Arrived in Rome

I have arrived in Rome!

It has been the longest day of my young life.  Yesterday, today, two days ago, whenever I left, I said a tearful goodbye to my mother, Diva #1, early in the morning.  I hope she will behave herself while I am gone, but judging from her sassy comments that she has posted already, I doubt that this will happen.

 Here's a map of my journey!


My dad took me to Chicago to see me off, which was great, because I did not want to shuttle myself from Midway to O'Hare, or hang out alone.  We had a nice little lunch and I tried not to cry when we said goodbye.  I love Papa Saint.

In Chicago, I met up with one of my good friends and fellow Thetas, Jenny!  She is from Seattle and is studying in Rome with me, we are also roommates.  Watch out Rome!  We've decided that even though Rome has been standing since 700 BC, it may not be in one piece when we leave.  When we got to Chicago, we met up with Will, one of Jenny's friends.  Will's the best.  He gave us airline vouchers for Starbucks.  The only catch was that I had to tell the cashier I was on a flight going to Tokyo.  I didn't ask questions, it was my third macchiato of the day and I desperately needed it.  We passed the time in Chicago by playing fashion police, and I sent Diva #1 some photos of the poor people left behind in decades (or planets) past....she told me I was going to be stabbed by the end of the day.  How rude.  

Chicago was fine until they made me check a second bag.  The little helper man kept telling me that neither of my bags would fit in the little box they use as measurement for carry-ons.  Apparently a small personal item is not a backpack or body sized duffle.  I miss Southwest.  I couldn't believe my ears.  So I just tried to stuff my duffle bag into the space at the gate to show him that it would fit just fine until he just about had a stroke and finally let me keep the duffle as long as I checked the backpack.  So I sat on the floor of the terminal hauling my laptop and electronics, and jewelry and contacts out of the backpack and tried to squish them into my already overstuffed duffle.  What a day.  

So then we get on the plane.  We didn't have seating arrangements together, but we figured that we could just sweet talk our way to sitting together.  And we did.  First of all, economy seating on Lufthansa is NICE.  I was really feelin' it, and then I saw them.  The German version of the Duggars.  You know them, Jim Bob and Michelle from TLC's a Bazillion Kids and Counting.  But they were German.  They wore the long skirts and braids and matching polos and had about 12 kids following the two parents.  Can you imagine paying for that many international plane tickets!?

Anyway, two of the kids sat behind us.  Unfortunately, Jenny and I didn't realize this until we had spilled all our secrets and caught up on all our news.  I'm pretty sure we scarred them for life.  I like to think of it as helping to give them a life education. Oh, well.  Our dinner came shortly thereafter and we watched the Hunger Games as we nommed on our pasta and red wine. (Mom, READ: grapejuice.)  

We got no sleep because we were too excited, but when we landed in Dusseldorf this morning I was just about ready to sleep forever and ever.  I fell asleep sitting up in my chair during the layover.  When we got into Rome, we were both freaking out a little bit about our bags making it all the way through.  But they were there!  The best part was our driver from the airport to school was this fabulous Italian woman who hauled our bags in her four inch pumps.  Soooo stylish.  Jenny and I were freaking out a little because no one stamped our passport in Rome, and we never went through any kind of customs.  I think everything is just pretty relaxed here...I kept trying to speak to the driver in Italian but maybe she wanted to practice her English because she was not having any of it.  It couldn't be because of my Italian skills...

We got here and got our fab IDs (I've already asked when makeup picture day is), and started hydrating (water).  These Guizza waters are my new best friend.  They are only 90 cents and they are sooo big.  

Our room is kind of small, but we will deal.  At least we have a lot of closet space.  Some people were heading out downtown, but I can barely keep my eyes open.  I'm pretty sure I am tired enough that if I got behind the wheel it would be the equivalent of drunk driving.  They have a full day for us tomorrow, so I hope there will be some bomb photos!

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