May 22, 2009 – Day 0

Well they day started with a wonderful bon voyage call from my dear friend Valerie. At 11 AM my father and I left the house to go to O’Hare airport. I went through security on problem, waved one final goodbye to my father and headed to the gate. There my two friends and travel companions Dominick and Cristina were waiting. We talked and then boarded the plane to head to Philadelphia. That was a short flight, but it was nice having Dominick behind me to make the occasional amusing quip back and forth.

We landed in Philly at about 4:40 Eastern Time. We walked through the airport to the international terminal which is forever and a day away from the rest of the airport, but there were people movers haha! Then we got to the A gates and became confused since we were at gate A4 and the gates went A1, A2, A3, A5, A7, then around the corner was A4. We had an hour to kill so we wandered back up and down the terminal. Learned of Philly musicians from the walls because “why would the walls lie to us?” While wandering we found three others head to Venice on our same study abroad trip that just arrived from Indy: Liv, Amanda, and Molly. Apparently their flight was horrid and they felt a little motion sick from it.

We boarded the plane at about 5:40 and were given forms to fill out regarding everyone’s favorite virus, SWINE FLU or to be politically correct H1N1. We took our seats and began to fill them out. Not long after our friend Molly started exiting the plane stop to inform us that she was being kicked off the plane. The flight before as I had said made them motion sick, well she threw up on the plane and was told she might have swine flu and couldn’t fly to Venice. So we’ll see how that pans out. Now’s she scared in Philly and we’re all a little pissed. No to mention she’s going to miss the orientation Pizza Dinner. She called Liv and told her she plans on flying to Venice to join us in a few days. I certainly hope so, I was looking forward to getting to know her since she is a graphic design student too, and already a BFA which I’m applying for next semester. See you tomorrow in Venice!