En route....

Travel Day:

Goodbyes were said in the airport with minimal tears from the accompanying family. A great send off considering they are some of my favorite people on this earth. I swear those hours went by in seconds!

            The first flight was extremely straightforward thanks to the signs at LAX being in English and most of the people in line were able to answer any questions I had.  This however was less and less of the case as I traveled from JFK airport in New York and then later onto Rome. That being said the staff is a massive help and at every airport the staff (including Rome’s staff) are able to speak some form of English, enough to get by, enough to help me, and that’s good enough!

           A few travel tips from yours truely...

            Moral of the story is ask questions, because one wrong step when you are on a tight schedule can throw off that flight for you, and thus the following flights of your itinerary can all be lost. At JFK I arrived at a terminal that was for from the one I needed to be at so I had to navigate an outside shuttle that took my over to the proper terminal. There were two tracks for the outside shuttles, one that took you around the airport, and another that took you away from the airport and into the parking structures ( I found this out afterwards)... I am rather happy that I made it on the right one. If I hadn’t, that would have been a domino effect of missed flights that would not have been enjoyable to deal with. Hoorah for good fortune.

            I didn’t organize my itinerary because I went through a travel agency but one thing that they did and I was grateful for was that for the long flight from NY to Rome, they bought up a class for my ticket. I only noticed this when I went to the bathroom and realized that the back of the plane was quite as roomy as my row 8 seat. I enjoyed my flight, watching movies between naps and playing an occasional game of Tetris.

            One slightly frustrating thing was that it is rather hard to get back to your parents and siblings with updates. Obviously that is understandably #1 on their list, to know that you are where you need to be and that you are safe. But with short time between getting to your gate and getting on your flight, I would rather double check that I am where I need to be rather than texting someone but messing up on the important steps somewhere along the line.

             The last thing I will say was that I liked traveling with pockets that had zippers. Just for the security when I went to sleep on the plane or a brief nap at my gate… I knew that nothing was going to slip out of my pockets and also nobody could make a grab very easily.