Gloryfades.org

In case you’re wondering, I’m home. I didn’t die on my trip nor did I get mugged nor did I lose anything (apart from my way a few billion times). It was a wonderful experience and I’m better for it now that I’ve taken it. Not only have I now travelled as far as Europe alone, I’ve seen some really awesome things, met quite a few interesting people and brought back about an assload (yes, an entire assload) of pictures back. Until I can set up a seperate page on this website for it, I’m going to type up my account of my trip through a series of entries. I say a series because it was sixteen bloody days! It’ll be a huge entry if I attempt to fit it all into one. So I’ll give you small doses coupled with the photographs. I make no promises of my photogenic genius, but I have to admit it’s hard sometimes to take a bad photo in Italy. Things are just so damn pretty!

So let’s begin with Day One: The Day I Left
I left on June 5 in the afternoon. My father took me to the airport where he was an absolute sweetheart and bought me a hundred extra euros to take with me. I hadn’t thought of taking actual euros because a) I’m an idiot and b) I don’t think farther than five minutes ahead. I had the British pound sterling I would need to haul my cookies around London for the eight hours I’d be in England before catching my connecting flight but I had no cash to pay for a cab once I landed in Pisa. My father graciously took care of that.

We said our goodbyes after having a final slice of airport pizza (the very irony of that dinner was totally lost on me at the time. I was just hungry and needed food!). The flight to England was average - cramped seats, dismal supper and horrendous inflight movies. I arrived in Gatwick airport and found myself a bus that would take me to Stansted airport which is on the other side of London. I was goggle-eyed over being in England since I had never set foot Her Majesty’s Kingdom (Queendom?). Everywhere I looked there were people speaking Proper English, speed bumps were called humps and they really were driving on the opposite sides of the road!

Despite the fact that I wanted to absorb everything London (or rather, London’s outer boroughs cause I only fleetingly passed through the city proper) had to offer but alas, I was exhausted from the flight. Despite the fact that I slept for a few hours I nodded off on the bus, although, not until after taking this sexy photo of myself:

Oh, I can hear you cringeing! Yeah well, you try taking a nice photo of yourself after being in transit for over seven hours! I arrived at Stansted airport, which looked more like a bus depot than an airport, midafternoon and had some lunch. My flight wasn’t until 8pm so I had a lot of waiting to do. The airport had a grassy knoll right by the bus stops so I sat out there and read my book for a couple of hours before becoming unbearably bored. Exploring the airport was the best option and I soon discovered why there are so many shops in airports. There’s absolutely nothing to do in an airport except eat, drink and shop. I bought another book since the one I had brought with me was nearly done and sat out the rest of the hours until I could actually check in.

I took Ryanair from London to Pisa and for cheapass seats the flight was … not the worst. There were no assigned seat numbers, you just sat anywhere and the seats didn’t recline. At that point, though, I could have been sitting on Satan’s lap, I really didn’t care all that much. I was exhausted and I spent the entire hour and a half flight asleep. I barely remember taking off or landing but somehow I ended up in Pisa by the end of the flight.

It was late when we arrived, close to midnight. The airport in Pisa was even smaller than Stansted but I suppose it got the job done. Being the scared little girl that I am, I opted to take a taxi the two or so kilometers into the city to my hotel. Pisa doesn’t have any hostels that aren’t either outside the city or camping grounds so I was left with the option to sleep in the airport (haha, yeah right) or find my ass a hotel. I chose to find a hotel room.

When I arrived at the hotel I found that I had booked a room for the night before. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am a royal idiot. Luckily he had a room available still, though. Not fifteen minutes after my arrival in my hotel room did I get a phone call. I was bewildered as to who would be calling me, in Pisa, after midnight.

It was my mother.

That woman can find me in the middle of Africa, I think. Granted, I gave her the number to the hotel, but I didn’t actually expect her to phone at my arrival! That’s just craziness! It was really comforting to hear her voice though. Arriving in Italy was incredibly stressful for me cause everything seemed to be a hurdle to leap over: going through customs with my shiny Canadian passport, finding a taxi, checking into my first hotel, using a European bathroom for the first time in three years (:P). Knowing my mom was looking out for me, a continent away, made things a little easier. After all, I had no time to be homesick, I was in Italy!