8 days ago I was standing at home being harassed by my mom taking pictures of my every move. While sitting in the airport, I decided to browse through my camera and I found three of me brushing my teeth that morning. Attractive. My 22 hours of travel time were quite the experience. When I arrived to LAX the stewardess told me to take the bus to terminal 5 where I would find my connecting flight. Obediently, I followed her directions and arrived at terminal 5 only to find an entire terminal dedicated to Delta Air. Great. Time was running low, but I kept my composure and went to the nearest flight attendant to ask if I could simply get back on the bus and go to the correct terminal (terminal 2). She told me I had to go out of the airport, take a public bus to terminal 2, re-check in, then go to my gate. Politely, I asked "I only have about 45 minutes until my flight leaves, so do you think I can get back on the internal bus?" She replied, "You can stand here and argue with me all you want, but I can't do anything else to help you." Moral of the story: Don't fly Delta! I proceed to run out of the airport, take the public bus, arrive at the ticket counter as it is being shut down, the KLM stewardess calls the plane and says "There is one more passenger, please wait!" I get escorted through security and ran to my gate. WHEW! Oh wait, then they decided to take me aside and search me from head to toe as I was panting and sweating heavily. The flight was fine. My lay over in Amsterdam was long. Then as I landed in Rome, I was nothing but smiles. Smiles until I found out they lost my bags. Agitated and exhausted, I was still uncontrollably happy to finally be in La Citta Eterna!
I spent my first weekend playing tourist. I think I walked about 10 miles the first 2 days. Then come Monday, I moved into my apartment and began classes on Tuesday. We are located in Campo di Fiori, which is home to one of the most lively markets during the day then transforms into an active nightlife scene. Class so far has been touring the area, and wandering around the city doing research for our first project. Today we got to go to The American Academy to listen to the author of The Encyclopedia of Pasta speak, and Monday we have cooking class!! Next Friday is World Food Day and since Rome is home to the Food and Agriculture Organization, we get to sit in on some pretty heated debates. I am very excited! Stay tuned!
