My Trip to Europe - Day 2

The TV screen shows that we are currently somewhere over France. I still haven’t realized that I’m in Europe yet. So far I have slept 5 hours and the flight attendants are serving breakfast. It is a croissant, a banana, granola bar, and orange juice. Overall I like breakfast better than dinner. So I am going to read my book for a while.
Two hours later our plane landed in Rome or Roma as it’s called here. I was looking forward to going through customs and getting a stamp in my passport, but apparently the European Union does not stamp passports so I was disappointed. It took 2 long hours for everyone to get their luggage. When we finally got our luggage, we walked outside the airport and met our delegation manager, LeAndrea. She seems really nice. We then took our first bus ride in Roma. Our bus is bright green and our bus drivers name is Bern but we can call him Ben. So we drove towards our restaurant for lunch. The bus can’t navigate all the way to the restaurant so we had to walk there. We walked right by the Coliseum. It hit me that we were in Rome at that moment. For lunch, we had pasta in a strange sauce. For main course we had June Fish and a salad with vinaigrette. For dessert we had something like pudding with chocolate sauce. I like all the meal but the pasta. After lunch, we met our tour guide. He was an archeologist who knew what he was talking about. He took us through the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. The guide was really interesting to listen to. We entered the Coliseum through the emperor’s entrance. He told us how the original marble was striped away when the Roman Empire fell. The Coliseum was impressive but with the marble it could have been overwhelming. After the Coliseum, we walked past the Arch of Constantine and Arch of Titus. Then we took a tour of the Roman Forum. We say the remains of the places and the other important buildings. We got to see two temples that had survived. They were spared destruction because they were changed into Catholic churches when the empire fell. The guide told us showed us a church with two doors one that you could walk up the steps and enter and another that was 10 ft. off the ground. This second door was built because over time the Forum was filled with debris so the ground level was higher.
After the tour, we had free time. Jackie, Hailey, Demi, and I wandered around the Forum. We say the spot where Caesar was buried, and stopped at one of Roma’s many fountains to fill our water bottles. After that we had to wander back and meet the group so we could walk to dinner. This meal had three courses. The first was mussels with a sauce. It made me want to throw up. For the main dish, we had two past dishes: one for vegetarians and one for the rest of us. Both dishes were really good, and made up for the first dish. The dessert was Flum, tasteless Jell-O like thing with a caramel sauce.
After one long day we arrive at the hotel, I got to room with Jackie, and Hailey. But when we got to the room, we realized we had 2 beds for three people. I drew the short straw so I got to move in with Demi and Hailey Ross.

P.S. All comments on this post count as an entry from my blog giveaway.

My Trip to Europe - Day 1

As most of you know I started Firehouse Jewelry as a way to help pay for my trip to Europe. I did make enough to go on the trip and I had a great time. When I got back I decide I was going to make a scrapbook for my trip. I took over 3000 pictures in Europe and visited four contries as I started to make the scrapbook, I realized I need another scrap book. By the time I was done I had enough pages for three thick scrapbooks. I have my pictures broken out by day. While in Europe I kept a journal and I start each section of pictures with that day's jounral entry. So here is the first day's journal entry and its scrapbook pages.

Today is the day. Today I leave for Rome. I can’t believe I am on my way to Europe. The flight from Knoxville to Cincinnati is at 2:50 p.m., but we have to be there at 12:30 p.m. Finally, my parents and I leave the house, and so we got to the airport and check-in took awhile because my Skymiles card wouldn’t work. Finally it worked. After everyone who had checked-in Cathy gathered all of us together and told us that Megan’s dad had died. That was sad. I was really glad Cathy said she would still come on the trip even through she would be a few days late.
After this announcement and some final instructions for the parents, my parents left and Demi’s walked us to security. After going through security I had to talk to Rebecca because I used my license instead of my passport. Once inside security Jackie, Demi, Laura, Hailey M played BS. Finally it was time to get on the plane. I was sitting next to Hailey M. Our plane left 1 ½ hours late due to a mechanical problem in the air conditioning unit. So we got to sit on the plane for 1 ½ hours with no air conditioning. The plane was really hot so the flight was kind of miserable. Once in Cincinnati, I exchanged money and I didn’t feel like eating so I got a smoothie. While we were waiting to board the plane we met a 20-month-old girl named Camilia. She had fun pointing at things out the window. When we got to board the flight we showed our passports, once we were through the gate, Renee was collecting our passports. After she had all of them, she got on the plane. On the way to her seat, she said some of the other passengers wanted to know if she needed their passports too. Once at my seat, I found out I was sitting by Cathy. She made me sit in the middle. I had a strong feeling I was not going to enjoy the flight, but Thankfully Cathy moved up a seat so I could sit in the aisle seat. For a while I thought I was going to get a whole row to myself, but that fell through. I plan to spend most the flight listing to my iPod and sleeping.
I stayed awake until they served the in-flight meal, which as chicken in a gross sauce, sweet potato mash, and some corn. The corn was ok, and the potatoes were tasteless. The chicken was edible once the sauce was removed.
I can’t believe my next entry will be from Rome, so I leave off somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

P.S. All comments on this post count as an entry from my blog giveaway.