5-6 Aprile: In Transit

The voyage began relatively early on Tuesday, since I had to get up and repack my bag in order to try to fit all of the miscellaneous crap that I was bringing on this trip. I sense that I over packed and still forgot to bring some yet unknown crucial item. After loading the car and saying goodbye to Leo, my parents and I set off for LAX.

Thankfully the airport was less than busy and I managed to check my bag before my mom could even park the car, allowing us ample time to grab a hotdog from Pink's and a beer at the Bradley International Terminal. The dog wasn't the worst I'd ever had, the beer was a Newcastle. After saying goodbye to my parents and making my way through security, I found my way to the gate, spent $7 in order to connect to the internet so that I could download a couple of podcasts for the flight, and boarded the Lufthansa 747. I think that the most depressing thing about flying economy class is that they make you walk past the first and business class on the way to your seat; just to show you what you're missing. "Oooh, look. These people get to spend 10 hours with only 2 seats occupying the space that they cram 3 into back where I'm sitting." And, naturally, economy gets to board last, so that everyone who paid extra for their seats gets to watch the disappointment on our faces as we trudge to the back of the plane. But I digress. At least I had an aisle seat.

Once everyone was situated, including the pissed off woman sitting in the middle seat next to me, we began taxing to the runway, at which point I fell asleep. I have the uncanny ability to fall asleep before my plane is even off the ground, unfortunately, once the plane is airborne, I can't sleep at all, despite my best efforts. It's the opposite of convenient and resulted in about an hour or two of sleep in my combined 12 hours of air time. Thankfully, the disgruntled woman managed to change seats about an hour and a half into the trip so I had some space to spread out and stretch my legs. Another nice thing: free booze on international flights. At any rate, after about 10 hours, 2 meals (not bad for airplane food), 5 podcasts, the movies Secretariat (mediocre) and The Tourist (pretty bad), and about 60 pages of The Elegant Universe (pretty good), I landed in Frankfurt.

After making my way to the appropriate terminal for my connecting flight, finding an ATM and grabbing a bretzel (I was in Germany after all, although it turns out that airport bretzels are in no way close to being delicious), I boarded an Airbus headed for Rome.

The flight to Rome was definitely scenic. I have never been to Europe before (I'm told that England doesn't count as "Europe") and seeing it from above, the Alps in particular, was quite impressive. After landing in Rome and collecting my comically large duffel I headed to the Trenitalia ticket window to get my tickets to Spoleto, where I was meeting some family friends, the Haerrs, who are living in Italy for the year. They are generously allowing me to stay with them for a few days and showing me around Spoleto (If you aren't already jealous, check out their blog.)

I caught the tren from the airport to Roma Termini, a major stazione, where I was supposed to catch another train to Spoleto about 10 minutes after arriving. This did not happen. Mostly because I was having trouble finding out which train I was supposed to be finding in the first place, and then because apparently their are two different Binario 1 at Termini. As it turns out, there is a Binario 1 and a Binario 1 Est. My train was at 1 Est, a train to Milano was at 1. Thankfully, I realized the Milano train was not the one I was after and did not board it. I figured missing my train was probably a better idea than boarding the wrong one. I then barely missed the next train headed to Spoleto, mostly because I am an idiot and still didn't entirely understand how the system worked. Moral of the story, I ended up waiting around at the airport for an extra hour and a half before I finally managed to board the appropriate train. Not a big deal, what's the fun in travelling without a small fiasco here and there.

Once I was headed in the right direction, I had to try my hardest not to fall asleep on the train and miss my stop. Not an easy task, since trains put me to sleep even when I'm well rested and haven't been up for about 24 hours. Somehow I managed, and made it off of the train at the appropriate stazione. I even have photographic evidence to prove it.

Me, Denise, and my duffel

All told, I spent about 26 hours getting from Temecula to Spoleto and traveled by plane, train, and automobile. And arrived just in time to catch my first epic Italian sunset, a home cooked meal, and wine on the terrazza. Thanks Haerrs.

Sunset from the terrazza

Worth it.

Next up: Spoleto with the Denise and Steve