Gaaaahhhh!!!!  I just got home, an hour later than I should have, because got lost twice trying to find my way back from Grace's new tennis lesson location.  The last two years she has had lessons at a charming but shabby little club in the hills.  Spectacular views, unpretentious and 10 minutes from home.  It was great.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, some quarrel or another, Giorgio the coach has moved his lessons to another club farther away.  This club is very nice with fencing grounds and pool and bar and restaurant and and and.  It is 50 Euro more a year which is no big deal but it's a royal pain in the ass to get back from.  I can get there.  I just can't get back.  The club is in Pino which is a obscenely expensive suburb of Torino, connected by a tunnel that runs under the hills.  It's tiny in area, built on the steep slopes of the upper hills overflowing with about 9,000 stinking rich inhabitants.  Because it is soooo desired, homes and apartment buildings are packed into these hills like sardines and there are literally hundreds of narrow, windy roads twisting and turning and looping back on themselves or dead-ending or just going on and on and on.  While getting to Pino is easy because as the saying goes, "All roads lead to Rome, Pino", getting back out is next to impossible.  Imagine a plate of spaghetti.  In the middle is a meatball.  All the pieces of spaghetti end at the meatball but start all the Hell all over the place!  I've driven there twice now and have tried to memorize the road I came in on but can't for the life of me find it again to go back.  Of course there are no signs as that would make sense.  I turned up 20 different roads thinking, "This is THE ONE!"  It wasn't.  At one intersection there was an enormous truck trying to turn into a teeny road where unfortunately another driver was exiting.  There was no way either of them could back up so our entire row of cars coming in from still another road all had to reverse out to let the truck-blocking car in.  Driving here is freaking ridiculous.  She better turn into a damn good tennis player......

xxoo me