from cheers to ciao!

 Our trip to Siena started off with a 5:15am wakeup call, breakfast in a box, and a cold dreary London morning! We waited for an hour on the bus in front of the hotel for everyone to be accounted for. The trip from our hotel to London Heathrow airport took about 30 minutes. 165 college students + checking in for one flight with about 2.3 bags each= about another 55minutes. When I came up to check my bag and pay for the additional baggage my card was not accepted so I was instructed to go to another gate and pay manually. So I used an assortment of leftover pounds and American dollars to pay for my bag. Once I got done with that ordeal I had to wait in line to get through security which took about 20 minutes. Meanwhile the clock is ticking closer and closer to 9am and boarding for our flight closed at 9:30 and I had no idea where my gate was. Luckily I ran into some other girls who also had issues with their bags so we got through security together, luckily. We swiftly paced though the London airport, which is more like a huge mall with department stores in it that conveniently picks up people in airplanes to take them to different countries. We had to go down a level to look for our gate for our flight to Pisa and the gate wasn’t even posted. So we could relax for a moment-or maybe longer. 20 minutes later our gate was posted. Once we got to the gate we waited an hour before we boarded our flight then once we got on our flight we waited an hour in the jet way. Our flight took 2 hours. Once we landed in Pisa we came to find many of the bags on our flight were left in London. Mine thankfully was not! We had to wait for the 20 plus people to file claims for their lost luggage, split into groups alphabetically by last name, load the buses and make sure no one was left behind. This process took 2 ½ hours!!! It was such torture being in Italy and being stuck at the airport. Once we finally got on the road the trip to Siena from Pisa was 2 hours! Since I slept during the whole flight I tried my best to stay awake so I could sleep that night. The drive to Siena was so beautiful it was like something out of a movie. With grassy fields, pastel houses, and the bare trees of winter I felt so incredibly lucky to be in such a beautiful place. We arrived it our hotel, Hotel Athena we quickly put our bags in our rooms and headed off to dinner that the program had organized for us! It was a traditional Italian 5 course meal with meal, lasagna, turkey and potatoes, and dessert. Not to mention the three different types of wines we got to try. The dinner was so fancy and molto bene! (very good). I was exhausted and got myself into my twin bed with one pillow, one sheet, one blanket and one amazing book; Streams in the Desert.

I am reading it every day while I am in Italy! So far- beneisimo!