So yesterday I made my way to Rome to begin my study abroad adventure. My parents dropped me off at MSP for my 11am flight to Chicago. There was surprising less anxiety on my part than I had anticipated, which, coming from the queen of sweaty hands, is saying something. I even avoided crying at the airport, save for one moment of blubbering in line ar security which I stealthfully hid from most everyone except for a little baby who kept staring at me.
The flight to Chicago went well, a quick 55 minutes. But one piece of advice to you travelers out there, a wooden rocking horse does not count as carry-on luggage. It's true. Some lady brought a full on rocking horse on the plane for her granddaughter to play with. Next time, pony up the $50 and check it.
From Chicago, my travel buddy and I quick bought some pizza and then ran to our gate expecting to have some time to eat since our flight wasn't due to leave for 45 minutes, but they were already boarding so we scarfed an entire personal pizza each and took what we couldn't shove in our mouths on the plane. And this was one of the sweetest planes ever! Especially if you were sitting first class. Seats leaned all the way back and there were personal flat screen TVs and blankets and pillows. Livin the sweet life. My seat was pretty good too. Accidentally being bumped to Preferred Economy got me an extra 2 inches of leg room.
A side note about travel fashion. Wearing 6 inch, platform heels to the airport is probably not the best idea. neither is wearing a skirt that will get you arrested in 48 states. If you really have to be somewhere right after you deplane where that is the proper attire, then please throw on some flats and pants, sitck your Lady Gaga shoes in your humongo purse and get on the plane. Waiting for some girl to teeter her way down the tarmack at the speed of mollasses is not pleasant for all of the stressed and tired travelers flying with you. Rant ended.
From Dulles in Washington DC, we hopped our direct flight to Rome. Flying time was only 8 hours. i love flying and how easy it makes it to bop from one place to the other, but considering my flight time to another continent was only and hour longer than it took my dad and I to drive to the cabin two weeks ago, it makes it hard for me to realize that I'm actually in Italy.
When we finally did get to Rome, we decided to take a shuttle bus to the the main metro station, Termini, and then hop at train from there to near our apartment. Doing it this way saved a bit of cash and earned us some major points in the hard-core category. Our bus driver obviously hated his job as her was kind of crabby. He then proceeded to text the enitre 40 minute drive and dirve like a mad man. The driving style I don't think can be attributed to his demeanor, however, because Romans all drive like mad. He did manage to almost run over a man in a wheel-chair, though. We did get to drive by a whole bunch of ruins and the Colloseum, so that was worth my 15euros.
After our interesting bus ride, we got into the Metro and the right line and the right train. Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us to WDC this summer becasue I figured out the Metro map and the ticket machines in a snap. Ticket were also only 1euro, which was great. We took the B line train to Rebbibbia and got off at Policlinico. Our metro cars were pretty empty so I didn't have to be super high alert about people atealing my stuff. When we got out, the station we were at wan't equipped with elevators and all of the escalators were running donwards, so we had to ahul all of our luggage up literally 7 flights of stairs to leave. I had my hiking pack on my back, my school backpack on my fron (yes, I was that kid) and a rolly suitcase behind me while Mikala had two rolly suitcases and a backpack to haul herself. We were soooo sweaty after hiking all that way and we had to take multiple breaks on the way to catch our breath.
Finally when we got to the surface, we weren't sure what way we had to turn, so we had to locate someone who spoke English to ask directions, which was surprisingly easy. From there it was only a couple of blocks to our apartment and wo both jumped with joy when we saw that we had elevators. Well, it was really more of a hop, we were really tired.
More to come about this FANTASTIC apartment, but now it's back to orientation!
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