and finally.. la fine

Longest day ever.

I just looked at the clock on my computer – 13:25. Ok so on the east coast anyway. Here it’s 7:25 pm and I’ve been straight traveling for 24 hours now, after arriving at Reagan yesterday at 1 pm. Shoot me now. I’m so overwhelmed, but trying my best to think on my feet. Judging by the fact that I’ve only just figured out what I’m doing, 7 hours after I landed, I’m probably not doing a very good job. I tried, though!
Once I finally made it out of the vortex that is Fiumicino Aeroporto I was sucked into the Roma Termini trap. I looked up trains, had a good idea of what I wanted to do, and finally heard from my boss in New York. She said the Italian resident director would call me in 15 mins. Perfect! In the meantime I got some pizza and went to an internet café to look at hostels, just in case. After my internet time was up I realized an hour had past and I hadn’t heard from either my NY contact or my Italian one. I called the Italian number – non funzionava. So I called the NY office again; she said she had spoken to him and would email him again to call me. Just when I was about to give up on his call, he called me and said that I could come to Florence and stay there. Success! So I’m on the next (way too expensive, yet very fast) train to Florence (through some beautiful Italian country side), then one bus, a short walk, and I’m crashing into bed. If I manage to wake up tomorrow morning maybe I can buy a different shirt or something, because even looking in the clothing stores in the train station only added to my current state of craziness.

After I bought my ticket I had about 30 minutes to wander the station (because I hadn’t done enough of that?) and went into a mini-supermarket to get some water. I forgot how much I love foreign supermarkets! And all the good food there is here in Italy. I seriously haven’t even registered that I’m in another country, even though I’m speaking Italian to everyone; I’m just too tired to care. I do notice some of the more annoying differences, though. PDA to the extreme, creepy stares and the lingering smell of smoke everywhere. Oh Italia, sono arrivata.