Rome, Day 1

Today has been such a crazy long day! I was up at 9:00am to get ready for the big trip to Rome. We arrived at the airport early (as any good chaperone does) and waited for the students to arrive. once they all showed up we hurried through  security checkpoints and got to the gate just in time to wait.. for 2 hours for our flight to board. The last time I flew on a flight for an extended period of time was over 10 years ago, so the whole TV in the back of the seat with movies, games, TV shows, and other things was a bit of a shock. They definitively helped to make the flight bearable. I have a notorious history of not being able to sleep on cars, boats, or planes,so the 10 hour flight seemed to go on FOREVER! Thankfully, many games of solitaire, chess, my iPod, and free movies came to my rescue. On the flight, we also got free dinners and breakfast. I was pretty happy with the flight despite how tired I was and how my body was screaming at me to get up and move the entire flight. The 10 hour flight landed in Paris.

This was my first time in France, but I really did not get a chance to see or do anything because I spent 3 hours in the airport just waiting for my flight to Rome. The little flight from Paris to Rome was in some ways worse than the 10 hour flight to Paris. I was already dead tired and this plane of course had no TV or anything to do, so keeping awake was a bit of a challenge. During the landing procedure, we hit some massive turbulence, and my body decided it needed to react in the form of throwing-up. I managed to keep it down (TMI?) and then, I was in Rome!!! 

I was (and still am) super excited just to be here in Rome. The start of this tour however, has not been promising. We were picked up from the airport by our tour guide, and took a 2 hour buss ride to dinner, which, to be honest was not that great. I hope to experience a little better Italian food in the near future. During dinner we met the other members of out tour who were from Texas, and then took an hour bus ride to our hotel. I am writing this [or was when I wrote it] from my hotel room, and it is a bit gross.  It is messy, unclean, poorly constructed, and a bit sketchy. On the plus side, it has a bed, and I am excited about that! During the time I am writing this I have been awake for.... 29 hours, most of which has been sitting on a crowded plane, terminal, or bus. I can only look forward to tomorrow when I actually get to see some cool stuff in Rome! I end this day with the faith and hope that this shitty day of travel will pay off over the next week. [ps: it did]