Finally, after 14+ hours of traveling, we have arrived in Italy! Our plane landed in Pisa (yes like the leaning tower), and I'm now on the way to our apartment in Lucca. It's 8:30 a.m. local time, and roughly 4 a.m. Atlanta time... It was extremely surreal landing as the sun was rising. I was not exactly mentally prepared for the sun to be beaming through the plane windows, and the dreaded "Happy" song blaring throughout the plane, but I'm glad to finally be here. I'm so disoriented and delirious right now, I honestly have no idea if anything I'm writing makes a shred of sense haha but bear with me. Lack of sleep and jetlag is not a good combination. Sidenote: social media is like impossible here. I'm currently typing this out on a note on my phone to keep myself calm because our taxi driver is actually driving like we are in a car chase. I know sometimes I tend to exaggerate things for dramatic affect, but I swear there have been several close accident calls already and we're only 10 minutes into the drive. I have my headphones turned up super loud right now because I literally can't hear shit because of the lovely combination of my partial deafness and being on a plane for 14 hours. My ears are shot.
But from what I can tell so far, Italy is absolutely gorgeous. Pisa is on the coast of Italy, and there's lots of mountains and rivers. The Italian countryside is lovely with it's cute little houses and green pastures. Literally out of a movie. And the weather!!! I am the luckiest human being for getting to trade in an entire Southern summer for Europe's moderate temperatures (70s/80s). I'm already going full tourist mode and taking tons of pictures of the smart cars and the bathrooms and the scenery.
I should really at least try to learn some Italian, but my history with foreign languages is scaring me away. Ciao is like the coolest word ever, so at least I have that under my belt. If someone tries to talk to me in Italian I'll probably start panicking and just rattle off "Ciao" and "Gratzi" until they think I'm stupid and leave me alone. Update: the cab driver just got some, assumingly nasty, things yelled at him in Italian. I think I've seen my life flash before my eyes at least 3 times during this 45 minute car ride. I'm holding on to the handle on the ceiling and everything. And so is my dad, so you know that this shit's real...
Ciao for now (great rhyme, right?)
-Madeline
But from what I can tell so far, Italy is absolutely gorgeous. Pisa is on the coast of Italy, and there's lots of mountains and rivers. The Italian countryside is lovely with it's cute little houses and green pastures. Literally out of a movie. And the weather!!! I am the luckiest human being for getting to trade in an entire Southern summer for Europe's moderate temperatures (70s/80s). I'm already going full tourist mode and taking tons of pictures of the smart cars and the bathrooms and the scenery.
I should really at least try to learn some Italian, but my history with foreign languages is scaring me away. Ciao is like the coolest word ever, so at least I have that under my belt. If someone tries to talk to me in Italian I'll probably start panicking and just rattle off "Ciao" and "Gratzi" until they think I'm stupid and leave me alone. Update: the cab driver just got some, assumingly nasty, things yelled at him in Italian. I think I've seen my life flash before my eyes at least 3 times during this 45 minute car ride. I'm holding on to the handle on the ceiling and everything. And so is my dad, so you know that this shit's real...
Ciao for now (great rhyme, right?)
-Madeline