Ciao Bella! (Kinda)

Today is the big day–I am going to Florence! My journey has begun, the moment I have been waiting for since I applied for college. I expect it to be smooth sailing from here, as I make my way from San Francisco to Frankfurt and then finally to Florence. Something along the lines of enjoying a glass of wine on the long flight before going to sleep, waking up to the sound of “making our final decent” and exiting the plane with excitement.

Except this is nothing like how it goes. Within moments of arrival to the SFO airport, I receive a phone call about the cancellation of my connecting flight to Florence due to an Air Traffic Control strike. Already ready to go and at the airport, I board my 11 and a half hour flight to Germany in hopes of my day turning around. I position myself next to the window and luckily the middle seat does not become occupied. The man in the aisle is very kind and over a glass of wine, he begins to give me tips on what to see in Florence and the things to be careful of. (One of which was to watch out for the gypsy kids that will basically attack you for your belongings). The flight was the easiest part of this whole adventure. My day starts to turn around. Or so I thought–but a rude awakening was about to hit me.

I exit my plane and wait for my baggage. Of course this is where everything begins to go wrong. After waiting 45 minutes for my bags, I come to realize that they are not coming. I try to find someone to talk to to help lead me in the right direction, but I am a woman traveling alone and this is a foreign country, in fact, it is Germany. I finally find someone and they lead me to someone upstairs, who tells me that they have been holding my bags until i can check in for my flight the following day. I continue back downstairs to the baggage holding center and try to make some progress, but do not seem to get anywhere. It is 10 in the morning, I am jet lagged, and all I want to do is crawl into a bed.

But it does not end there. I finally get my luggage after waiting 3 hours, walking back and forth from different ticketing desks, asking for clearance for my precious baggage. I check into my flight and begin to make my way up to my hotel to check in and crawl into bed. Of course the room is not yet ready and I am stuck to explore for another 3 hours. I come to the realization that my flight to Florence is the only flight that has been cancelled and that every one else is able to get in on time and without any problems. This makes me angry but more so envious.

So here I am waiting for my room and waiting for the moment I can be excited about this adventure again, because as of right now I am a little shell shocked and am missing what I am familiar with. This moment alone taught me a lot about myself and that I am more capable than I think. I made the resolution to step out of my comfort zone more and today I really did that. I was very uncomfortable, stressed, exhausted, alone, challenged, but more than anything I was terrified. I know things will turn around and that my adventure can only get better and hopefully run more smoothly.

But until then–

Ciao!