#1

1/16/15

Day 0

This is... post #1. I feel kind of stupid for making a study abroad blog because who hasn't done this but oh well. I made this instead of a travel journal and you don't have to read it if you don't want.

I'm already a couple days behind so first- the plane ride. I'd heard Lufthansa was good but no one warned me that they only provide enough leg room for a smallish 6 year old. I'm not even that tall but it sucked enough that the model sitting next to me who was probably like 6 feet asked for a seat change, which apparently Lufthansa doesn't give. I was planning on sleeping but sleep did not happen. Instead, I kept watching parts of the lady's movie in front of me. It looked like a boring movie but the special effects were awesome. The kids really looked like they were growing up on screen. I watched half of the movie before I realized there was no way the special effects were actually that good. I'd heard of a movie about a boy growing up filmed over the course of 12 years or something and so I looked through the movie selection to see if the title sounded familiar. Blahblahblah I ended up watching Boyhood and uncrossing and recrossing my legs instead of sleeping. 

Other than that, the flight went really fast. They gave me food and I was happy. They even printed a note on the container!

In Germany we had a tight connection to make but there were 5 of us from my program. We got out of the plane and onto a bus which took us to the terminal. Supposedly the air traffic controllers were planning on striking at noon in Florence and our plane was scheduled to get in at 12:34. Luckily it wasn't delayed. As we waited at the gate, we noticed a smoking room. It was all glass and sponsored by a cigarette company. The doors slid open to let people go in for a smoke. I'm pretty sure that would never exist in America. Then at the gate we took another bus to board our flight. 

After the first few shots of the mountains around Munich (who knew Munich had mountains?!) we passed through the cloud layer. 

Luckily, the flight seemed really short despite the all white sky and before I expected it, we were already descending into Tuscany. It looked exactly like every overly romanticized picture of Italy you've ever seen, just kind of foggy. Suddenly a Duomo-shaped object appeared out of the mist on the horizon...

And then we were in Florence.