An Adventure With Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

So I am now sitting in my amazing room at the Villa in Fiesole, Italy.

The day of travel started yesterday I guess? My friend Andrew flew on the same flight as I did, so his girlfriend kindly picked me up on their way to Dulles at about 3 for our 6pm flight. It was a bit rainy in DC, but nothing to be too concerned about. We boarded at about 530, and Andrew and I were on different sides of the plane, so we went our separate ways as we boarded. I was in the second to last row, which was nice because I had space to my right as I was in the aisle and instead of there being 5 people in my row, there were only 4. Sadly, there was also no room for my carry-on because there was only room for three peoples carry-ons for some reason. Honestly, I think the girls I was sitting next to just didnt want to put any of their stuff in the overhead compartments or squish anything. In any case, it was lucky I had the aisle because I had a place for my feet to go since my bag was not under the seat in front of me.

As for the flight itself, it was pretty uneventful. I did my reading for Tuesday and Wednesday (over 100 pages) and watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother that United so nicely provided. Dinner was a salad, roll, and brownie because they ran out of chicken and the pasta looked quite nasty. The flight was about 8 hours, not too bad. We had a tailwind of about 100 mph for most of the time we were over the Atlantic, and ended up arriving around 30 min earlier than scheduled. I didnt sleep more than a half hour, partly because I was doing my reading, partly because I wasn't tired, and partly because I have a difficult time sleeping on planes. Then there was the fact that every time I started to nod off we hit a particularly rough patch of turbulence. This trip in particular we had quite a bit of turbulence. It was fun and added to the adventure of it all, though i have to admit at times it was a bit more scary than exciting.

Now this wouldnt be a true Adventure without some mishaps. Lee Catherine was planning on taking a different flight from Reagan to JFK, and from JFK to Rome. She was going to land about 3 hours later than me, and we were going to meet and then journey to the Villa together. Well, she found out that her flight was delayed by an hour at about 2pm DC time. So she told me she would text me to let me know if she made her connection in JFK, and we would keep our fingers crossed that we would meet up in Rome. Sadly, we did not cross our toes as well, and her flight out of DC was delayed til 9, meaning she missed her connection. So, she will be arriving tomorrow and continuing the adventure on her own from FCO to the Villa. I sent her some information on how to get here, so hopefully that helps.

Now back to my story. As Andrew was sitting in his seat, about halfway through the flight his seatmate pulls out a stack of papers to read. Turns out, his name is Pat and he is going to the Villa too. So, we all met up after the flight, went through customs (easy peasy), picked up our luggage, and meandered toward the Leonardo da Vinci express that takes you from FCO, which is outside of Rome, to the Termini station, where we caught our train to Florence (Firenze). The guy selling the tickets at Termini was a jerk, but that just added to the adventure, and we figured it all out.

So we, Andrew, Pat, and myself, are on the train to Florence, and all of us are tired since none of us slept on the flight, but no one wants to sleep and miss our stop. It must have been hilarious waching us all nod off and then jerk awake. We found our stop though, lugged our luggage to a taxi, and began the 15 minute ride out of Florence and into the hills of Fiesole. The Villa is up a windy road with amazing views of the city down below. It is absolutely breathtaking. I had fellow students help me drag my luggage up the steps and into my cozy room I will be sharing with Charlotte and Lee Catherine. We have a view of the front gardens and the city of Florence. We also have our own bathroom, woohoo!

One of the staff came to our room, gave us a fan, and welcomed us to come down and eat some lunch, so I had some salami, strawberries, bread, salad, and an apple. Quite delicious. Then Andrew, Charlotte, and I wanered around the Villa taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful day.

Some sad news is that my Italian phone is not working. I have tried multiple plugs and it just wont charge or turn on. So, while it was a great idea, it just didnt pan out. We will just have to communicate through the blog and email and my American phone if need be.

Its funny, but it all still seems kind of surreal that I am here. I don't think it really hit me until we got in the cab at the train station and were winding our way through Florence. At that point, you can't really deny that you are here. Then, the Villa itself is so amazing that it just goes back to being surreal. We shall see how it all feels tomorrow when I wake up.

In any case, it has been a nice welcome back to Italia.

I will post pictures right after I finish with the entry, so enjoy and please leave comments :-)

Hours in Transit: 8 on plane, 2.5 on train, .3 in a taxi