mandolin | Italy 2006, part 1 (of how many, who knows?)

Since

marielogan just informed me that LJ is being contrary, I'm reposting this first part and deleting my first attempt....

No, I haven't unpacked fully yet, no, I am not fully together and acclimated yet.

But it occurs to me that in spite of my scribbled notes throughout the trip, in spite of having Jen and the professors' pamphlet and the Rick Steve book to jog my memory, if I don't get cracking at recapping those 12 insane days, it just won't get done. It's going to be posted in tiny little bits as I have time, but hey, maybe that'll work better.

(On an unrelated note, I found my notebook from G2005 while cleaning. So that con diary will be finished. Later.)

Quick explanation: The Italy trip was sponsored through my alma mater, and the trip organizers were Dr. Sandona, my English advisor who taught any and all things Renaissance, and Dr. Derbes, an art history professor whose classes I'd never taken outside Honors - but only because the double major made it hard to fit them in. I'm explaining this here to foreshadow the many frescoes we saw this trip. :)

After spending Sunday with Plague decompressing and watching anime in the condo (including a viewing of Final Fantasy: Advent Children that received a lot of commentary I didn't record), I had to head out early on Monday when she headed off to work since she had no spare key. Not that it was a problem; I figured getting up early would make it easier to sleep on the plane.

Talked to Jen and found out they were leaving for Dulles around 1, so I had a few hours to kill. So I parked my car at Hood's guest parking lot, took an hour to clean it out and wandered around to see if I could find any professors still finishing up work after graduation had ended.

I actually managed to stop and say hi to Dr. Latkovski and spent about half an hour talking with Dr. Flora. (Note to

mtgat: he still remembers you and your lab reports fondly. ;) ) Didn't really run into any more familiar faces, which was to be expected on the Monday morning after graduation, but I left a note for Dr. Ford (and forgot to get Mas and Dr. Gowen's forwarding addresses, darn it!)

So then I went down to Jen's parents' place, we packed up her Dad's car and stashed mine in their driveway and headed down to Dulles taking the back roads. My God, I am so grateful he drove us. Dulles makes BWI look like a piece of cake. We got in at 2:30 and were, naturally, through security and at our gate by 10 after 3. The flight? Wasn't leaving til 6:45.

So we killed the next few hours in the concourse, Jen with her notebook and me wandering through airport shops (my right hand basically informed me that it would NOT be writing anything). I stopped back an hour later and then decided to get dinner, promising to keep an eye out for either Dr. Sandona (my old English advisor) or Dr. Derbes, the two profs we knew were helming the trip. I went down and got some food at an Asian restaurant, and then wandered the concourse a bit more, looking around for any signs of either professor. Nope.

I got back to the gate around quarter of 5. Jen was still there, and apparently the creativity demons were running with something since she was writing madly and blocking everything out. I glanced around, and suddenly recognized a platinum-blond head. "Dr. Carter?"

Turns out Dr. Carter (one of the two English professors who I actually hadn't taken courses with, but since one of my majors was English I did know her) was going on the trip, and Dr. Sandona had sent her ahead to look for us. She'd been there for 15 minutes, but Jen (who actually did have a class with her) was writing and didn't notice or know to look for her. It took me a few minutes to place who she was. Naturally, we'd gotten to the gate well before everyone else, and because of Guido's inability to remember to tell us certain details Dr. Sandona was worried we hadn't made it yet.

The rest of the group made it to the gate shortly thereafter, and it turned out that of the 14 people on the trip, only four were current students - and we were still missing two people. Anne and Taylor hadn't appeared, and Dr. Sandona had no idea where they were. They never showed up, and we had to board the plane, without knowing what had happened to them.

The flight to DeGaulle Airport was uneventful - after the mess that I'd made of my internal clock on the flight to Ireland three years ago, I was determined to actually sleep for most of the flight. Fortunately, I succeeded this time around, conking out for about four hours with the help of the red wine served with dinner. So when I woke up and we were approaching DeGaulle, it was morning and my internal clock fortunately was duped into thinking I'd just had less sleep than usual and it really was time to wake up. Good thing, too, because we had about an hour to kill in DeGaulle and had to find the next gate on top of that... and technically, it was Tuesday at this point, so I'll stop here.

More soon. Promise.