September 5-6, 2006 Airportland and Beyond

Welcome to the very first installment of my adventure! I’d like to dedicate this episode to my dad, who came up with the very apt term “airportland.” Anyone who has ever been in any airport anywhere has most likely come out on the other end somewhere else, but the airports are all essentially the same, are they not? Sure, Brussels has the best Duty Free and you can get all the loon stuff you can imagine in Minneapolis, but it’s all disgruntled travelers, late, running, wearing nylon track suits and screaming after each other. My experience this time in airportland was really typical, so I won’t bore you with the details of travel. Just know that it was about 24 hours to get here. The first 10 hours were really annoying, then it was just that travel zone out. And after months of Italy visa nonsense in the states, customs didn’t even LOOK at my passport, much less stamp it.

It was 96 when we landed at 6pm, which was totally unexpected. We loaded our stuff into vans and made the dangerous trek in a fast moving giant van during rush hour in tiny streets to our apartments. My roommates and I got dropped off last, and so we got to see where a couple of other students live before finding our own new home. Ours is by far the best. ;) We enter through giant wood front doors, and have a very medieval looking staircase, all concrete and iron. Our apartment key looks like a cartoon skeleton key, and the front door opens into a very long hallway which then opens up into 15 foot wooden beam ceilings. We have a big table for 6, dishes for about a million, and a stove that can cook for about 2 at a time.

Karen, my “same age” roommate and now friend and I share a bedroom that is what might be in the US a small bedroom with a large walk in closet. I chose the closet, it has a window. It does not have any outlets. We unpacked, and our other two roommates, Melissa and Liz went for a walk and didn’t come back for 3 hours. We were worried, and then we thought they ditched us, so we got pizza and hung out in the Palazzo Santo Spirito (that’s the church Michelangelo attended as a child, and it’s about 2 blocks from our apartment).

Melissa and Liz eventually showed up again, and they were indeed lost, the poor dears. It’s confusing here, like Greenwich Village, only narrower and taller with crazy vespas and smart cars and bicycles everywhere. They went across the Ponte Vecchio without realizing. Heehee. Pictures coming soon. End day one.