Well, my flights were pretty uneventful. I reached Philadelphia with no trouble, and then changed my cash to euros and called home to check in. I just arrived in the Rome Airport. I was a little worried at first because I had no idea where to go! But I followed the crowd until I saw a desk for my airline, Alitalia. I stopped and asked them where I needed to go, and they told me to go back upstairs (where I just was). I had to go through security screening again, and then I walked a long ways from terminal C to Terminal A. I was walking towards the signs pointing to terminal A when all of a sudden there was a bunch of DO NOT ENTER signs. So I had to go get more directions. Finally I found the right place to go and proceeded through immigration. I was never asked to see my ongoing ticket, my return ticket, or my letter of sponsorship from Matteo. It was so easy! The immigration man just asked me for my passport, asked me why I was going to Torino (in SUCH a cool accent, with emphasis on the “why”), stamped my passport and then told me that Torino is a beautiful city.
However, I still didn’t know where to go since my flight was changed. I wandered around Terminal A for a bit until I found another Alitalia desk and asked them what gate I was supposed to go to. They printed me off a ticket, and now I am sitting here next to gate A 12 with about 2 hours to spare.
In total I have asked about 8 people if they “parla inglese?” All 8 of then gave me a look that said very clearly “are you kidding? I can’t believe you just asked me that. Of COURSE I speak English.”
Other details…
I sat by a nice, experienced traveler, named Jane from Syracuse, on my flight from Philly to Rome. Brooke Bradley told me to meet one new person a day, so Brooke, I met Jane, and that counts for May 5th, because I met her yesterday! She was traveling with her sister all over Italy, Germany, and France.
They served “two” meals on my transatlantic flight. Dinner was a wheat roll, a leafy green salad with two cherry tomatoes and creamy pepper dressing, penne pasta in a creamy red sauce, carrot cake, and a Ghirardelli chocolate square. Our second meal was breakfast, which was an apple Danish and juice.
I tried to sleep on that flight, but it just didn’t happen! I ended up watching a movie about a man who adopts a child who believes that he came from Mars. It was interesting. And I listened to music, and star gazed for a while. I even got to see a shooting star!
Something ironic…
When I got on my first flight this morning I turned on my mp3 player to shuffle, and the second song that came on was Leaving on a Jet Plane. Ha! This song was followed by about 5 other songs that all had very poignant lines that applied to my situation.
Ciao!
P.s. I am now at home in Torino. The house is very nice and everything went well! We are having lasanga for dinner tonight.
8 comments:
I am glad everything went smoothly! Thanks for the human interest details - they are fun to read about. May you catch up on your lost sleep soon!
Thanks for sharing. So now you won't ask people if they speak English - you'll just speak English to them, right? How was the lasagna? How did it differ from what we have in America?
Hey! So I wrote a post and then i realized that my name was listed as Paris Hilton...long story...it for for English 150 class. So if you see that, don't think that I am too creepy!! I am so happy that you got there safely...it was fun to read about...good details! :) Now I would like some pictures...so get to work girl!
Tiffany! How exciting! I came across your blog on Facebook, and I love reading about your adventures. I love all the fun little details too. It's great! Keep having fun!
Well...such adventure. Glad everything safely navigated. I can hardly wait to hear when they serva pizza!
Aunt Barbarella
Your travels sound very exciting! I am thrilled that you have been able to go other there. Good luck w/ the family!
Glad to hear you made it safely! Dave mentioned that he got to talk to you on Monday. Hope you are having a blast!
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