Monday, March 1st: Day 2

Ugh.... (=.=) Trans-Atlantic flights are EVIL. Somehow, with my head propped up against the wall of the plane I slept for a little under 4 hours. It's a miracle. Sadly, this has given me a sore neck  that's not very likely to go away anytime soon. But, all annoying complaints aside, we got to Rome and went through security pretty easily; even getting our luggage took less than 5 minutes. 


From the airport, we took a train into the city. The view out the windows went from the occasional house with lots of plants around it, to the city, and to even more city. I would try to describe it better, but it was a long flight. The train station was pretty much just a normal, busy train station, except everything was in Italian. (well, not everything. There was some lame tourist stuff but it's not important) Walking to the convent we got to see some ancient roman & modern european stuff, which helped this crazy day feel a little more real. 


Today our plan was to go see two churches; Saint Peter in Chains, and Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary Major.) But as it turns out, most of these places are closed on mondays. huh. seems like Don forgot about that. Now imagine yourself a person who had just been on 12 hours of flights (not counting layovers,) and were made to walk around an unfamiliar city in order to get somewhere, only to find you couldn't actually go in. the jet lag definitely hit us, hard. The saddest thing was, I was standing at a street cornier, staring into space where I realized: I was looking right at the Colosseum. 


After that we did get to go to St Mary Major, which was very detailed, and HUGE, but once that was done it was pretty much rest then go get food. I had some of the best tiramisu gelato ever, a .50 euro bottle of water I thought  wasn't carbonated, and a super yummy margherita pizza i split with Clare. as I am writing this is is 7:15 PM. Back in Austin it's only 12:15 and everyone is eating lunch, while here Clare, Erin, and I are getting ready to go to bed. I really need sleep...

February 28; Day 1

Airplanes. These things seem to always have problems. I guess what I really mean is the whole experience of airplanes and airports, the whole air travel thing always has issues. the airports (even Chicago O'Hare) were practically deserted and super easy to navigate. So I guess it's no surprise that I'm writing this at 6:30 PM New York time, on the plane  that was supposed to take us to Rome 45 minutes ago. NO, don't freak out, nothing really bad happened. The plane apparently  got in late, so even though we've boarded, we've still had to wait while they load out luggage and do maintenance or whatever it is they do. (oh, funny thing: one of the people in front of us on this plane was complaining because the tray in front of her wouldn't close. they just duct-taped it to the seat and moved her further back on the plane) Oh, the pilot just spoke, and apparently they've been ready for 30 minutes but they don't have a "push back crew," whatever that is. I'm gonna stop writing because I'm tired and bored.