I entered the college and was immediately struck with the medieval-ness of it. It literally is a walled school. The lawns are being used for construction, unfortunately, but the place still looks like a castle. The rooms are divided by staircase, not floor. I asked the groundskeeper for directions. Let me take a moment to describe this groundskeeper, because I have grown quite fond of him over the weeks. He was watering what was left of the lawns at this moment. He is a middle-aged to older gentleman who wears his red- and grey- streaked hair past his shoulders on the sides and nearly gone on top. His beard, of the same color, touches the top of his chest. He adorns himself with an eyebrow ring, a bull loop nose ring, and a tee shirt tucked into his jeans. Most friendly fellow you'll ever meet. He replied: "Twelve? Go allll the ways around. Keep goin' around and it's on the corner. At least, I thinks that's it." I thanked him and he gave a friendly nod of his head, the same nod he now always gives me when I pass him each morning.
There were two young adults working on that staircase. Cleaning, or something. I asked them if I had the right area (the numbers on the envelope were a little confusing, perhaps in part because of my long journey thus far). The young man sort of laughed as he said, "Oh. That's all the way at the top. All the way up there." And it was. About nine flights. He asked me if I'd like a hand. I thought for a few seconds, looked up at the winding staircase, tested the weight of my bag, and of course said yes to the offer. I regretted it. He mentioned that my bag was "quite heavy" about four steps up. I offered to take it up myself, but he just kept pulling it up and up and up. I realized that this might have been one of those times where someone offers help but doesn't really want to help. They just feel like they need to offer it. In turn, the polite thing to do is thank them for the offer but decline them, it wasn't really an offer, anyway, just a formality. But by this time we were already seven flights up. I said an embarrassed thank you and muttered something about my nonexistent upper body strength. I chalk it up as a learning experience: I learned to read into what people say here a bit more, and he learned that if he offers a weary American  help, she just might take it. And then he's stuck.