast. Other sources told us that Milan’s Malpensa Airport might be our most economical choice within continental Europe for a flight home, and being lovers of church history and church architecture, we happily settled on Milan as our terminal city: we could spend our last day seeing the Duomo and then be ready to catch our flight home.

As we read the travel guides we became aware of an incredible district at the north edge of the country, a lake lined with villages, villas, and resorts. Lake Como, home of famous resort town Bellagio, lies at the foot of the Alps. According to the travel guides, it is where the Milanese rich and famous go for their weekend getaways: elegance, luxury, unspoiled beauty. The train ride between Milan and Lake Como is little more than half an hour. So rather than a fourth night in Cinque Terre or a second night in Milan, we figured we could make a quick jaunt north, adding these vistas to the topography we’d get to see. It’d be a nice balance to bustling, unadorned Milan, anyway. We’d come away feeling we’d seen just that much more of the Italian scene.

So we poured over the books and the maps and eventually settled on Lenno, a tiny town about one third of the way up the west side of the long, fingerlike lake. This would be the counterpart to our extravagant Paris day. We’d book a lovely hotel and eat a long, lovely dinner. Settling on Albergo Lenno was one of those surreal, exciting moments in our planning in the dead of last winter. Even the website was all loveliness. The staff treated us with kid gloves when we wrote with questions. And the price for a room at this 4-star place was not much more than our 3-star splurge had been in Paris.

Thursday morning I got up for one more sunrise over the water. My heart wasn’t really in it but it was the principle of the thing… It was even colder than Tuesday morning when I’d been out, and I shivered in my light scarf as I sat at the edge of the castle cliff overlooking the fishing pier. Later, down by the water, was even colder, but the sound and sight of the water lapping against the pier was mesmerizing, and drew my attention since the cloud cover made for a pretty uneventful sunrise. As I read, someone’s puppy wandered over to give me some Italian love (lots of kissing, no reservations) much to my amusement.

Mike and I had arranged to meet there by the pier around 7:30, in time to find breakfast and shop the market for lunch and a few last gifts. He came up behind me, a moment vivid in my memory. In three weeks together I’d finally re-learned to look for his company and I had been anticipating his arrival to the point of distraction. After four crazy years of Life In Your Twenties together (by which I mean, barely together at all) I had grown accustomed to his constant presence again and missed him in his absence. There I was, sitting by the pier, and suddenly I saw him approaching and my heart started racing like I was back in college. Instantly my day was made. I’d say our “honeymoon-five-years-later” had worked its magic.

We ate an absurd number of brioches at the cafe on the market square, shared an orange juice, and I got adventurous and ordered an espresso in honor of my sister, who was sure I’d learn to like them if I drank them in the right context. No luck, Kilby, but I did appreciate the caffeine. The Monterosso market was substantial compared to its sister in Vernazza. We procured focaccia from the nearby bakery and then selected a couple cheeses, a small hunk of salami, half a dozen apricots. We lingered long over a huge spread of brightly colored ceramic ware, trying to talk ourselves into buying a big beautiful bowl of something equally impractical to bring home with us. We made our final gift selections for family and friends at home (save Milanese coffee for Mike’s dad), settled on a small ceramic plate, deep sky blue and shaped like a fish with a little eye painted on (it sits by the stove to hold cooking spoons now), and we found two more treasures for our kids: a pair of three-inch tall wooden Pinocchios to hang on our Christmas tree, procured from an amusingly grumpy vendor.

We dashed back to our room and I showered while Mike packed. We checked out and said goodbye to the owner’s wife, Marisa, and the housekeeper, who upon seeing pictures of our two toddlers (by this point in the journey we missed them enough that it took very little encouragement to whip out their pictures to share with strangers) were completely surprised to find out we were not honeymooners but had been married almost five years. They bid us an affectionate Italian goodbye and we were off to the train platform, where we discovered, this time in our favor, that I’d remembered our schedule wrong again. So we sat by the water’s edge for an hour with our bags and enjoyed people-watching. Our train was more than a couple minutes late. We sank into our private first-class cabin with a fresh sense of adventure, keeping our fingers crossed that we’d make our connection in Milan.

Thursday 10:00 a.m. 21 August Monterosso al Mare

We’re waiting out the last hour of our time here on a bench overlooking the Ligurian Sea, flanked by mountains, listening to high surf crashing and happy Italians chatting on holiday. Behind us, though, a local bar is blaring some of the worst country music America has to offer. You can’t have everything.

We’ve enjoyed these three days too much to spend time writing about them. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here almost exactly as long as we were in Paris, our first days. We feel seasoned now, and our trip has taught us almost all it has to teach us. We miss our kids madly. We are starting to look ahead to the next five weeks and the next five years in these last hours as we’ve spent much time already looking back at the past five years. This has been a true holiday and we are ready to live a new chapter, if a little stricken with nervous energy about all the very immediate unknowns that will greet us in just another week: where we’ll live and work and worship – hard to believe it’s all likely to change now.

These three days we’ve rested intentionally, I suppose like only type-A people can rest – even this with energy.

The country singer just crooned “Sometimes I feel like Jesse James.” The world is small.

We’ve loved being situated up the hill from the beach on a street that seems populated by endless terraces of locals, wandering past fig trees, lemon trees, bougainvillea, roses, aloe. Our hotel was up 3 flights (thus the address 85/3 Via Molinelli, as we discovered) in a jumble of a building leaned into the steep mountain. We’ve also loved the cheap food – we’ve subsisted mostly on foccacia – sometimes with salami, cheese, prosciutto sandwiched in – or brioche (croissants, donuts, and all the rest) for only 1 euro and gelato – we ate it three (four for me) times in our three days – large servings at less than half the cost we saw in Paris. We’d drop 5 euro and each walk away with a large cone of 3 flavors.

2:30 p.m. the train from Milan to Como

We made a tight connection in just a couple minutes – seamless, flawless, satisfyingly successful. Now for a night of “vacation” like the wealthy of Milan spend their weekends. We made a meal just now of food bought this morning in Monterosso’s weekly market – salami fontnia, focaccia, and an amazing pair: apricots and the same goat cheese we loved on Tuesday. Delicious.

10:30 p.m.

This evening we are enjoying luxury – drinking it in (literally!) as we think toward a season of poverty to come. Our arrival here at Lake Como was perfect. We disembarked from the train to see a large, middle aged Italian smiling in our direction, holding one of those enticing signs you always see at the airport. This one said “Powell.” We carried our heaviest bags and navigated us to his van and then serve as our tour guide with perfect English, up the scenic edge of Lake Como, past George Clooney’s villa, to Lenno. This afternoon we walked the tiny village, awed at our room and our view, wandered the grounds of Villa del Balbianello. We napped an hour and got up for our reservation at the Trattorio our driver had suggested, sitting outside for a completely exquisite meal and coming back after dark to the lobby of Albergo Lenno where we’re sitting now, reading and nursing our complimentary Kahlua and cognac. Three windows in our room, a balcony on the lake, and wide, shallow stone stairs girded with red carpet. We are celebrating this journey tonight.

In the restaurant it felt so familiar and comforting – dear – to hear the waitress speak to our neighboring diners en Francais.

We sat tonight over drinks and books: “Here’s to being the As.” … “And the Ms.” (Along this journey, we’d been awakening to a recognition that we have the same capacities and qualities that we see in a couple we immensely admire; a husband and wife we have only wished we could imitate both in our professional and personal lives. Our wishes had begun to shift to aspirations as we’d talked about these five years and all we’ve pursued and achieved, and we began to realize that, really, the world is our oyster. We can be who we want to be and we have a pretty good shot at making as much of ourselves as this particular pair we look up to has done. So much of life is a choice – even if the choices are more about how you handle what you’re given then what you choose to have. And thus our toast to “being the As.”)

I think if there were one day of our journey that I could recreate moment for moment, it would be this one. We swam, we lay in the sun, we read, we hiked, we explored. As the afternoon sun sank low, we sat over drinks (and over the water) and talked till well after dark. The record shows that I took no less than 268 pictures on this day, so I hope you will appreciate that I have included only about a hundred here.

The only thing I didn’t manage to fit into the day was an account of it, so my journal dates from Saturday as we traveled home.

Saturday 23 August, 9:00 a.m. EST, in the air over Canada

Now all that remains to be told is the story of Wednesday, last but by no means least. A magical day if any of them were. We enjoyed it every minute, and it seemed to stretch to contain everything we could want. It was our day to rest and rest and rest, to enjoy Cinque Terre at its finest. We slept late – perhaps till almost 8:00, and then went straight to the beach, checking train schedules and trail closures on the way and picking up brioches for breakfast.

We swam, slept, read – acquiring chaises and an umbrella till 1:30 for 15E and arriving early enough to be in the front row, right near the surf. It was chilly and breezy but the sun was warm. The water was so clear and bright out past the surf that we could look down and see our toes. Mike mostly read. I swam and swam and played like a kid in the surf. From out in the water the town looked so picturesque, gold walls, green shutters, fuschia bouganvilla climbing all over it.

About 12:30 we returned to our room for hot showers, eating a quick focaccia sandwich first, and set out to get cash, food for the journey, and an epic 2-hour hike up and down steep narrow stairs and trails, along bluffs, amidst vineyards, terraced fields of lemon or fig trees, mountain streams, dill and rosemary growing like weeds. How to capture the sound of the birds and the streams and, 600 feet below, the surf crashing on the rocks? Not to mention the awe of the houses we came upon nestled up there or the thought of these stone paths as the only connection between two tiny worlds not so long ago?

We hiked from Monterosso to Vernazza and walked to the water’s edge and stopped in a shop for the beautiful olive wood kitchen utensils we’d seen the day before, spoons and a jar of pesto will make the perfect gift for some friends as we pass back through to see them next week. And a little cutting board for us – for many years of cheese dinners to come.

We caught a train after a few minutes, squeezed in like sardines for the 6 minute journey to Manarola, which has been the village I’d originally wanted to stay in. There we had only a few minutes to take in the views – it was the most ridiculously picturesque of all the five villages – and eat the best gelato of our trip, and then another quick train to Riomaggiore, the last village.

We arrived about 6:30, walked the steep main road to the top of the village and then along a high side street back to the water’s edge, where we climbed down steep stairway “streets” to sea level and then up where, to our wonder, we found a table right on a bluff in a little bar where we drank wine (and more) and ate cheap bar food and watched the sunset over the water, the whole region in our view.

We left our perch happy almost to the point of silly, well-warmed by the wine and beer and limoncello and sweet, deep conversation of what we’ll be returning to and who we want to be, how we want to live. A completely perfect day.

The only thing remaining to recount from the day that can’t be accomplished within photo captions is also one of our most anxious moments of the whole trip. After a brioche for each of us around 9:00 (OK–two or three…?) and a yogurt for me, and a small salami sandwich which we shared around 11:00, we were starving at 1:30 as we walked towards town center to pick up the hiking trail. Starving, and penniless. We had used up all our cash and had by now grown accustomed to the complicating reality that almost nobody in these small villages would take credit cards. So the sole bank in Monterosso was our first stop. It was closed for a 2-hour lunch and the ATM refused us. Not expecting to find any other ATMs in town, our hearts sank. The moment we’d feared had arrived, and we genuinely had no spending power and very little hope of any. With our hearts in our throats, we set out for the 25-minute walk back to our hotel to retrieve our passports so we could wait for the bank to re-open and withdraw money at the counter. The day was growing hotter, our stomachs were growing emptier, and our time for exploring Manarola & Riomaggiore was slipping away. It was not a good feeling. Just before entering the tunnel that led to the other side of town I spotted a line of people at what looked like an ATM. Sure enough, there was another one. Thinking it would be stupid not to try, we headed for it. The happy dance when it spat cash out at us against all our expectations probably looked a little undignified to bystanders. And then we were on our way back towards food and trail.

Vernazza was bafflingly small. Really, there was just one main street, winding its way from the train station to the harbor. There were other “streets” but they seemed so intimate, almost like private property, as they wound away from the main street into the pile of towering residences. Oh, and did I mention they were mostly stairways? Even the market on Tuesday morning surprised me with how small it was. And yet it is a lynchpin of the village’s economy and daily life. A community of this size fascinates me to no end.

Manarola was a little larger, but still tiny and preposterously adorable. Of the five villages, Manarola has the most haphazard-looking pile of buildings leaned precariously up against the mountains. It was the town I’d hoped we might find a room in. Our original plan was to arrive, a la Rick Steves, and wander into the cafes in the late afternoon, inquiring of the locals for a room available. Fearing the worst, we bailed out on this idea, booking a room ahead of time a few weeks before our journey began. In retrospect it would’ve been a terrible ordeal arriving with so much luggage, jumping on the standing-room regional train, walking the long tunnel into Manarola, and then navigating its stair-streets. If we can ever go again with just one or two light bags, I would totally risk it though. What an amazing experience it would’ve been to have a room with an open window looking right onto the sea past the cascading color of neighboring buildings!

To adequately capture the dramatic flavor of this day would be difficult. Reading back over my journal from the afternoon, I find it doesn’t even come close. Imagine yourself preparing for an 8:45 a.m. flight out of a regional airport on a small regional airline. Still, you will need to ride a shuttle for 45 minutes to the airport. But you already have your boarding passes and have only to drop off your checked bag and head for the gate. To get to the shuttle should take approximately 20 minutes from dorm to train and you need about 30 minutes to dress and gather your things in the morning. So getting up at 5:30 should do the trick if you don’t waste any time. Not the presumptuous types, and not wanting to jeopardize our shot at a chance to decompress from our London work week on the shores of Italy, we set our alarm for 4:20 a.m. We were out the door of College Hall on Malet Street about 4:45 and walking towards the train station, confident now after a week of navigating this city. In fact, we’d packed away our London map. Equal distance from us were two stations and my memory took us to the wrong one for a direct connection Liverpool Street – that confounded destination that played a role in both of our two travel disasters. (Not that it was Liverpool Street’s fault, but those are not happy memories.)

Arriving at Euston Station, one of the busiest we’d experienced, was surreal. No one was around. The escalators weren’t even running. We dragged ourselves to the elevator with our six bags, weighing easily 150 pounds (we bought a lot of stuff and packed for two climates and two lifestyles, and don’t forget the reams of paper involved in choral and organ music). Once underground we realized our error: Euston Square was the station that went straight to Liverpool Street. Not to worry, we thought, we’ll just make a connection from here. So after scanning our Oyster Cards and blundering through the turnstiles, we descended quite a few flights of spiral stairs to the train platform, discovering that the next train wouldn’t depart for 20 minutes. Clearly we were up before the rest of London. Now breathing heavily and starting to sweat, we lugged those six bags back up those several hundred stairs, returned to the ground floor by the elevator, and headed for Euston Square. There, too, we had stairs to reckon with. But the wait was short and soon we were en route to Liverpool Street, still in good humor. After all, we’d built in over an hour of time into our morning.

We boarded the Stansted Express we’d intended to be on just a moment after the prior one left the station. Without our Euston Square error we would’ve been on that earlier train and probably all our woes would’ve been over. Instead we waited 15 minutes, glad to put the “hard part” of the morning behind us. We dozed on the train and emerged at Stansted Airport.

We moved quickly, climbing yet more stairs and riding a million escalators. We found our ticket desk and got in the back of a very, very long line to drop off our bag. That’s when things went really wrong. We were starting to be pressed for time when we finally got to the counter and the lady who helped us looked at us with shock on her face when our bag weighed in at 28kg. We hadn’t wanted to shoulder all the heavy stuff on the plane, so we’d stuffed it all into our biggest suitcase. Quickly we moved out of line and re-organized our luggage. Now we were only 3kg over the limit and owed 30 pounds. Whatever. It was time to be on our way so we settled for it. She directed Mike to an automated kiosk where he could purchase the extra weight allowance. No dice. It wouldn’t take our credit card.

Mike stood with the bags in the customer service line while I sprinted down the corridor in search of an ATM, hoping against hope it would accept our card. It did and I sprinted back, handing Mike the cash. Recognizing that we were pressed for time, the agent pointed Mike to a shorter customer service line around the corner. I stood where we’d been standing with the rest of our luggage and watched the minutes fly by. 10 minutes later he came back around the corner, still with the bag. The counter had closed and he was sent to stand in the long (now longer yet) line we’d originally been in. The agent now realized that we were in a predicament (not to mention getting pretty pissed) and came over to cut line for us. All we needed was to pay the stupid cash and be on our way. Even then, the agent she spoke with totally ignored her for a few minutes, obviously being passive-aggressive. UN.BE.LIEVABLE. I was hopping mad, sure we were not going to make our flight.

When we’d finally left our bag, just moments before the gate closed for checked luggage, we sprinted for security, discovering at the entry that we had only one of our boarding passes. Seriously!? We dropped a boarding pass!?!? Not seeing it, we dashed for a kiosk to reprint, discovering there that a 15 pound fee was required. Of course, we didn’t have cash, so we were out of luck. No time to fix it. In a last ditch effort Mike ran back to the baggage counter, discovering that our boarding pass was there with the agent who’d “helped” us. She had been holding it, waiting for our extra weight ticket to stick to it before she could give it to us. I’d left the bag so quickly and dashed off that she hadn’t had a chance to give it back to me. So we were set. We got through security quickly enough and for once didn’t get the pat-down treatment.

“Surely the gate is just a moment away,” we thought. But the glitzy, glamorous, winding aisles of duty free shopping went on eternally and to our horror, at their end was a platform where we were to wait for a shuttle. Our gate was due to close in less than 10 minutes, and the shuttle was due to arrive for the 5-minute journey in about 5-minutes. No chance we were making that plane. Even an airport employee who we asked in despair looked at our boarding passes, looked at the clock, and said “Just run. And good luck.” So we did. We jumped through the train doors as they opened and literally ran up two or three stories of escalator. Remember, we were still carrying all but 13kg of our luggage. And all the bags were now bulgy, besides. Finally, we saw our gate, and it, a long line of waiting travelers. We were getting on that plane.

Can I just say one thing? Don’t fly RyanAir. Don’t fly any of those cute little cheap regional deals in Europe. I mean, yeah, great if you are making a quick weekend getaway with your cute little roller bag and your purse. But these companies make their money on baggage, and we had plenty. (Seriously? 10 pounds per kg!?) And we got treated like crap. They just didn’t have the systems or technology to handle customers in an efficient way. We almost didn’t make it to Italy that day. After all, it’s not like they fly that many planes from Stansted to Genoa each day. And even still, only so many trains arrive in tiny Monterosso on any given day.

But there we were, standing on the tarmac north of London on a freezing cold morning, sweating profusely. Surrounded by bundled travelers with sleep still in their eyes, I was wearing a tank top and shorts and feeling ready for a nap. And then we were on the plane (the tiny plane with tiny seats where they bring you a catalog of things you can buy (like the usually-complimentary in-flight beverage) for ridiculous prices). Again we dozed awhile and woke to see epic mountains beneath us. As we descended into Genoa after the short two-hour flight, the scenes were incredible, and it was surreal to watch as we came in for landing at an airport built right on the edge of the water. It looked for all the world like we were about to crash land in the Ligurian Sea. And then there we were, standing on the tarmac in Italy, the sea on one side and the steep hills dotted with villages on the other. And so, we were in Italy after all.

Monday 18 August, 2:00 p.m., Genova Brignole Station

Our train approached a station and we recognized “proximo fermata” – an estimate of the time we’d be stopped. We laughed at our ridiculous slice of Italian vocabulary and Mike said “If anybody needs to know how fast to go we should be good.”

We were up at 4:20 and congratulating ourselves on being out of the dorm a half hour early. Unfortunately my memory of which train station to go to was wrong so we arrived at Euston – and down all its steps – to discover we were in the wrong place. We thought we’d make a connection until we discovered the next train wouldn’t depart for 20 more minutes. So we climbed with all our bags back out of the belly of the earth and relocated to Euston Square, an easy train ride to Liverpool Street. We laughed at our last-minute joy-riding with the spare funds on our Oyster Cards. We boarded our train to Stansted with 15 minutes to spare.

Unfortunately, once at Stansted, we discovered that our checked bag, weighing 28kg, was 13kg over the limit and we’d owe 130 pounds (10 pounds/kg) if we didn’t reconfigure. We got it down to 18kg and settled for paying 30 pounds, a likelihood we’d anticipated and chosen rather than the work and cost of mailing ourselves a box in London. We stood in several lines – the fault and incompetence of the airline, and on several counts almost missed our flight, running full speed to catch it. We won’t be sorry never to see Stansted or RyanAir again.

Our flight arrived in Genoa about noon and we made a tight connection – but no running this time – to our train, via a shuttle. While waiting for the shuttle we successfully acquired both cash (a significant question was in my mind about this) and lunch at an airport food court. I may’ve only been in Genoa an hour, but I ate salami there and it was marvelous.

I was a little skeptical when we stepped off our train in Monterosso after a beautiful journey south along the coast. We’d seen so many peaceful, sleepy towns along the way, and this one had me a little worried at first. At 3:00 p.m. on an August day the train platform was packed like sardines with people. The train station itself looked right out onto the sea, but the surrounding businesses were all tourism: busy, over-priced, and full of kitsch. As we pushed and shoved our way through the crowds I started to worry we hadn’t picked the right destination for a serene Italian experience. But in the end, we couldn’t have done much better. Even our accommodations, though not quite what I imagined (I was initially hoping for a rented room deep in the heart of one of the historic villages – the kind with a sea view, no air conditioning, and three flights of stairs to the entrance. As we got to know the town we realized what a mercy it was that we were staying the nights there on the north side of Monterosso al Mare, the tourist side, half a mile outside the historic town. After the day we’d had it was nice that we had only to drag our bags a quarter mile up a hill and we were “home.” I shudder to imagine the mess we’d have been in to situate ourselves in one of the smaller villages further south, with all our luggage in tow.

We stayed in a darling villa called Marvit Affiticamere, owned by a kind, quintessentially Italian husband and wife who barely spoke English. The husband met us as we gazed bewildered at the building we hoped we’d found and showed us up several flights of stairs to a fourth-floor apartment with four rooms. We had the only one without a balcony, and its window looked onto the stairs below. The other residences in the building were inhabited by locals and we got to enjoy a slice of local life. It would’ve been nice to be directly on the coast, but being set back a quarter mile up the hill meant we walked several times a day through a local neighborhood, getting a taste of what it was like. Not something you get to enjoy every day. It was inspiring – yards planted with lemon trees and fig trees, all the evidence of daily life set about: laundry hung out the windows, bikes and children’s toys at the doorways, lounge chairs well-used.

We made our peace with the tourists, finding our marvelous room to be all the consolation prize we needed. Three nights in one place, and no more dorm mattress. This felt completely luxurious. We put our stuff down and promptly took a nap. About 5:00 we donned our swimsuits and headed for the shore. We ate our first gelato – mountains of it – and got acclimated to the offerings of the beach and its vendors. We decided it was too cold and breezy to swim, and after awhile we were even too cold to comfortably lounge around in our suits. We returned to our room to dress for dinner and then wandered down the coast to the historic city center, finding it less crowded and more sophisticated. We sat for several hours right by the sea and enjoyed the perfect light supper, watching as the guests around us were served the restaurant’s specialty: a deep earthenware pot dumped right before your eyes into a large serving bowl. The contents: every crustacean and shellfish you can imagine, cooked whole into a stew.

Thursday 21 August 10:00 a.m. Monterosso al Mare

Monday night after settling into our completely lovely, sleek, modern room, full of every comfort – even wine glasses – we ventured out for gelato and then sat about 7:00 for a lovely dinner at our hotelier’s recommendation – Ristorante Belvidere. We sat on the sea side under a canopy, shared a bottle of local white wine, pesto bruschetta and “insalate al mare,” then a bowl of pasta with pesto – a local specialty, in fact pesto originates from this exact region. We lingered over each dish long and walked home as darkness set, going to sleep early.

Sunday morning we were up early, ready to enjoy every moment of our day. It’s not that often you get to lead worship in an English cathedral, so we were feeling sorely aware of how quickly this opportunity had come and gone. Still, this day promised two services instead of one, and it all lay before us.

We thought we’d make it a calm, peaceful morning by leaving early for church and working for a half hour before our rehearsal began. As if. We managed to hop on the District line just in time for some mysterious big delay due to a technical malfunction at a station down the line. At each station we sat in the stopped train for over 5 minutes (usually the stop is well under 30 seconds) and finally, after being parked at Bank station for almost 20 minutes we ditched the Tube and decided to sprint for it, now with only about 10 minutes left until our rehearsals were to start. Sprint we did, even though I was wearing backless sandals with heels. We walked into Southwark about five minutes late to our own rehearsal to find that not only were the vergers not there to unlock our space yet, but most of our choristers had been waylaid by the same transit mess. We all sat around the hallway uneasily for awhile, our numbers growing bit by bit, all exchanging the same stories and questions about the malfunctioning Tube.

Eventually we stampeded into our unlocked room and got to business. Business for me was as stressful as it got that whole week: I figured I’d skip rehearsing some of the Sunday morning music in favor of sitting alone with my score a few minutes rather than playing a 10+ minute Bach work completely cold. The rehearsal plans, under the direction of Mr. Neswick, were not well known to us, so it was a surprise to me when I realized that, from the adjoining choir room, I was hearing the beginning of the afternoon’s anthem: the one I was slotted to conduct. I bounced in and started the arm-waving, never successfully locating my own score for the piece through the whole rehearsal. It’s a good thing I had done my homework and had it mostly memorized, because that’s all I had to give it. Another moment where I reflected on the business of professional performance: still on your game when you’re caught off guard or under-prepared. I seem to do OK at it…

Sunday morning was sublime – a full, lovely Eucharist service including the Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei from Howell’s Collegium Regale mass setting. We sang several good hymns, Mr. Neswick improvised as the choir communed, we repeated an anthem from earlier in the week as the communion motet – the exquisite Prayer of the Venerable Bede – and then I was on the bench for the close of the service: How Great Thou Art and my second shot at Bach’s Toccata in E. Following the service we poked around for gifts and souvenirs in the gift shop a bit, then obtained paella from a restaurant food-stand on the otherwise-closed Borough Market. At 1:30 we reconvened to prayer the afternoon Evensong, which was also wonderful. Spirits were high. It was clear to me from my place behind the music stand, conducting our last notes of the week, that everyone was fully engaged, deriving all the joy and beauty they could from their last moments in this space we’d gotten to call home for a week. I led us through the beautiful Smith Responses again and then we closed the week with David Hurd’s exuberant, luscious It Is a Good Thing to Give Thanks to Your Name, O Most High. It’s surreal to think that I was there, standing in that place, leading that music.

We lingered long after the service concluded, taking pictures and putting the choir room right and assembling all our things. We’d reserved a nearby pub’s lower level for some festivities afterwards, so slowly we all made our way there, partying for hours, eventually abandoning the basement space for tables on the riverside corridor outdoors. We finally returned to our dorm around 9:00, walking past the floodlit cathedral, its tower rising into the night sky. We were tired and satisfied, and ready to pack our bags for Italy, a vacation-after-a-vacation that we were eager for. Next stop: sand, sun, solitude. And a lot of gelato.

Sunday 17 August, 10:55 p.m.

What a good day! We had a good night’s sleep for a change. The morning was quite stressful thanks to a slow underground train. It rendered most of the choir quite late to rehearsal and Mike and I dashed from a less accessible station after abandoning the stopped train we’d been on for almost 45 minutes – a ride that usually takes 20. Then the vergers were nowhere to be found to open the choir room. It was all a mad dash until the moment we began to process for worship, and then everything fell into place and the whole thing was superb – charged. It was such a special service, and an awesome experience singing the Howells Collegium Regale service in a London Cathedral.

After a quick pause for lunch we reconvened for 3:00 p.m. Evensong. The preparations felt almost leisurely without the pressure of subsequent services’ repertoire looming. Again, everything fell into place and there were a few magical moments. I got to conduct our concluding responses and anthem and I felt the choir milking those last moments for all their worth. Then we went out with Bruce at the organ leading – happy coincidence – his favorite hymn of all time. A night to remember.

After lots of photo ops we all retired to the pub a moment’s walk away, sitting on the river’s edge and enjoying old and new friendships (quite loudly) for hours. We were among the first to say our goodbyes around 8:30, coming back to pack for our flight to Italy.

The opportunity this week to be professionals together has been an unforgettable experience. Such a joy and satisfaction. We could be happy doing this side by side forever. I’m sorry it’s over.

Saturday, August 16 was my second day off of involvement in leadership at Southwark. We were up early to make the most of the day and Mike headed straight for Southwark to prepare to play the Walmisley Service and conduct the Smith Preces & his own setting of Psalm 46. I stayed behind at the dorms to do score studies and laundry, thereby freeing up our evening in hopes of spending it in the promenading audience at Royal Albert Hall, a world-class life experience that we were eager to call our own.

The night before we’d divided up the tiny amount of practice time available to us on the organ, since seven of us would be taking turns on the bench for our last three services. I was due on the bench near the end of the cycle, and arrived just in tiem. It was a stressful morning at Southwark, each of us checking in at our precise time for just a few minutes to do triage. For me, this meant registration for the Bach Toccata and a look at Sunday morning’s closing hymn: How Great Thou Art. Poor me, the hospitable people at Southwark thought they’d “make us feel at home” and chose a good ol’ American hymn for our last hurrah. I tapped into my roots and made the best of it.

With another visiting ensemble in Southwark for a few hours around lunch time, we had a little time on our hands before our 1:30 rehearsal. Together with one of our colleagues, we attempted a frantic expedition to St. Paul’s and back, on the hunch that they’d have noon mass. Even if they didn’t, we didn’t feel right leaving London without at least seeing it from the outside. We walked fast, but didn’t get there till 12:07, so it was a nice surprise to find that they did indeed have midday mass, but that it was held at 12:30. It gave us time to wander the church yard, a dramatic presence of peace and beauty in the heart of London. We entered with all the tourists around 12:20, assuming we’d be directed to an unobtrusive side chapel. By now we’d learned the art of avoiding entry fees to monumental chapels by arriving for a worship service. St. Paul’s, a top London attraction, had an entry fee of nearly 20 pounds if my memory serves me – not something we were about to pay for a twenty-minute peek inside. While we realized we probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to see its best feature (the dome), what we were particularly looking forward to was the chance to sit in worship as simple parishioners again, something we were missing with our hearts and hands so full as leaders at Southwark. So you can imagine how tickled we were to be ushered into circular rows of chairs situated directly under the dome at the center of the cruciform space. It was completely awesome, in the best sense of the word. That noon mass was a true feast for us: its simplicity, its awe-inspiring place.

Sadly, we had to leave before the conclusion, immediately after communing, or risk being late to our own rehearsal. We rushed back to Southwark and I moved even faster, leaving Mike & Bobby in the dust as I ran for a quick stop at a bank with Saturday hours. I was hopeful that we could withdraw some cash on our pin-less credit card, thereby saving our one working pin card in case it had limits, too. In my mind’s eye we were arrived in Italy with no currency and no knowledge of the language sufficient to make a transaction in person at a bank, worse yet by virtue of the fact that our destination was a tiny village. I was unsuccessful, having left my passport behind in the dorm, which was my only accepted form of ID. But I tried, and I was armed with new ideas from the banker for how to handle such a hypothetical should it become reality, and I even arrived to rehearsal (huffing and puffing) with 90 seconds to spare. (How much excitement that expired debit card brought to our trip!)

For the post-Evensong events of our day, I’ll let my journal tell the story. Unfortunately, the second time we dashed across town on this day we weren’t quite as lucky as the first, so we will always remember this day as the time we DID take group pictures in Southwark Cathedral and thus DIDN’T attend the Proms.

Saturday 16 August, 8:10 p.m.

We are at a loud sports pub just up the street from our dorm. It feels good to be sitting down to a meal after many meals caught on the fly. And a pitcher of Pimms! We’re alone with our books and then back for a saner bedtime than usual. My feet are so bruised! We’ve walked so much in 24 hours. This morning Mike went to the cathedral early to work and I stayed behind for a load of laundry and score study. Our chances to practice on the organ are so minimal that we are approaching most things almost completely cold. It’s stressful but we are getting by pretty well. After we had our opportunity on the organ this morning, we took our free lunch time to walk briskly over the Millenium Bridge to St. Paul’s, where we wandered the grounds a few minutes and then to our wonder were ushered not into a side chapel but directly under the great dome for 12:30 Eucharist, an unforgettable experience – made funny by the woman priest (Vicar of Dibley to the max) coming to share the peace and getting completely sidetracked by Mike’s apparently fabulous pink shirt. That happened, haha! It was refreshing to be sitting for a simple said service in the midst of all we’ve been leading this week. This afternoon’s Evensong over, we raced across town to Royal Albert Hall. We ate yesterday’s picnic leftovers while “queueing” for Prom 40 – Schubert and Mahler by London Symphony Orchestra. We were among the first 15-20 people turned away at the door when all the space had been filled. If we had left church 5 minutes earlier and not wandered around the circumference of the hall in search of the queue we would’ve gotten in. We were disappointed, but we’d known it was a long shot, and it was a thrill to get as close as we did. We consoled ourselves with silly photos by posters of Verdi’s Requiem (Cambridge Choirs) and the legendary Alison Balsom and then walked north through the west side of Kensington Gardens.

We love to laugh at all the signs saying “To let” since it looks like “Toilet” to us. “Offices Toilet.”

Watching soccer in this pub makes me very homesick for JM.

Before walking home from the pub we stepped outside of its noisy atmosphere to avail ourselves of its WIFI so we could Skype our sweet birthday girl back home. Unfortunately, our call walk her from a nap, and she was nothing but sad and weepy when we saw her. This made us pretty miserable and homesick, the most homesick we were of our whole trip, desperate to snuggle our girlie and make her birthday a little less weepy. Of course, she was just fine – just having her typical post-nap grump session, but we went to bed that night with our spirits down. What can I say? We missed our daughter’s birthday. We deserved it!

By Friday, August 15 we were tired, to say the least. Partying past midnight after a work day ending with a recital: not for the faint of heart. We took our time in the morning, assembling a small group of friends to spend the morning at Victoria & Albert Museum, one of the best-loved free sights in London. We’d come to London with a long list of possible fun and had quickly trashed the list. We didn’t take a night-time bus tour, we didn’t try to get tickets to the ballet, we didn’t step foot inside any of the major landmarks. We were still holding out to get Proms tickets for Saturday night, but that was it. We even ended up scrapping our Friday night ambition, to hear a live jazz pianist in the Royal Albert Hall Italian Kitchen. We didn’t see London like most visitors see it, but by the time we left it we felt that we knew it on a very satisfying level. Still, it seemed a shame to come and go without a single “cultural experience,” so we hopped on a red double decker around 9:30 a.m. and crossed town with three companions.

The Victoria & Albert Museum was completely overwhelming, as anyone who’s been there will know. We flitted quickly from room to room on the first two floors, covering a lot of the exhibits of the Far East, Asia, and the Middle East. We saw some Renaissance sculpture and some Enlightenment-era sculpture and managed to venture far enough onto the third level to see a bit of Georgian England (including the Handel statue), a phenomenal room full of jewelry, and a massive exhibit of stonework, some dating from the Roman era. By then our feet were tired and our eyes had seen their fill and we abandoned the last two-thirds of the museum, heading north on foot to Kensington Gardens & Hyde Park. We wandered through it, stopping at a cafe by its lake for some light lunch or snacks, eager to rest our feet. I really enjoyed the Hyde Park gardens and told myself I’d find time to come back to them on Saturday morning during some downtime.

Like magic, the predictable afternoon rain started right as we were descending into the subway to cross toward Southwark. And thus ended our brief moment of tourism. At Southwark we grabbed some more lunch from Borough Market and set to work for the afternoon. It was Mike’s one day off, in which he was playing no part in the service besides that of a chorister. I had only to conduct the Smith Responses and the anthem, Gerald Near’s Salve Regina. It was nice to have the pressure off a little.

After Evensong we offered to anyone in the group our unwanted reservation at the Italian restaurant, and left alone, leaving behind our heavy bags full of work, hand in hand, looking for rest and quiet. We were exhausted and missing each other, after a week of endless company. We talked about the work behind us as we sat on the river’s edge – about our colleagues and ourselves and how we’d grown through the week, about the patient and good-humored choristers, about our own strengths and weaknesses and how we saw them developing, about our high points and low points throughout the week. It was a perfect chance to decompress and prepare for a good ending to the week. On our walk along the river, from Southwark to the London Eye, we saw all kinds of interesting things, most notably a collection of gangsta-looking boys, break dancing “gangnam style,” ringed by a large, delighted audience. This, too, art in its own way, and a pleasure to watch. After taking the tube back north, we stopped in at the tiny Tesco Express near our dorms and assembled yet another bread-and-cheese-and-wine picnic, which we enjoyed in our room.

One funny aspect of this week bears remembering: One morning I plugged my hair dryer into our power adapter. Most days I’d just styled my hair wet and gone about the day. When I plugged it in the whole thing sparked and shut down. Not knowing whether I’d damaged the appliance, the adapter, or both, we didn’t attempt to use either again. Later we borrowed a friend’s adapter and systematically charged our various devices in our green room at Southwark as we worked. Eventually we figured out that our adapter (in fact, even my hair dryer) were still working, but we’d blown the fuse in our room. From then on we settled for using the power in the kitchen down the hall whenever we wanted to Skype the kids from our computer. The computer’s battery was too weak to handle Skype predictably without crashing, so it made things quite complicated for the remainder of the week.

Friday 15 August, 9:45 p.m.

This morning we took a bus to Victoria and Albert Museum with BS, DH, and SM. Lunch in Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park and down to work. After Evensong we had a lovely, quiet, beautiful time strolling and sitting by the Thames, getting from Southwark to the Eye of London as sunset and night fell. Now we’re eating dinner of bread and cheese and wine after a hello to the kids. We miss them so much. Tonight was a perfect, satisfying sampling of London all alone at just our pace.

Thursday 14 August, 2:30 p.m., The Vestry, Southwark

Preparing Psalm 40 for tonight’s Evensong, and hearing the rain pound on the skylight. The sound makes the simple place of being indoors feel like a luxury – a haven. So glad to be here to worship this week, and for churches – true sanctuaries to shut out the bustle of the likes of London.

Friday 15 August, 9:45 p.m.

Last night we gave a recital – such fun! – and then enjoyed an uproarious good time with friends at a pub before taking the metro home via McDonald’s for a midnight snack – the damned pub kitchens close so early we night owls keep missing dinner!

Thursday morning at Ashley Hotel we slept in and took our sweet time preparing for the day. This was not the day to throw any old outfit on and cut corners. From our return train we’d head straight for a warm-up at St. George’s and from there to our afternoon’s work at Southwark, doubling back to put on our recitalist hats. No zen moments to collect ourselves, nap, or primp. We were dressed with bells on by the time we put in our appearance in the hotel’s breakfast room. There we enjoyed a no-less-abundant English breakfast than usual, though this one was closer to the cafeteria fare we’d met in London than the fine cuisine of our weekend road trip. Even the decor of Ashley Hotel was reminiscent of Grandmas Everywhere, and the clientele clearly matched. The food seemed to fit the generation: A little too canned and processed, in general. But the company was good and lively, and my staunchly liturgically minimalist sister and brother-in-law even managed to push my ecclesiological buttons before we rose from the table, going on a rant about certain points of Roman Catholicism that I couldn’t find anything but funny since it clearly came from an ignorance of the fact that they were not in sympathetic company. (And thus it ever was.) Slowly I am learning not to take these sorts of moments personally, and this one was just entertaining for me as I listened quietly and kept my opinions to myself. (Love you, Kilby.)

Our London-bound train left at 10:04, and we got there with plenty of time. While Mike went to the automated kiosks to look up our tickets I hedged our bets by standing in the long line at the ticket counter. By a stroke of luck the machine spat out not two but six tickets, including the ones we should’ve had the day before. So we boarded our train and got down to business, studying our scores both for services and for the recital. It’s not every day I ride a British train like a professional, dressed to the nines and studying Bach like a pro. (I kinda like it.)

We had a few minutes to kill between arriving in London and beginning our scheduled practice at St. George’s, so we followed our map to find the alleged Handel House Museum nearby. We never could find the museum, but in the place where we expected it we found a giant wall mosaic celebrating him. From there it was a couple minutes’ stroll to the church, through the quaintest (wealthiest) back alleys you could imagine. Stereotypical upper-class urban London?

Mike took the first shift of our practice time and then I got on the bench for the last 45 minutes. Within 15 minutes I heard our professor, the one managing the recital, call my name from below. At her side was our colleague with the passport trouble, fresh off the plane from the States after three days of limbo. No arguments here! I hopped off the bench, barely warmed up, and trusted my performance to the powers of passion and adrenaline. There were still long passages I hadn’t touched in three weeks. But David had arrived, and that was all that mattered. We were all insanely pleased to see him, and even more than new of his misfortune had dampened our collective spirits for the first two days, our delight at his arrival put an extra energy into the rest of our week.

To Southwark, then, where there was a lot of work to do. Mike was on the bench for the closing hymn and closing voluntary, playing Bach’s Wir Glauben All. I was up to conduct the Martin Neary Preces and the never-ending Psalm 40. Conducting that Psalm was also one of the pinnacle moments of our trip for me, and our professor’s instructions from months prior – “Let them sink into prayer” – became my goal and my experience. What a profound moment! If you’re not familiar with the business of chanted Psalmody within the Anglican tradition, it will help to explain that, while quite simplistic in form, its preparation is considered the choir’s hardest work in traditions where it is practiced. To execute it well takes enormous preparation and synergy, and the result is awe-inspiring and amazingly simple in its effect. The text – and the act of prayer – shines through.

On our way to Southwark that very busy day we’d stopped at Pret a Manger to pick up lunch, a chain we’d learned to trust since our arrival in London. These shops are everywhere, affording busy professionals a quick coffee and a satisfying selection of prepared meals. It’s the kind of fare you’d expect to find at the Starbucks counter, conveniently packaged, but for half the price and with five times the selection. Sandwiches on baguettes or thick hearty sliced bread, salads, sushi rolls if that’s your fancy. It’s all there, and the ingredients aren’t plain, including things like goat cheese or cilantro or prosciutto. Europeans know how to eat. What we loved about Pret a Manger and its cousins was that they were everywhere, cheap, and stocked with genuinely fresh food. In fact, highly branded fast food chains were almost nowhere to be found. I could begin on the national policies, cultures, and practices at the back of this phenomenon, but I’ll save it.

To Pret a Manger we returned, depending on it as a sure instant food source, no maps or detours required. Our schedule was tight but the most important thing on our agenda was to feed David, who hadn’t eaten since his airplane. Friends don’t let friends play recitalists on an empty stomach. David fed (and raspberries dripped on his white dress shirt – the universe was picking on this guy!), we walked the rest of the way to St. George’s, as fast as our dress shoes would take us. There were seven of us on the recital – the five primary student-leaders of the Southwark group and two alums. We had about 40 minutes of warm-up to share amongst us, so we were all in high gear. It was a long recital, but packed with good music and everyone performed very well despite how rushed the hours leading up to it were. Is this the sign of a professional? Still able to execute your craft without time to get your head in the game?

Anyway, for me it was a complete mountaintop experience, I think because where some (including Mike) excel by cold, hard, calculated preparation, I tend to be more of a loose cannon, less disciplined, and passionate a million times over. Of the the three practice sessions I’d had two had been shaved to almost nothing, so all I really had to go on was that passion and it served me well. I think it was also my age and life experience: after studying, training, honing through school I’d gotten out of the game and had two kids, learning in the process to Just Do It. When things aren’t ideal you are still Mom, which means you are still the one Making It Happen and, in your kids eyes, Running the Universe. I think it’s made me confident, and I don’t second-guess myself anymore. I just get in and get it done. That’s how that recital felt, and combined with the Just Get It Done practicing of the spring and early summer months, I found myself completely in command of the moment. There were no nerves, and just enough adrenaline to misplace a few handfuls of notes now and then. Even in those slips, I felt complete control and mental engagement. I have never in my life had so much fun on the bench. It was a personal triumph for me like I’ve really never felt before. Music and I have had a stormy relationship. It was my whole life up until I became a mom and then barely a part of my life at all. We didn’t end well, either, and I’ve often assumed that the height of my career would forever be my junior recital, a skill level and passion never again to be matched. Quite the contrary, it seems the simple business of life has been working on my deepest self – musician to the core, unchangeably – and, finally getting to apply myself to my old trade, I was surprised to find myself better at it, and feeling better about it, than ever before. Now it’s September and I haven’t played a note since my second performance of that piece for closing voluntary of our Sunday morning service, and I don’t expect to again for a long time. I’m “just a mom” again by choice, but now there’s this knowledge that the musician in me is dormant but in no way lessened or lapsed, and that is a treasure I will never begin to describe. For me, this alone is worth this whole trip.

Summary: I played the hell out of that Bach, his E Major Toccata, BWV 566. I made it mine. So I was pretty euphoric as we left the church and walked across the street to a pub, where the whole gang of us had a wildly good time till late into the night. Finally, tired, adequately tipsy, and having resigned ourselves to going to bed on a dinner of only potato chips (the pub’s kitchen having been closed), we set out with a few friends for the journey back to University College London. Emerging from Russell Square Station we spotted one of those rare fast food locations, a flashy, ultra-modern looking McDonalds. It was not a hard decision, stopping in for some midnight grease to fill our hungry, happy bellies, and so there we were, eating McDonalds in Europe. Apparently it happens.

Back at the dorm, the day wasn’t over yet. Once in our sixth-floor room we remembered that small matter of our passports, which had been due to arrive while we were in Cambridge. Back down the elevator I went, to find our newly-arrived colleague now trying to check in at the reception desk without success. It was after midnight and the receptionist, speaking less than satisfactory English in a heavy Haitian accent, was in a serious mood, and pushing people around – not just my befuddled and irritated and over-tired friends, who were beginning to panic at the prospect of no welcome for David at this late hour, but some local student who was badgering him endlessly in Mandarin for a reimbursement of the 1 pound the vending machine had not returned to him. Of course the receptionist wasn’t going to handle that request out of his own pocket, and eventually he barked at our Asian friend to speak to the belligerent student. Slightly insulted, she obliged anyway and it seemed to help. This was the point at which I came down the elevator. The whole thing, though frustrating, was rather hilarious, and the night watchman and I had an amusing rapport from then on. I was happy to find, after we’d convinced him to let David stay the night by my last-ditch suggestion that he was “with the Indiana University group,” that, indeed, our passports had arrived safe and sound. From then on whenever this receptionist saw me he asked in mock irritation what I could possibly want this time.

This was the most ridiculous of the days of our trip, beginning in Cambridge, including a full day of work in London, ending with a once-in-a-lifetime recital performance in the spot where Handel sat to play three centuries ago. You are not supposed to accomplish this much in one day, but we did and we even managed to squeeze in a McBurger at the end. This one goes on the books for us in the “Did that really happen?” chapter.

Wednesday 13 August, 11:10 a.m., Cambridge Bus Stop

Something so satisfying about a cold coke (with real sugar) and a slow stroll off the train after the chaos and bustle of two days in London and failed train ticket reservations this morning. Simple pleasures.

6:00 p.m.

Snarfed breakfast with friends before setting out, missed our train in the most dramatic way possible, and finally arrived in Cambridge 41 pounds poorer at 11:00 a.m. We ate a good pub lunch after reserving a punt tour, then Milano hot chocolate and a visit to King’s College. The tourism that’s overtaken it was a little disturbing and my patience with rich Asian teenagers snapping photos on their iPhones of every plaque and exhibit wore very thin. Kilby entertained us with her undying flare for the sacrilegious. Punting the Cam was a blast. Idyllic. Weather was delicious and getting a backdoor view into all the colleges was memorable. I would do it again – 25 pounds and all – in a heartbeat. Cambridge is a lovely town and we’re staying at the elegant, spacious Ashley Hotel. We’ll venture out for dinner shortly and enjoy the evening with Paul and Kilby. This day is the perfect foil to the week’s work and I feel so thankful.

Our week of work in London included one night off from singing Evensong: Wednesday. If we’d known how busy the week would’ve kept us we might’ve stayed in London to finally “see” it, but it’s a good thing we didn’t. Getting out of its bustle was just what we needed. Having settled into the leisure pace of our first week, we were ready to be “just us” again, and to walk some slightly-less-crowded streets. So we abandoned London, heading for Liverpool Street Station. We built in “plenty” of extra time but arrived to find our credit card did not pull up our train reservation. We dashed for the ticket office and they, too, could not locate it by any means. Very well, Eurail owed us big time, then.

We missed our train but decided to just jump at the chance to get on the next one instead of trying to use public WIFI and a spotty computer battery to contact the company that, in the United States, was still fast asleep anyway. So we paid cash for tickets that we’d already had, only these, bought the day of travel, were more than twice the cost. With only a couple minutes to complete this process, Mike stood in line at the ticket desk and I stood at the turn-stile entrance to the train platform with our bags. We were ready to jump. I craned my neck and strained my eyes, trying to spot him coming toward me in the crowd. I muttered and stressed and stood on tip-toes. Then the train departed. Now more than upset (upset happened when our first reservation was MIA) I returned to the ticket desk, sure I’d find him. He wasn’t there. We attempted to call each other on our emergency phones. Mine seemed to be out of minutes. Now I was upset – and worried. Then I saw him, running toward me, looking dumbfounded and a little pissed. “Where WERE you!?!?!?” He asked. “Where were YOU!!!!” I yelled. “I was standing there watching the train leave!” We yelled at the same time. Sure enough, we’d been standing, on opposite sides of the train, waiting for each other. The tickets were in his hand. We sorted ourselves out and calmed ourselves down and sat for the next train. They were at about half-hour intervals. In the meantime we also returned to the ticket counter and obtained a receipt for our hastily-bought tickets, intending to sort it out with the company that sold them to us initially. We still need to sort that out in the next week, but we are hoping we will be 41 pounds richer at the end of the drama.

So we were finally on a train to Cambridge and gradually growing less out of sorts. We stopped at every tiny village station and the ride took almost 1h45 instead of the original fare’s 1h10. But it was a pretty trip, and we both caught up on a little sleep, too. Arriving in Cambridge, our pace and our pulse began to slow. We boarded a big red double decker bus bound for City Center and the driver let us off with instructions on how to find our destination. At the door of our hotel we met Paul & Kilby, my sister and English brother-in-law, themselves just arrived after checking in at the nearby sister hotel. We left our bags and set out to check us in and see the town.

It was a perfect day, then. Slow, peaceful, so very calm. Indulgent. Fun. We enjoyed a hearty pub lunch on an outdoor patio – a delightful setting on a beautiful 70-degree day. From there we passed the intriguing market on our way to Kilby’s guilty pleasure of the moment: Cafe Nero, where she was bound for coffee. She bought us one of her favorite indulgences, a Milano hot chocolate, which is basically thick chocolate soup. After that we made our way to King’s College, a decision Paul had finally settled for us: we’re only here once and we need to do it right. So we paid the rather high entry into the college and wandered the chapel and grounds for awhile, stopping to watch some tourists punting the Cam quite unsuccessfully. There was a lot of hilarity on this day (Have you met my sister?), and this was probably the funniest moment of all, watching the complete muddle of boats.

Upon our arrival in the center of Cambridge earlier we’d been accosted by one salesman after another, alumni dressed as pretentiously as you could imagine, trying to sell punting tours. We came to an agreement that we were not going to punt our own boat and haggled a slightly-less-outrageous price for the affair – 50 pounds for the 4 of us for an hour. With our reservation for 3:00, that had left us time to browse the city, eat, see King’s, and pause for a few moments in St. Mary’s Church across from the college. Now we joined our tour guide and eight others and set off for the river bank behind Queen’s College. The excursion was completely delightful, led by an affable, funny guy who gave us more than your average dry, over-informed tour guide spiel. At one hilarious moment he pretended to bang his head as we went under a bridge, eliciting gasps of horror from a passing boat of tourists. Apparently a pretty standard prank. The tour of the town from the river was perfect. No walking, no entry fees, and a peek into the back yard of all the colleges, with a bit of entertaining info about their rivalries and extravagances. If you’re ever in Cambridge, Punt the Cam! (And don’t be ashamed to hire a Punter. You’ll probably save yourself the embarrassment of some obnoxious cohort of onlookers laughing at your misfortune. Not that we were those people…)

The trip finished, we made the long walk back to our hotel and rested awhile in our adjacent rooms. The hotel, The Ashley House, was right near the river in a large old stone house, quintessentially British. It reminded me of the four-dwelling structure my family lived in for a year when I was a child. We had a huge room with a king-sized bed, a a spacious bathroom, and a generous bay window. My sister’s room was even larger, chosen with the possibility in mind of bringing their baby daughter if they couldn’t leave her. We abandoned plans for an outdoor picnic in the end, dissuaded by the breezy, chilly air and the impending sunset. Instead, we drove to Tesco and, with Kilby’s gourmet preferences and neurotic obsession with cheese to lead our way, selected for ourselves all sorts of delicacies. We brought them back to the hotel – a large loaf of bread, enormous cheeses, grapes, antipasti, wine, beer, and for dessert blueberries with an English fancy: cream unsweetened and whipped almost to butter, like the richest, thickest, mildest yogurt you ever ate. Mousse, but not chocolate.

We spread our picnic on a small table and assembled our rooms’ chairs, sitting in their room by the window and talking late into the night. It’s hard to explain just how much I treasure these double-date discussions, the four of us, or how miserably I will miss them when they abandon their temporary home in Chicago and settle for good in England where they’ve been spending summers. Never do I let my hair down more thoroughly and never with a better effect. Those conversations are good, rich, wise, hilarious, often shockingly irreverent (again, have you met my sister?), and always cathartic.

So we ended our day in Cambridge feeling, by comparison with our typical pace, like under-achievers (and again, have you met my sister? her pace is so very… sane). We had rested, and that for us is always an achievement. My memories of Cambridge, the halfway point of our three weeks, are among my sweetest of the whole trip.