Ciao!

August 18, 2008

Well, I have arrived, however not without a few minor mishaps. The 8 hour flight was not enjoyable, however after three Excedrin PM’s and two cocktails I didn’t even notice that I was on a plane. The few times I did wake up were to eat what they called, “beef stroganoff,” watch some movies (or the first few minutes at least) and let my neighbor go to the restroom about 18 times. She was a nice old lady, but besides waking me up to use the restroom (I was on the aisle, she was by the window…thankfully the middle was empty!!) she would wake me up to ask me if I dropped something. Which to me was strange, seeing as how I was nearly in a coma and could barely move as it was. This occurred several times, but I ignored her the last few times so she stopped bothering me.

When we arrived in Rome around 745 am local, 145 am Ohio time, we were all a sight. Everyone looked haggard and tired, which we were. My first thought was to get to the restroom, after two drinks and a couple waters I was ready to explode. I finally figured out where the “toilet” was and got in line. I waited in the most disgusting, hot “restroom” for around 20 minutes. Then it was finally my turn and to my horror, there was no toilet seat!!! I was thinking, “What is this? A third world country?? I mean come on!!” Well, I did my thing as best I could and made my way to the luggage cart area where I was yelled at by an Italian man because I wouldn’t give him my 1€ coin that I needed for my luggage cart! He was mean and angry with me because I would not trade him my 1€ for 4 American quarters!!! Oh well…I told him to leave me alone and he eventually went away. After we all claimed our luggage we made our way to the charter buses and boarded after we eventually found our driver chain smoking and chatting with friends.

Once aboard, we basically all passed out for 3 more hours until we got into Florence. It was amazing! It was everything I imagined and more. Our apartment is adorable, although I got stuck with the small room and an even smaller bed. Its maybe a step up from a crib, but not quite a twin. My roommates are surprisingly cool thus far and I feel like I was nervous for no reason. It turns out that our apartment is adequately equipped with closet space, as we still have empty closets. It’s actually more storage than I had in the States. Woo! I just finished unpacking and taking pictures of the apartment and wanted to connect to the Internet. We have access to wi-fi at the Duomo (which happens to be in our “backyard”) but, of course I am having trouble connecting, so I thought that before I forgot what I wanted to write, I would just type it up now and post later!

So, I am off to explore Florence with my roommates and to pick up some odds and ends, eat, drink, be merry and try not to go to bed until at least 10pm!

Until next time—arrivederci!

~K