Getting There is Much, Much Less Than Half the Fun

           Let's set the mood with some Black Keys.

            Whoever said “getting there is half the fun” is a filthy liar, or at least had a very different experience of travel. Here's how my weird day unfolded:

            4:35 AM (CA time)—I stayed up packing last night, so I ended up getting only 3 hours of sleep. Despite my best efforts to squeeze in a few extra minutes of sleep, I accepted my fate and woke up. I reluctantly got out of bed 5 minutes later, and, scrolling through facebook, learned of the terrorist attack in Brussels. I know the odds of me being involved in something like this, even if it did happen in Rome or Madrid when I'm there, are slim to none, but it was definitely an ominous note to start the day off on. 

           I made it to LAX in about an hour with a surprisingly reasonable amount of traffic. There were thankfully no lines at the airport. 

To my delight, it actually WAS sunny
in Philadelphia (It's Always Sunny in
Philadelphia is one of my favorite shows)

           8:45 AM--I sat next to one guy from the program on the flight, so I talked with him a little, but I knocked out for a good 3.5-4 hours of the flight. I was so tired that it came easily.

            1:30 CA time/4:30 PM Philadelphia time—Arrived in Philadelphia. Outside the exit, I met with a bunch of other people from the program and we walked from gate A6 or so to A18, which were a surprisingly large distance apart.

            4:45 PM (PA time)—Still walking to the new gate, I saw a woman in workout clothes jogging through the airport. Is it sad that this is the first thing on a list of “things I’ve never seen before” for this trip?

I immediately went in search of food. I got a crappy, overpriced slice of pizza and a chicken breast covered in sauce with a slice of cheese on top that could loosely be called "chicken parmigiana." Coming back, I dropped the chicken and saw $4.50 splatter on the floor along with that sauce. It was a tragedy. We left Philadelphia about 6:50 PM.

            7:40 PM PA time/12:40 AM Rome time—For the first time in years, I was served a free meal on a flight. It wasn't bad for what it was either.

Proof of the 2:15 turbulence, on the GPS
on the TV on the seat in front of me

2:15 AM Rome time—I managed to sleep for about an hour and a half, but woke up again because of an announcement about turbulence over the ocean. According to the GPS map on the screen in front of me, it was right over the place where the Titanic crashed, so it was a little eerie.

2:32 AM—I was definitely awake now. I had coughing lady to my right and snoring man behind me. I wasn't sure which one I wanted to be around less, since they were both making it hard to sleep. I really want to whip out my phone and check facebook and/or scroll through reddit to pass the time, but I couldn’t because I’m on a plane. #problems

3:50 AM—Just under halfway and it’s become really difficult to sleep. My mind says sleep, but every other part of my body wants to be awake, since I was really only awake for a few hours today (or yesterday. I dunno, time is weird). It’s harder too because comfort has begun to matter. I couldn’t fall asleep purely on tiredness, like I did on the first flight or even earlier in this one.

4:00 AM—The guy next to me needed to get out to use the bathroom, so I used this as an excuse to get up and walk a bit. It felt amazing. Spent 10 minutes just pacing up and down the aisle, moving my body in any way I could in such a small space. Unfortunately I think woke several people up in the process, including coughing lady and snoring man. Crap.

5:00 AM—It was less “sleeping” and more “closing my eyes and hoping to find a comfortable position” at this point. I gave up on sleeping and decided to do some writing instead. I also managed to freeze the TV screen in front of me, which had a map of where the plane was, so it no longer gave me this information, nor could I turn it off.

7:00 AM—Got a surprisingly refreshing sleep for a little over an hour. I woke up to a bright cabin and free continental breakfast. I feel pretty rested and a lot less terrible than I did when I fell asleep. They offered coffee, so I tried it. I honestly didn’t know it was possible to make coffee taste like literal garbage, but apparently it is. Like, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a worse cup of coffee, or even if such a concept is possible. I really wish I was exaggerating about this. Not even cream and sugar could save this steaming drink that tried to call itself "coffee."

8:15 AM—The guy sitting next to me finally opened the window for the first time 8 hours, so I got my first view of foreign waters, and I only caught glimpses of land a minute or two before we landed.

My first view, albeit a crappy one, of Italy from the plane

The first thing I noticed in the airport is just how much better than LAX it is. It’s clean, organized, and it feels relatively pleasant to be in, none of which can be said about LAX.

I walked through the airport and as I was about to go to the baggage claim, I had to go up to a window. A lady unenthusiastically stamped my passport and I walked right through. 

I was going to write a whole separate post about how traveling to Europe in the wake of a terrorist attack was, and make a big deal out of the heightened security and how customs took an especially long time and how the security was hyper-present and relate this all to the human condition and the world's political situation.

Nope.

At the baggage claim, I was talking to a couple people on the program and asked, "so when do we go through customs?" and they were like, "that WAS customs." I'd heard horror stories about customs taking hours and involving long lines and gigantic pains for everyone involved, so I was shocked at how quick and nonchalant everything was.

Even security seemed lax. I saw two security guards in the entire airport. I really thought security would be airtight with a major police presence and customs would be especially strict, but apparently not, at least not in the part of the airport I saw.
This was one of the weirdest days of my life, both because of that and the things time does to you. I was only awake about 8-9 hours out of what was essentially a 16-hour day because of the 8 hour time difference between California and Rome.

So the story ends a little anti-climactically. I've been here a full afternoon and evening now, but I need more time to write something interesting about it, so I'll leave it here.
 In one of the two words I know in Italian, Ciao.