Day 19 - Traveling back to US

Today, we left Italy and headed back to the good old United States. A group of us had flights at about 11am on May 28, so we all got a shuttle ride to the airport together. This experience was much less stressful than the previous time at the airport in Rome. We had to take a shuttle to get to our area for customs and airport security, but after that it was pretty much a breeze. I did get checked at the carry-on baggage check area for drugs, so that was kind of interesting. Then all the other people that I rode with made it through and we met at the gate area. Then their flight boarded and I got to say goodbye to all of them. Then I headed over to my plane boarding area, and I got shuttled out to the plane. This time, I actually got to keep my seat on the plane, and not basically get blackmailed into switching seats with a baby, like on my flight over to Rome. This flight was also much more enjoyable than the one that I had coming to Rome; the plane was nicer, the flight attendants were more kind, the food was better, and the entertainment was better. I was able to watch four movies on this flight, since the flight was over nine hours long. When the flight arrived in Orlando, it was even actually a little bit early, but that didn’t really matter since I already had a 3.75 hour layover scheduled. I was able to spend time responding to emails and other stuff through my phone since they didn’t have free Wi-Fi at the airport. Then I got some Taco Bell for dinner and was super excited to have free refills on my drink and all the water I could drink without paying an arm and a leg. It turns out that I even had more time than I anticipated since the plane I was supposed to ride on was broken, so they had to find us a new plane and we didn’t get to take off until two hours later, so I was not able to get to Orlando until 12:15am or so the next day. My ride, Lee, was clutch and was able to come pick me up this late in the evening, so everything worked out. Now I am ready for the next phase of my summer, Walt Disney World Summer Project!

Here is a little wrap up from the study abroad; We had to do five sketches for the class, so here are the five that I choose to do: Castle type building in Florence, Flying Buttresses on Duomo in Milan, underside of interesting bridge in Venice, column capital in the Colosseum, and the Pantheon.