The First 24 hours.....

I made it!!  YAYY!  Just the flight over was an awesome experience in itself..  I left from Charolette at 1 pm.  1 pm the plane starts down the runway and my adventure was just about to come true, until... *ding* "Attention ladies and gentlemen, we have encountered a problem with the aircraft.  Someone has spotted some sort of liquid dripping from the left side of the wing.  The maintainence team will be arriving quickly to assess the situation."  Just great... a complete halt to my adventure.  Well, that ended up being a great thing because I met some pretty interesting folks.  We sat there for about 30 minutes, before they decided that the plane needed to be worked on and could not be flown.  So we had to get off the plane and be put on another flight.  Well, at this point it was not looking so good to catch my other flight out of Philly.  

We got another plane, still took us forever to load and get settled and fly away into the deep blue sky.  We landed at 4:30 exactly 5 minutes before my flight out of Philly to Germany was departing.  Fortunately, the flight people had already rerouted all of us to our destinations before we landed in Philly.  My new flight was leaving in 45 minutes and it was on the OTHER side of the airport (of course)!  

I had 20 min. to scarf down a stromboli, talk to my mom and find my gate.  All of which happened in a timely manner.  I was rerouted to Rome and the flight was about 8 hours!  You'll never guess who I was sitting beside while flying to Rome... A PRIEST!! hahaha..  He told me all about the Pope and the religious bit about Catholism.. super interesting!  It's kind of funny because the lady I sat with on the flight before had never stepped foot into a church and was asking us about the different religions in the US.  Very interesting people indeed!  The 8 hour flight basically sucked because I could not sleep, the food wasn't the impressing (not to be expected) and it WAS LONG!  

     But anyways, once I landed in Rome, I met some other girls who were flying solo for various reasons!  They are pretty awesome peeps and we're planning a trip to Austria one weekend!  So, two of the girls are from Canada they are working here being a nanny (isn't that an awesome job! If only I had known about that sooner!).  There is a website you can put your application out there and parents of children will pick you out.  You live at their house and get paid a small stipend approx. 100 euro a week.  It seems pretty awesome to me because you're off on weekends and you can do for however long you want.  Anyways, those two chicks were great and then we met another girl that was going to fashion school and one that works for the UN in Rome.  Lots of interesting people at airports... so the girls and I stick together in Rome as long as we could, but eventually we all went different ways.  In Rome, I began getting ill, cause I've been up for a bazillion hours and just wanted to get there! Oh, and I was super worried that Mr. Evans wouldn't be able to find me.  Anywho, that flight was late as well, and it was a very cramped flight!!  Oh fyi... if you ask for water in Italy they will give you seltzer water blaghhh...  boy was that a suprise.. for future reference ask for natural water.. also, the doorknobs there are strange...   you don't turn them, you push a button to open it.  I did get stuck in the bathroom in Rome, I will confess but I figured it out.  Oh, another interesting tidbit about bathrooms, to flush the toilets, you push a big button on the top of the tank of the toilet.  There is no little handle.. fyi!  So, when I did get to Venice FINALLY.. I didn't think my luggage would be there since my flight schedule got all messed up, but all 102 lbs. were there!  The principal was there to pick me up.. with my name on a piece of paper and all!! (typed too...)  Her and her husband came to get me since my flight came in late.  Actually the other person Mr. Evans was picking up was going to be on my Germany flight, but I missed it.. oops.  Anyways, it was an hour and half back into Aviano.  At first I was trying to act super professional, but after 30 min.  I was just normal!  They were so sweet... they took me to a coffee shop and I had my first cup of coffee in Italy and when I got to my dorm there were presents for me from teachers and kids.  They all made me welcome cards.. it was super sweet!  I have not figured out how to use a phone, but I found wireless internet! YAYYY!  SO, I'm here and I have tons to do before Mon. !  Until next time... have a wonderful night!