European Tour: Getting There

I'll start @ the beginning (always a good place to start), we left out of Dulles Airport. And since I'm from Northern Virginia, not only did I have my parents there (like most of my fellow students), I had my entourage. I think it totaled 9 people: Brad, Victor, Richie, Jay, Bobby, Ashley, Christy and my parents. A little excessive, no? But that's okay, I knew my friends loved me and were sad to see me go. We took the obligitory picture while waiting in the long line to check in.

Christy, Me and Ashley

After checking in, making it through security, hanging out waiting for the plane and boarding...we were finally ready for Europe. If you know me, you know that I'm usually asleep before the plane even taxis onto the runway. But this time I stayed up for a little bit, probably a combo of the nerves and the excitement. The inner photogropher in me snapped this shot of the sunset from the plane.

How puurty

We made our way from Washington, D.C. to Paris, France and Charles De Gaulle. I have to say that it's probably my most hated airport (and that's saying something because I despise Atlanta). But I don't think we had many problems on the way there...mostly on the way back, so we'll cover that later. We had a bit of a layover in Paris, so we did what any big group does. Found a corner and piled all of our shit in it. Asking people to watch it as you went to the bathroom, got a magazine to read, food to eat, etc. Some people decided it would be a crucial time for a nap...

Kristin (with her mask on) and Kathryn catching up on sleep.

Bryan and Maggie hitting the hay.

I had already slept on the airplane, hence me not sleeping in the airport and being able to snap embarrassing pictures of people sleeping.

I won't lie. I don't really remember the plane ride to Milan, Italy. The next thing I really remember is walking through the Milan airport to get our bags. There was a Nun waiting at the baggage claim. She tried to talk to me (and a few others) in Italian. Now, they did try to prepare us for the trip...they made us take a semester of Italian before we went. However, the teacher was like my grandma and I wrote in Spanish most of the time and still got an A...so the whole conversation in Italian wasn't working for me. I just smiled and nodded at the Nun and ran away as soon as I got my bags.

We then made our way to the charter bus that waited outside to drive us to Riva. I remember being scared @ some points on the drive cause you're thinking "Is this HUGE bus really going to go under this little bridge?" or "Are we really going 60 mph around this curve?" but nevertheless, we made it there safely.

Out of all the things in my blurry memory that I remember the most was the feeling of pulling up to the Villa Maderni and just being in awe. Amazed by how cool it looked, amazed that I was in Switzerland and would live there for the next 4 months and amazed that the girl who doesn't like change, or to be away from her friends and family had actually signed up for this.

To be continued...next up: First days in Riva