The longest two days of my life, because it was three...

Every person that goes on a great trip has some great travel stories to tell, and mine goes a little something like this...

Sunday morning, awoke at around 9 am and finished packing. After realizing that one of my 2 suitcases weighed SIXTY-THREE POUNDS me and mama then REPACKED about 6 times until I had 2 checked bags, 50 lbs each, and 35 lb carry on and an infinitely heavy purse. Took some fantastic family pictures, and by 3 pm we were on the road for Atlanta. Unfortunately, there was a 50 car pile up on the highway, but dad knew the way around it! And we were off to the cheesecake factory at a still depressingly slow pace. We finally made it and I enjoyed my last meal in the USA, it was pasta... ironic. Then off to the airport. Unfortunately earlier that day Megan had missed her flight to London therefore canceling her ENTIRE ticket.  Thankfully, she was able to get onto my flight. We met, after some ticket debacles, we said so long to our families, shed a few tears, and headed through security.

The flight from Atlanta to London was long, but pleasant. I had a window seat, which is a blessing for views and a curse when having to use the bathroom. I did use the bathroom after holding it for 3 hours and found to my embarrassment that my 2 seat mates were still just standing in the aisle waiting for me to get done... awkward. My seat mates were friendly though. I sat next to a woman who reminded me of Oprah, a slightly British Oprah. And directly beside me was ultimate hipster dude who wore rolled up jeans and watched Asian anime the entire ride. He did, however, offer me a piece of gum near the end of our flight. I'm going to hope that this was out of the kindness of his heart and not because my breath was janky from the 8 hour flight and the strangely mushy curry I was served as my "vegetarian meal", which is apparently code for lactose-free meal since Megan got cheesecake and all I got was fruit. Real cool, British Airways.

After heading through customs at Heathrow and receiving our literal piles of baggage, we loaded up some trollies and headed to find a bus ticket. After looking like really lost Americans and reading ALL the signs we finally found out how to purchase tickets. We exchanged our money for pounds, which was depressingly expensive, and paid for our $50 bus tickets across town. Then we rode our trollies, like you would a shopping cart when you're like 8 years old, to the bus stop and waited there looking like the tourists that we accepted to be. The bus was nice, we listened to some new music and enjoyed the London countryside of rolling hills and quaint farms. Once to Gatwick which Megan has ever so fondly entitled Crap-wick, we checked in our baggage and tried to decide what to do next. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to head to town, so we contently searched for a place to sit, or eat, or get some wifi, but alas there was nothing: Crap-wick. So we headed through security and suddenly it was all there! We ate at a cute cafe called the Armadillo which had delicious pancakes and Armadillo juice! Then we searched and searched for internet and finally found a couple booths that you could pay 20 pence a minute. After sending some messages to our family we sat down and watched a movie until it was time to board. The other great thing about crap-wick is that they don't post your gate number until 30 minutes before boarding. So we waited... and waited... and then our flight was delayed an hour. So we waited... and waited... and waited... and BOOM. Our gate number was up. Gate 101 closing in... 10 minutes. Real cool, Crap-wick. So we ran, literally ran, through the entire length of the airport and got to our gate about 5 minutes before they started boarding. Thankfully, we were on our flight and headed to Pisa!

Once we landed in Pisa, we again headed to find a bus. In this section of the trip, I continually praised God that Megs was here with me, without her Italian, I would have been a total mess. After Megan spoke to the bus man, we got some much cheaper tickets and moved all our things onto the waiting bus. In true Italian style, our bus that was suppose to leave at 11:15 headed for Santa Maria Novella at 11:45. We slept for a few minutes at a time on the bus and propped up our incredibly swollen feet. We finally reach Santa Maria Novella, the train station in Florence, at about 12:45. Unfortunately, our original plan was to be there around 11 pm, which was when our ride from the school was going to meet us. After praying and searching, we found to our dismay that they had left and we were, well... stranded. Here in Florence, the buses stop running at midnight, so that wouldn't work. A taxi to Careggi, the city at the bottom of the hill the school is on, cost about 14 Euros, and we only had 7. The train station closed at midnight, so we had no way to exchange anymore money, so that wouldn't work. We had no phones, and no internet to contact the school, so that wouldn't work. So, we decided to wait, hoping they might check again on our arrival. We made an awesome  fort out of our luggage, making sure all zippers were pointing in and settled in. After many trips to try to find a bathroom, seeing the same woman pee in the street 4 times, Megan trying to figure out which bus we need to take when they DID start running, and watching a ton of people head in and out of the 24 hour McDonald's across the street, the buses starting running again and we begun the last leg of our trip.

At 6 am, we lugged all our luggage across the street to the bus stop for bus 14 C to Careggi. Italian bus drivers don't enjoy waiting, so we prepared for a fast entrance and exit. After literally THROWING all our 5 suitcases in, the bus doors shut and we were on our way! When the bus stopped again, we tried throwing our luggage off again. In true American Tourist style, I then tripped over my pile of luggage on my way out and promptly fell into a tree. The other two Italians getting off the bus were very helpful in pulling me out of the tree and grabbing my other suitcase off the bus. So with a busted knee, we started walking around the corner and up the massive hill to the school. Unfortunately my luggage had other ideas...

As we started to walk around the corner, the handle of my middle bag decided it had had enough. It ripped out. Not like it was a little messed up. The entire handle came all the way out of the bag. AWESOME. When I tried to strap it to my bigger bag and pull them both, the wheels on my largest bag popped out and it just DRAAAAAAAAAAAGED along the ground, making the best noise. Sounded like an angry cat with a lifelong smoking problem. Lets just say I got a lot of glares and stares. Overall, there was no way I was going to be able to lug all this stuff up the hill without help. After a few choice words were spoken we made a plan. I was going to stand there with all of our luggage and Megan would run up the hill to Villa and get Joe to bring the car down the hill to rescue me. After an hour had gone by, I began to go into panic attack mode. I could SEE the school from where I was standing, but there was no way for me to get there. When you are at 37 hours of no sleep, this was the ultimate torture. It felt like one of those nightmares where you're being chased, but your feet you stuck to the ground and you can't run. Finally I could see Megan walking back, but  alone. She had hiked to the school, run around yelling and waking people up, but even with her good deal of Italian, no one had been able to fully understand what she needed or tried to help.

So there we stood, defeated, tired, hungry, and pretty angry. Once again, we debated and decided on a plan. With what was left of our energy we began making trips with one piece of luggage at a time a small distance. Once we got all our luggage the 50 feet, we would go another 50 feet until we were almost to the school, which was about halfway up the hill, the dorms being at the top. Suddenly a man appeared on a bike, and Praise God it was the translation teacher! He immediately listened to the problem, ran inside and came back with 8 Italian guys to help us carry our luggage and the keys to a van to get us the rest of the way up the hill! Once we got to the top, we ran into Joe, who was suppose to pick us up at the airport. After alerting him that we were no longer friends, he agreed to carrying our luggage up all 5 flights of stairs as penance for his sins. Afterwards, we walked back to the school to get our internet hooked up, then walked back to the dorms, took some of the longest showers of our lives, and then finally went to bed.

After what felt like the longest trip in my life, I've never loved sleeping more. Now that we've slept and enjoyed some amazing views from the Salottino, its time to do some sight seeing! The trip was rough, but it forced us to rely on God for protection and guidance. And now that I'm here, I cannot wait for the school year to start. So far, everyone has been incredibly welcoming and loving. I can't wait to learn some more Italian so that I can get to know them even more! As for right now, I am so out of my element. But hey, maybe that's exactly where I need to be! :)