Vita è Bella!

Excitement and Insomnia, Part I

Where to begin... hm. The last couple days before leaving are kind of a blur in my memory, so I don't think I'll even go there. Friday night I was up far too late, and so Saturday morning I was more than ready to doze on our ride down to the airport. I napped a little and spent a good hour reviewing my Italian notebook and old tests. What can I say--panic and reality were starting to hit me in slow waves, and I decided it was better late than never to go over my Italian! Originally I planned to review it all throughout break... but of course that didn't happen. I kind of wish that I had now, but what can you do. So we met up with Nancy and Jim, and went out for my last American meal... at the Olive Garden. Such irony! I love it. We got to the airport and, in my frenzy to make it inside and get checked in, I managed to leave my cell phone in the car. This didn't become an issue until later, when I realized I had one last important phone call to make to a certain someone, and in that moment I think I felt more anxiety than I'd felt during the entire week! But Mom saved the day, and I made my last goodbyes before passing off the cell phone. After a few tears shed, Mom and Dad decided that it was time for me to brave the swarming masses in the security checkpoint, so I gave them both big hugs goodbye and stepped in. It felt kind of odd to be glancing back over them, waving and rolling my eyes in exasperation over the tedious procedures, knowing that it would be the last time I would see their smiles for three and a half months. I took a deep breath, glanced one last time, then stepped through the checkpoint, shoeless and confident. It was quite a relief to meet up with the group! After several reunions and about a half an hour of waiting, we boarded the plane.

For the record, Air France is my new favorite airlines. Not that I've flown enough to compare this experience to much else... but they had little pillows, earplugs, blankets, and eye masks waiting for all of us. Each seat had a little flatscreen TV built into the seat in front of it, upon which we could view movies, play games, listen to music, and watch the progress of the flight (which is really interesting! We ended up flying up into Canada, then circling back down over the bottom of Ireland. I didn't realize we would go so far north, though it makes sense in retrospect, and I was excited to be so close to the North Pole!). I put on "Little Miss Sunshine" which is now one of my new favorite movies. Apparently, though, I watched an edited version, and the real one has much more swearing... but, nonetheless, it was completely hilarious! I found myself laughing out loud, then trying to suppress my laughter by clapping my hands over my mouth, which likely drew more attention to myself than the initial laughter. I got a few amused/bewildered looks, but I didn't care. Most of the SMC girls (plus Danny, one of the 3 boys on the trip) were grouped in the very back, with about 15 empty rows in the sections in front of us. I was enjoying myself immensely when they started to bring around food! A real meal! They gave us a choice between fish and chicken, with veggies, some chocolate pudding, really good breadsticks, a little cinnamon cake thing for dessert, and an odd form of couscous and salmon. The salmon looked disgusting, so I didn't go there, but everything else was pretty good. Though I was too full for the pudding. I guess I just never expected to be fed! On the way to Hawaii we had to pay cash for little bags of chips and things... so this was kind of nice.

I think I slept a little, but it didn't really feel like it when I awoke. We got off in France and somehow found our way to the next terminal, with some minor adventures on the way. During the customs checkpoint, the detector thing beeped both times I walked through. One of the women eyed me, asked something incomprehensible in French, and motioned for me to stick out my arms. She proceeded to give me a full pat down, front and back, and even used a little wand for good measure. I re-joined the others in confusion, and we settled in for another wait. The next several hours were kind of surreal. We flew into Rome, over some beautiful mountains, landed, got our bags, crammed into one bus to head for the Hotel Tiziano, then hurried up to our rooms. I remember lots of little flashes of images... the back of the Vatican, men and women rushing past us on the streets in front of the hotel, disoriented, "Buongiorno's" and lots and lots of people and commotion. It was such a relief to step into my room. I was the first of our triple to arrive, and soon discovered that we got pretty lucky. When you walk in, there's a really nice bathroom straight ahead (which all the girls are jealous of--we even have a bathtub!) and a little hallway with two big wardrobes immediately to the right. When you walk through the hallway, you enter a spacious room with a desk for each of us, cute little beds, a shelf lining the wall, and funky blue and white lights. Off in the corner, two doors open up to an enclosed terrace, which has a wooden fence covered in ivy, a clothesline, and a nice little view of the stars. At first I was disappointed that it didn't open onto the street, but I think it's kind of nice to have such privacy. I like that I can go get a breath of fresh air whenever I feel like, and just sit there and look up at the stars at night.

My roommates soon arrived, and we tried to figure out the bed/clothes situation before our meeting with the program director. Most of us practically fell asleep during the meeting (myself included... there were several close calls in there!) and then were left on our own to go find dinner. I went with some of the girls to L'Insalata Rica and had a really good salad. We walked around for a little while, and I saw one of the cute stores that Kristy really liked, though I didn't get a chance to stop. After that, we unpacked for a couple hours, then crashed. I fell asleep instantly, and didn't even budge for about 10 hours! Unfortunately, the alarm clock was supposed to go off after 8... whoops. Oh, the joys of jet lag.

More on this, and my first real days in Roma, to come.

posted by Sarah @ 11:04 AM