Day 1--Traveling to Florence

The first day of my four months in Europe started out like any other day. The only difference was I wasn't sleeping in my own bed and I had to get to the airport. I met up with Eldon before going through security at MSP. We introduced our parents to eachother and my aunt that drove us to the airport. Checking the luggage and going through security wasn't anything horrible, I'd done it before so no new surprises there. Then the wait for our flight. It turns out that there were other SMU students at the airport taking an earlier flight to Chicago but that we would all be on the same flight out of Chicago to Frankfurt. I was glad that there was a whole group of us going together because it made the traveling easier, knowing that there were more of us than just the four I had originally thought there would be.

The flight from MSP to Chicago was delayed for about 20 minutes on the tarmac. I'll admit, I was a little worried about making the connecting flight. I also was freaking out about going through customs and where that would take place. My itinerary showed less than an hour layover in Chicago so I didn't want to have to deal with Customs there. Turns out, our flight got into Chicago just ten minutes before boarding started for our next flight. I had just enough time to go to the bathroom before they started boarding. That's where Eldon, Allyson, and I met up with the others from our group of 15 studying in Italy.

The flight to Frankfurt was long. We were given the option of like six or seven movies to watch on the flight. I first watched "Eagle Eye" with Shia Labeouf. It was a good action/adventure movie. A lot of twists and turns that kept me watching the movie the whole way through. There was also a "map" channel on the monitor that showed the details of the flight: distance traveled, estimated time of arrival, ground speed, air temp, and other things like that. There was also a world map feature that showed where the plane was during the flight. It was a little weird to wake up from one of the naps I took on the flight to see that the plane was over the Atlantic Ocean with no land in sight. Admittedly, me being paranoid, I thought "OMG, what if the plane crashes into the ocean?" But only for about a minute before I nodded off again.

The flight was around seven hours long, I think. Too long for me to be flying at once. We were serve a dinner meal with the choice of beef or pasta. The beef dish was actually good: beef, mashed potatoes, and peas and carrots. But something didn't agree with my stomach because just before flying over England, when we hit turbulence, I lost my dinner in one of the air sickness bags. I had been feeling very hot, sweaty, clammy, and my stomach was just rumbling. I was surprised that I got sick because I've never had any problems with flying before. Anyway, after that, I watched "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" on the monitor before taking another nap. It was dark the entire time we crossed the Atlantic so there was not much to see.

When we landed in Frankfurt, we had to go through Immigration. The guy behind the desk took my passport, looked at the picture, looked at the visa, looked at me, looked at the picture again before stamping it and letting me through. The lady next to me handed her passport to the other guy behind the desk and her passport was stamped right away. I don't know if that means that maybe I looked like trouble or what but it had me a little worried. We all got through customs and were waiting in the gate area for our last flight: Frankfurt to Florence. Eldon, Betsy, Carla, and I played card games until our flight was called. We played BS, War, and Hearts; each of us not really wanting to play but needing something to do.

They bused us from the gate to our plane where I sat next to a priest. It wasn't any interesting flight simply because I slept through most of it. When we boarded the flight it was around 1 am CST but 8 am local time. There's a seven hour time difference between here and home. Anyway, I'd also been in airports and on planes for 14 hours or so. I also didn't sleep well on the flight to Frankfurt so I just conked out on the flight to Florence. When we were landing though, I was able to sneak a peek out the window and view the gorgeous country side. It's beautiful here. Nice spring weather, everything is green, and best of all, no snow. I got an email, when I was finally able to log on, that there was a tag and tow on Friday, sucks to be you guys on campus.

But this is where I'll leave off my first post. I'll start my next post with landing in Florence, going through baggage claim, and getting to Villa Bonelli. Ciao for now!!