The Plane Ride

Thursday January 7, 2010

It is 11:32 pm—my first night in Florence! I decided to do a blog so I can let everyone know what’s going on with my little adventure without having to repeat myself a thousand times. Don’t expect elegant writing or lyrical prose…I am just simply not capable of that kind of wit.

Flying wasn’t too terribly bad. Checking in was a pain. I mean seriously, who in their right mind thinks a 50-pound bag is going to cut it for 4 months. I begged and pleaded, but eventually had to open the bag and frantically shove all kinds of random heavy objects into my carry on. Oh, that’s right—my carry on is a hiking pack. That is about three and a half feet tall. It overwhelms my spine. Awesome.

So here I am—my bag finally makes the 50-pound maximum, and all my excess has been transferred to my massive back pack. When I make it to Philly and try to hoist my messenger bag on my shoulder along with my hiking back, I realized that I have expedited the crippling on my back. I had to make a grueling trip from terminal F to A with the mother of all carry-ons strapped to my back. Yes, I may sound dramatic right now…but trust me, it was epic. It was probably the closest thing I’ve come to hiking. Sad, but true. I watched Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday to get into the Italian mood. When we finally board for Munich, I get super excited to find that I have a seat 5 rows from the front and it is an aisle seat—score! Happily calling my parents to tell them this convenient news I had the feeling that I may have spoke to soon. And I was right.

While waiting for the rest of the passengers to board, a woman comes up to me and starts speaking in frantic Italian. Yes I realize that I should get used to this, but I was like, really…we are still in America…lets speak English. (This does makes me sound ignorant, but I’m nervous and was not ready to be ambushed in a foreign language just yet). The lady two seats down starts translating for the Italian. She tells me that the Italian has the seat next to me and her eleven-year-old daughter is in the back, separated from her mother. I was totally cornered. Ambushed with the “my poor daughter” story. Well obviously I can’t be an ass hole. I was pitied into switching seats with her daughter. I moved towards the back and realize that the eleven year old had a center seat in a four-seating section. Not only did I have to climb over the already-situated passengers near me, but the crazy German in front of my seat and put her luggage under her seat, which is where my carry on should go. And the eleven-year-old Italian stubbornly knocked over my blanket and pillow and stepped on them. Epic Fail. When I arrive to Munich I also come to the realization that I probably am Closter phobic because that flight was damn near awful. But flying to Florence made up for that. It was a beautiful trip—we flew over the Swiss Alps that went on for miles and miles. It was like one of the screen shots the show in the movies. It was magnificent. But that was nothing compared to arriving in Florence.

Florence was amazing. Beyond being breathtaking, you get this overwhelming feeling that you are not seeing enough. You just want to bottle everything up and take small sips every day. Man was my ADD going crazy. I was looking up, down, left, right. Everywhere there was beauty. I pretty much went straight to my apartment and met my roommates—three other girls within the program. My apartment is on the other side of the river, a good twenty-minute walk from where I will have my classes. To my surprise, everything is quite spacious for European standards. We have a great bathroom with hot water, and my bed is really comfy. Only bad thing is that the heater doesn’t work and we don’t have wifi like the other apartments. It’s so cold in the apartment, but thanks to my parents and our frigid house, I am somewhat use to this. We all showered, napped, and got dinner at a quaint restaurant down by el Duomo. We have two courses of plain Italian food—I wasn’t impressed. But I hope it will get better.

Hopefully all my other posts won’t be this long, but I thought I’d start off with a lot of details

Miss you all!

Ciao

Ladini