Yesterday was a very long day. It was actually 2 days...or if you consider that I lost 7 hours maybe it was more like 1.75 days. If that sounds confusing to you, imagine how I must be feeling right now!
We left home just shortly after 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 17 of May. The 2.5 hour trip to the airport was uneventful although we did run into some traffic before reaching it. All the parking lots were full so my wonderful daughter, Adele (who was driving) just unloaded us at the sidewalk and was on her way. It felt like we had just reached the top of a very long roller-coaster and were about to make our descent. We had no difficulty going thru security and getting checked in. We had plenty of time which we used in getting to know some of the other students on the trip.
The 'profesore' collected our assignments and we were ready to board for Chicago. It was a pretty rough flight. I had taken my usual half-dose of motion sickness prevention but I was still feeling woosy. It didn't help that just two rows ahead a young man had lost his cookies...apparently no one told him that's what a barf bag is for! Yeah, it was pretty disgusting. I'm just glad I was not the flight attendant!
We had plenty of time in Chicago and were very hungry by that time so Charis and I found a Macaroni Grill and ate Italian before getting on the plane for Rome. After our experience with the rough flight from Minneapolis, I decided I would take a full dose of my motion sickness medicine before boarding the plane on top of the half-dose I had taken earlier in the day. It always makes me feel very sleepy and drugged up...but I wanted to sleep on the plane anyway so I thought it might help.
We were served beverages immediately after takeoff and then supper shortly after that. I was ready to start sleeping! I took my down blanket out of my bag and it sure was cosy. I was glad I had brought it. However, sleep was a little hard to come by. The movie they were playing was "The Tourist" which was entertaining so I watched it for awhile.
The main problem was I was seated in the middle section of the plane on the aisle seat. There were three seats across and the girl in the middle really needed 1.5 worth of space. That meant that each of us on either side needed to give up about 1/4 our space to accomodate her. Not only that, she was a fidgetter. She was either digging through her bag or getting up to use the toilet and just when I thought I was falling into some real sleep she would move and bump me awake again. Many times throughout the night I prayed that God would give me compassion for her and that my annoyance would not overflow. Really, since the plane was full there was nothing to be done in the situation except try to be gracious. I just closed my eyes, tuned my headphones to classical music and tried to be as still as possible -- which wasn't too difficult in my drugged state. The flight was smooth. My tummy was calm and we were well on our way to Rome!
Every so often they would display a screen showing where we were along our route. We flew north over Canada, over the Grand Banks, across the ocean, over England and Paris and I think it was Austria. At some point our cruising "land speed" was over 1000 mph and the outside temperature was -59 degrees F. I thought that was pretty cool.
And then before you knew it we were landing in Rome. It seemed like it could have been Arizona or any place for that matter. The airport had its big signs with arrows pointing us toward Baggage Claim in both Italian and English. We waited for our bags and trailed our professor through customs and out to the ground transport area. While we waited for our bus, we found an ATM and exchanged our "virtual money" for "play money." Now we're set...
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