Florence to Rome to Charlotte to Cincinnati to Danville….

A lot has happened since I posted the quick pre-departure post….so be prepared for a longgg post or a couple shorter ones! Here we go!

The adventure in Florence has come to an end. And as sad as I was to be leaving the gorgeously historic city filled with awe inspiring and breath taking art and architecture, I was truthfully excited to come home. So that Friday was full of all kinds of emotion: sadness for leaving the city and all of the amazing people that I had met, sadness for not being able to walk down a block and a half and being able to see some of the most famous pieces of architecture in the world, anxiousness and excitement for getting on the plane and getting home to all of my loved ones finally, and excitement to get back to the place that I truly call home.

Friday we woke up to snow. At first, it was lightly flurrying, but within an hour, it was an intense show showers…almost a blizzard (for Florence that is; it was whiteout conditions for a while). So while it was gorgeous to see so much snow, Florence has NO IDEA how to handle weather like that. The city really does shut down…no snowplows, no salted roads, nothing, which was a little annoying. As a part of soaking in the city the rest of the day, I decided to go on one last museum visit: L’Accademia. L’Accademia houses one of the most famous sculptures known around the world: Michelangelo’s David. Craziness. It was so bizarre seeing it in real life. There are 2 fake ones around the city, but to see the original was definitely something that everyone needs to see once in their lifetime. It really was amazing…I could have stood there forever and just looked at it! So I then proceeded to walk around the city in the snow and just took in the rest of the time that I had and enjoyed the sights. I then headed back to the apartment to dry off and warm up so that I could finish my last minute touches on my packing and then head out for a small dinner with a couple of friends before we were to head to the train station. We went to this small little shop and had a wonderful, yet cheap, last dinner together with a couple of people. The trek to the train station was another adventure in and of itself…what usually takes us 10 minutes just walking, took us almost 30 MINUTES to drag our 50 lb bag, 15 lb backpacks and all of our stuff…needless to say, our arms were SUPER tired by the time we reached the train station. Then we had to walk through the train station all the way to the other side, where we then AGAIN proceeded to have to pull our luggage though the snow. Not an easy thing to do at all. So we were supposed to be at the train station at 9.30 and leave shortly there after…well, we didn’t leave until 10.30ish…and then on our way to the ramp to get onto the highway, the buses got stuck behind wreck traffic. (This was also after having to find 2 new routes to even get there because of downed trees due to the weight of all of the snow). So we sat on the road for 2 hours (11.30pm-1.30am) and then decided to back up down the road and find a new route. Annoying, but you gotta go what you gotta do. So we figured that it would be easier to drive to the west coast over towards Pisa and then make our way down to the Rome airport (which is on the coast 45 minutes outside of the city center). We were all in a rush to make it to our terminals on time, that goodbyes were either rushed or completely disregarded, which was probably the saddest part of the whole morning. We rushed to catch our shuttle bus to Terminal 5, which was the only Terminal off by itself. So we all crowded unto the shuttle (with a little bit of chaos) and made our way over to the terminal. There, we checked in and were given stickers for our luggage we were to check, then made our way to actually check in, get boarding passes and hand over our bags. I was worried that my luggage was going to be too heavy: the limit was 22.69 kg, and I was at 22.5!! So, we made our way through security, through immigration and then onto what we thought were going to be the gates. But no…we had to take ANOTHER shuttle bus to get to the gates. Annoying and not as efficient as it is in America…but we weren’t in America, we were in Rome. We FINALLY made it to our gate with a little under an hour to spare, which had given us a nice rest. And little did we know, that our good ole buddy CAT!!! was actually placed behind us! Love it!! It was an uneventful plane ride…but we watched movies, wrote Cat her notes (YOUR PRESENT IS IN THE WORKS!!) and tried to nap between crying kids, meals and coughing old men! Haha. 10 hours later, we were in Charlotte and preparing for the mad dash through customs, baggage recheck and security. The three of us and Cat had about an hour or so to play with before our connecting flights left. We were really worried that we weren’t going to make it through on time, but we had forgotten how efficient America was, especially when it comes to the airport. We got through customs and baggage relatively quickly (much more so than I was expecting). We all met up at security (Cat and mine’s luggage came out right away). And that was the sad part…our security gate was one place, and Cat’s was on the other side ☹ So we handed her our notes and drawings, hugged her, told her to stop crying and parted ways. It truly was so sad. But I told her that it wasn’t goodbye, it was simply see you soon! (Which can be easily done since she only lives in Georgia!) Our flight from Charlotte to Cincinnati was extremely uneventful; it was a small plane and wasn’t full. It seemed to take forever, but not take any time at all, since we were all antsy and anxious to land and get to Cincinnati. And then we got off the plane, turned the corner and the first people I saw were Ryan (my little brother) and Sabrina’s mom! SO EXCITING! It was funny to see them in 3D and not just on Skype. But don’t get me wrong…I was SO EXCITED to see everyone…but I was definitely dragging from being so tired. And I honestly don’t remember the car ride back (except for the fact that I had WENDY’S ☺ )

So, now that I have been back since Sunday (I say Sunday because Saturday was a bit of a blur) it’s weird to not see what I have been seeing for the past 4 months, but I definitely love being back in Danville. My house, my cat, my shower, my BIG bed, my family, Michael’s family…it’s all so good to be back! Plus, it’s almost CHRISTMAS AND MY BIRTHDAY so that’s exciting!!!

Ciao from Danville, I miss you already Italy ☺ I will return someday for sure

Here is a link to pictures: ENJOY!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=245226&id=506052285&l=09b9517933