Day #113 in Orvieto (Rome-Dublin-Boston)

June 15, 2013 – Saturday

I don’t even know how to explain today because I think I’m felt every emotion today but then I still don’t even know what I’m feeling. The day began at 5:20 when I got up and then went to wake up Sara and Laura for the sunrise. We made our way down to the lookout by funicular park and even though we were a few minutes late, we watched the sunrise together and it was so beautiful even though it was kind of a dark/cloudy morning. Laura and Sara went back to the monastery to start making coffee while I ran up to the duomo (it took me like 10 minutes to get there). I’ve never seen the duomo before without thousands of tourists in the piazza, all taking pictures. It was so strange to be the only one standing there, looking up at the huge duomo. I didn’t have much time though so I ran back to the monastery by running down the main street in Orvieto. I was also the only one out on the street, too. Then I realized that I was really leaving Orvieto that morning which brought about a few tears (which would be the first of many this morning…). Anyways, made it back to the monastery, had some coffee and an apple, grabbed my bags and walked to the funicular parking lot with everyone. We loaded our bags onto the bus and then walked over to the cliff to listen to Prof Doll road a few things and to say our goodbyes to the Hannah, Karen, and the 6 people that were staying behind to travel with family or by themselves. Laura and I had to say goodbye to Jenna and Sara here and I couldn’t look at any of them without bawling. It was the hardest to say bye to Sara because she lives in California and I probably won’t see her for a while. The good thing about going to Gordon is that there were ten people (out of the twenty) on this program that I’ll see again at Gordon in the fall. But still, Jenna and I couldn’t even say anything to each other, we were just crying. I thought I got myself together and stopped crying for a few minutes, but then Alessandro came up to hug me and I totally lost it! Seriously, so many tears. He was so sweet and I’m definitely going to miss him. Alessandro and Prof Doll always say that they think of themselves as older brothers to us, and Alessandro was definitely that! And he still liked me (I think) even though I was awful in his Italian class. So that shows how great he is. So we finally had to get on the bus and wave goodbye to our friends that were staying. I sat with Laura on the bus and cried the whole way down from upper Orvieto to the airport. Once again, I thought the sobfest was over but then we arrived at the airport and finally we had to say bye to Prof Doll, but it was a hurried goodbye because something was weird with Becky’s flight so he had to rush off with her to figure out where she needed to be. So we quickly said bye to Becky and Prof Doll and then I was so sad because I realized he wasn’t going to come with us. I mean I knew he wasn’t going to get on the plane with us but ideally, we wouldn’t have to say bye to him.

Anyways, the tears ended there for the morning. Said a few more goodbyes to people going to different terminals, but Laura, Christabel, Katie, Tim, Elizabeth, and I checked in and then went through security together. Tim and Elizabeth went to their gate while the four of us went to ours, grabbing lunch and some last minute things on the way to the gate. Not sure what was happening with our flight but we were supposed to board at 11:20 but we didn’t even board until 11:50 and then our plane was supposed to leave at noon but it didn’t leave until one. So we were a bit worried because we didn’t have a HUGE layover in Dublin, but we tried not to think about it too much.

We arrived in Dublin an hour before our next plane was departing. Christabel, Katie, and I rushed off the plane to go to the Boston Aer Lingus connection, but then we realized that Laura was stuck in the back of the plane, waiting to get her bag, and she had to make her New York connection which was pretty much 20 minutes from when our plane landed. So the three of us were waiting to say bye to her by the New York sign, but she didn’t show up for a few minutes! They were calling her name because the plane was about to leave, and then all of a sudden she starts running up the ramp with her huge suitcase and backpack. The Aer Lingus people were really nice though and they told her to give us a quick goodbye because her plane needed to leave. So we quickly hugged and I barely had time to tear up before she was taken away (which was probably for the best, considering that I’ve been crying all morning). So the three of us continued on through security and then we arrived at our gate just as everyone was boarding. This plane was bigger, they served us a meal, and the seats were pretty comfy compared to those in the first plane. But still, it was a 7 hour flight and it felt like FOREVER. I watched the sixth Harry Potter movie on my laptop, walked around the plane for a while, listened to music, pretended to sleep, looked at all of the pictures that I took during this semester, made an extensive to-do list for when I return home, thought about what kind of iced coffee I would get in the airport, etc. Important stuff. Also I was wondering if my parents would be there to pick me up because the last time I texted my dad, I told him that we didn’t have much time to get to our next plane and that we might miss it and he was like “Nice. See you soon” or something like that… and then I never responded to say we DID make it. Anyways, I wasn’t 100% sure if they would be there when I arrived in Boston. 

The good news is that they were there and had an iced coffee ready for me! We loaded up my suitcases in the car, went out to eat seafood, then drove home! I started to fall asleep in the car and suddenly I was so tired since it was around 4am Italy time. I stumbled into the house, hugged Rocket for a while (he looks even bigger than when I left him four months ago), gave Emily and Michael their gifts, then tried to unpack in my new room! Michael and I switched rooms so it was strange but good to come back to a totally different room. I still can't believe that I was in Orvieto this morning watching the sunrise. I'll eventually write a blog post on my semester reflections... but now I'm finally going to bed!

I'm going to miss them!