Post # 1, Written on the 25th

25.01.09
It’s 7:47 pm US time and 1:47 am in Italy. I am currently writing this in a Word document (..cuz duh, no internet on a plane.. took me a moment to figure that one out) in seat 38D of the BIGGEST airplane I have ever seen in my life. Thankfully I am on an aisle… mostly so I can people watch. I can’t even believe what is happening right now.. I’m on a plane on my way to go live in Europe for 3 and a half months.
I went to bed ridiculously late and woke up relatively early.. stayed in bed until 9 because I heard the phone ring. I figured it was my adoring public. It was cousin Lisa and Anabelle so I called them back when I was coherent, where Miss Anabelle wished me a Merry Christmas. Sandy came over and we hung out one last time before I left (she came home from school for the weekend to say bye!). Anyway around 11:30 Jess, her parents, and her boyfriend came by. Meanwhile I was trying zto GET AHOLD OF A CERTAIN BOYFRIEND since it was almost time to go and he happened to NOT BE AWAKE haha. It’s ok no harm done- he got to my house.. I said my goodbyes to my cat/fish/car and we drove to Logan. Oh and I said goodbye to Sandy and she cried so I cried and Kyle walked away because of all the estrogen.
We got to the airport and when we walked in, I realized that approximately 20% of Stonehill was in that terminal. There are about 10 people I know on my flight believe it or not. I also saw a kid I went to Mount with who is on my flight so that makes 5 Mount kids in Florence at the moment. Checking in was horrible and I had to move so many things around because apparently weighing my suitcases before I left didn’t work out too well. One was over, one was under.. so I had to move things around.. and I had to check my carryon because of how full the flight was “but don’t worry it’s free”. Ughhh.
I said goodbye to my cell phone which might have been the worst part.. Jess’s parents and Lee… and then to my parents and Kyle at which point I couldn’t hold it together anymore and completely lost it. My mom was a nut but I informed her “Goodbye Ma” just like I did on my first day of Kindergarten.. which my dad caught and started laughing. Then I “manned up” and Jess and I went through security as our families obnoxiously waved and jumped up and down and blew kisses. Going through security is weird and you feel violated at the end of it but that’s fine with me because it means they are really checking. There was a girl behind us in security who was about our age so I decided to ask if she was heading to Florence and by pure luck she was. So we stuck together. She lives in CT, and goes to St. Michael’s in Vermont.
We got to our gate where I’m convinced the remaining 80% of Stonehill College was situated. I need to know.. if we’re all here.. then who is still there? We sat down and caught up with our friends that we hadn’t seen since December. We also met a guy who was traveling from Logan to Germany and from there getting a flight home to Ethiopia. He was.. SO COOL. I know this sounds weird but he tied two of our male fellow Florence-goers (slash Stonehill kids) (Bobby and Tony.. both of whom are pretty solid guys) together with shoelaces and told them to try to untangle themselves. It was hysterical to watch and we all got a bunch of pictures of that. They failed epically at it and the guy finally showed them how to do it and all 20-or-so of us that were sitting there went “ohhhhhhh”. I know that all of you reading are going to be like “WHAT is she talking about?” but when I put pictures up you’ll understand.
I then got my last grande toffee nut soy iced latte for a while and just talked to some more people in our program. Everyone seems really nice and everyone is SO excited. We saw the army of pilots and flight attendants walk by and we realized our plane had arrived. We anxiously awaited our boarding call.. and in no time they finally started calling us. We picked up our stuff and walked over to the gate where we were greeted by people with crazy German accents who were directing us where to go. I got to my seat and sat down. Moments later a woman and her 9-year-old daughter Sophie sat down in the two seats next to me. At the end of the row is a guy who I guess flies a lot from what he was saying.. Though he has really only been conscious when there is food involved. I don’t know how people just.. sleep. I took a Benadryl and passed out for about 45 minutes and that will probably be all the sleep I get until sometime tomorrow?
Anyway.. the woman sitting next to me is a lawyer in Weston, MA and they are currently en route to Russia for the third time, only this time they are coming back with a three-year-old boy who they’ve adopted and decided to name Evan. She told me all about how they decided to adopt him and the experiences they’d had along the way. Sophie is a girl after my own heart and has pretty much played Mario the entire time. The two of them have flown this exact flight on Lufthansa the other two times they went to Russia so they gave me the lowdown on what was going to happen. Thank God because it was right about then I started freaking out. She told me that the chicken was terrible but the macaroni tasted like something straight out of Bertuccis. She told me the order they fed you in.. approximately how far through the flight each meal would be served. Clearly God was watching out for me to put me next to someone like this. And Sophie I think is the only kid on the entire flight.. other than these weird pull-out baby cribs.
Takeoff was cool because we were just sitting there and all of a sudden you heard RARRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH (engine noise) and we were hauling down the runway. They have a thing on the TV screen that tells you where you are and it showed us flying over RI and then banging a u-turn and flying over the ocean. We got up in the air to our cruising altitude of 38,000 feet just barely over the Canadian border and they came down the aisle with the wine cart. I just got a Sprite because apparently I don’t do well with flying and I was already pretty dizzy. About an hour later they came back again with dinner. She was right- the macaroni was something right out of Bertuccis. It was ziti with marinara sauce that had mushrooms in it, accompanied by a rosemary ciabatta roll, a SMALL salad (the dressing packet was bigger) with two giant shrimp plopped on the top of it, chocolate mousse with a strawberry, and for whatever reason a slab of cheddar cheese...? I gave my mousse to Sophie, she was pumped and we are now best friends, haha.
Anyway that’s all for now.. some movie called Nights in… something… is on. I think Richard Gere is in it? Maybe? Ha i have no idea. I feel a bit like a sardine right now.. if you didn’t know the people around you going into this flight you sure as heck will when you leave. Ok time to try to sleep more.
<3 Lauren