I MADE IT!!! (barely)

I am here! I am in Italy! My first connection flight was really easy going into Philadelphia. The flight over wasn't bad, it was just so uncomfortable to sit in one spot for 9 hours! There was zero wiggle room, and my chair was broken so that it would not recline. Needless to say, I did not sleep well on the flight. However, I did see some sights I will never forget! I got to see the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean! It looked like the ocean was on fire! What was even weirder was that I saw the sun rise again just 3 hrs later! (Not really sure how that works out the way it did!) It was very odd, like I was in a parallel universe! I finally did fall asleep for a while, and when I woke up, I got my very first glimpse of Europe: a huge mountain peak was towering above the clouds, and the pilot said that we were flying over the Swiss-Italian border, and we were looking at the Swiss Alps! It was truly, truly breathtaking.
However, once I landed, things got a little bit messier. I got through customs just fine and all, but my flight came in at 9 am and the guy wasn't supposed to pick me up from the airport until 11 am. So, it was really hot inside the airport itself (no AC) so I decided to wait out at the bus terminal where he was supposed to pick me up. Only problem was, he never showed! 11:00 came and went. At 11:30, I tried calling the cell phone # they had given me for the guy. So I had to go in the airport to a newstand, buy a calling card, and call the guy. Then the operator said, "I'm sorry, but the number you have dialed is not assigned." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was freaking out, and tried to call the lady whose apartment I was staying at, and got the same result! It was now 12:30, 1.5 hrs after he was supposed to be there, and I am freaking out in a minor panic attack, stranded in the airport with no idea what to do. SO, I called mom and dad (love you guys!) and vented and talked to them, and they reminded me that they probably had a desk for tourists who need help. So I went inside, found it, and talked to the lady. Apparently I had misunderstood the letter. I had read the letter to say that I was to wait for him at the airport at the Piazzale Roma bus terminal. What it meant was that I was supposed to take the bus to Piazzale Roma, then meet him on that side of the termianl! :) Whoops.
I called Arianna (the lady I am staying with) and told her that I would not be at the apartment at the discussed time. She totally understood my situation, and offered to meet me at the Piazzale Roma herself since neither of us could get in contact with the man. So, I bought a ticket for the No. 5 autobus a Venezia, and met her. THANK GOD!!!! She led me back to the apartment (which is a huge maze, by the way) and made me a honest to God Italian pasta dinner with olive oil, zucchini, peas, twisty noodles, and parmesan cheese. :D It was fantastico!
After all of this, I finally got to shower, almost a day and a half since my last one! God, it feels good to be clean! :) Now I am putting my things away in the drawers and trying to get my life in order for the next month.
Next challenge: classes start tomorrow at 8:45 am at the Istituto Venezia (which is clear across town!) It's not the classes I'm really worried about, it's how to get there! Wish me luck, and I love you all! Becky

Last Day Before I Leave

So, today is Friday, and that means that this is my last full day before I get on that plane and travel thousands of miles to a foreign country where I barely speak the language. But surprisingly, I am very excited! I talked to the girl whose apartment I'll be staying in today via email. Her name is Arianna, and she seems incredibly nice! Better yet, she told me that she has wireless internet in her apartment, and a washer! Sweet deal! I was really worried about how to get onto the internet, and a washer will make my life sooooooo much easier!
So, for whoever wants to get in touch with me while I'm over there without spending a small fortune on international roaming fees, I suggest you download Skype at www.skype.com. If you have a webcam or a built-in one on your computer, we can talk for free via the internet! Sweet deal, huh? Or, if you don't have one, many computers will have built in microphones. This will work just fine, too. It'll be more like a regular phone conversation, you know, without video. :) Otherwise, if you try to call my cell, it will cost $1.29 a minute! :O When I get over there, I'll find out if she has a land line phone in her apartment that I can use, and if so, I'll let everyone know. If you use international calling cards and call from a land line to a land line, it a ton cheaper. With the cards I bought the other day, it was 50 cents a minute for me to call from Italy to the US, and only 34 cents for someone in the US to call me in Italy! :) So, I will keep you all posted on the phone # thing.
So, my flight leaves KC tomorrow at 12:30, so we're going to get there around 10:00 just to be safe, which means we are leaving around 8ish. From KC, I fly to Philadelphia, and from there, I fly straight to Venice's Marco Polo Airport (cute name, huh?). Then I have to wait 2 hrs for the guy to come pick me up to take me to my apartment. The airport is on the mainland, and this guy from the college is going to take me to the actual city, which is located a few miles away in the lagoon. It's hard to imagine that an actual city exists on 118 different islands in the middle of a huge lagoon. Boggles the mind!
Thankfully, I am all packed up with everything I could ever need. Better yet, my bag is actually under the weight limit of 50 lbs! (but only by 2.8 lbs! :D) I'm also carrying on my backpack with 2 days worth of clothes (in case my luggage is lost), my laptop, travel books, basic stuff like makeup and toothbrush, and all the important docs I could ever need. If all goes as planned, I will have window seats the whole way, so I'll be able to see Europe as I'm flying in! :)
Since I'm all packed, I'm taking it easy today and just relaxing. When TJ gets off work, we're heading into Manhattan to double check on the apartment we want to rent. Yes, in the midst of all of this, we are moving the week I return! We originally moved to St. Marys b/c it was halfway in between Manhattan (school for me) and Topeka (work for TJ). Well, when the job in Topeka fell through cuz of the economy, he got a new job in Manhattan at Mead Lumber. So, its really dumb for us to be living in St. Marys when we are both centered in Manhattan. We will pay way less in rent and gas by living there, so we decided to do it! The place we want is 3 blocks from campus, so I won't have to use any gas to get to school, and all of my sub. teacher positions are around Manhattan, too. I think it will work out really nice. :D
Well, I just realized that I have been writing forever, and the washer just dinged, so I'm off! I won't write again today, and most likely won't get to write tomorrow morning, so I'll write you all again from the sunny and wet city of Venice! :) Take care, and keep in touch!

Warmest Wishes,

Becky

Four Days

Okay, so it is the morning of the 14th, which means that I leave in four days! I'm having really mixed feelings about my trip now, back and forth from really really excited to really really nervous. None the less, I have my bags 3/4 of the way packed. The only things that they really need now is last minute stuff like my hairdryer and my flat iron, etc. I'm trying to run around and make sure I have every little paper that could possible have a tiny bit of information on it that I would need over there. It's kinda silly, but I have this fear that I'm going to get over there and realize I forgot something really important, like my apartment address!

One Week

Okay, so I'm leaving in 8 days, a little over a week. I'm starting to get a little freaked out right about now, but everything seems to be in order! :) I'm going to miss everyone so much!

Let There Be Light!

So my blog has been started now, and the countdown begins for Italy! Leaving July 18th and won't return until August 16th!