So my Italian adventure began before I even got on the plane. After a week of finals and 29 hours of babysitting and graduation ceremonies (in 3 days...ugh), I drove home to Prunedale at 5pm on Sunday only to hop back in the car at 2:30am to San Francisco International Airport. In the interim, I had my last meal in the United States for a whole 6 months...eeks! My mom let me place my order of Kosher salt ribs, BBQ tri-tip, corn-on-the-cob, and garlic bread. Needless to say, it was delicious!
I arrived at SFO at 4:20am and had the pleasure of standing in the already long American Airlines line. When my mom and I finally got to the front, I learned my original route of SFO-New York-Rome was cancelled due to plane maintenance....gross! Instead, I got to fly SFO-LA-Chicago-Rome. AND every flight I had got delayed in the process which was super fun. However, I finally arrived in Rome airport only to be waved through customs without an officer so much as glancing at my passport. I found the group of students I had planned to meet up with which made the trip to Siena lots easier. On the short train to the bus station, we randomly met 2 more girls from the program and also an Italian law student traveling back to Siena. Elena ended up being super amazingly helpful and took all 7 of us under her wing. I think she enjoyed being our mother hen with 7 little chicks following her.
We finally arrived in Siena and made our way to the hotel for the night. Most of you probably think that the traveling was exhausting, but considering I was only awake for 1.5 hours of all the flights and bus ride, I really felt like I had time traveled to Italy, which was fantastic!
The first night in Siena was also an adventure. None of us knew where anything was so we wandered the city in search of food. Considering Siena is only 2 miles wide it was fairly easy to navigate. We found a random ristorante off Piazza del Campo which was full of loud Italians drinking vino so we figured it was a good choice. After being disappointed to find the the gnocchi was finito (I have yet to have gnocchi), I order fusilli (pasta). We had two bottles of the table wine which was a Chianti Classico and just hung out. After we wandered some more and I got my first gelato of my trip (cafe)! We found another restaurant and ordered two more bottles of wine (aren't you proud dad). Overall, I had a lovely first day in Italy!
Tomorrow I will write about my apartment and such. As for now, I must review some Italian so I do not completely fail at my placement test tomorow!
Ciao!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment