Travel Blog - My first time in Europe, 2014

For those of you who didn't see my last blog post, I recently re-discovered my old travel blog from my first trip to Europe in the summer of 2014. I wanted to share those entries with you, because it is amazing to look back and reminisce on that trip. [Side note - this was all before I was vegan, so if there is any confusion about that food I was eating, that's why.] Here was my second blog post from that trip.

July 31, 2014;

"The day started at about 5:30am. We woke up, got all of our stuff together, and by 6am our Prime Time Shuttle Van was at our house waiting to take us to the airport. We arrived at LAX at about 6:45, and although our driver dropped us off at the wrong terminal and we had to walk to the right one after he left, we still checked our bags and made it through security fairly quickly. We decided not to get food at the airport, even though we were all hungry. The lines were long, it was overpriced, and our plane started boarding right around the time we got to our gate. By 8:40am, we were up in the air.

This flight was extremely easy. Although it’s not my idea of fun to sit on a plane for 5 hours, the time passed pretty quickly. My Dad, Rachel, and I all sat together, while my mom sat 3 rows behind us. We ordered breakfast on the plane, and it was actually pretty good, but that might just be because I was so hungry. We spent the majority of the flight watching home videos on my laptop. This was also one of the smoothest flights I’ve ever been on. There was turbulence maybe two or three times, but it wasn’t bad at all. The landing was also really smooth.

We landed in Philadelphia at 4:30pm Eastern time. When we got there, the first thing that we did was get something to eat. We ate Japanese food in the airport food court, and it wasn’t bad, but it definitely made me excited to get to Europe already and eat the food there. Our layover was about two hours, so we decided to just sit and charge our electronics. To my surprise, my laptop charger is broken, which really freaked me out because I thought I wouldn’t be able to post my blog, after being so excited about it for all this time. We ran around the airport looking for macbook chargers, but we didn’t find one anywhere, and I didn’t really expect to. Luckily my mom brought her iPad with her, and while it’s not the ideal situation, it will still work and I will (hopefully) still be able to update this every day.

We boarded our second flight from Philadelphia to Venice around 6:15pm, and it was supposed to take off at 6:45, but we got backed up on the runway and took off around 7:15. This flight wasn’t too bad, but being on a plane for this long can really wear you out. Since we’re technically skipping a full night of sleep (we land in Venice at 9:00am — Midnight on West Coast time), I decided that it would be extra fun to stay awake for the entire flight so I can be delirious on my first day in Venice — NOT. I tried to sleep about 10 different times, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m an extremely light sleeper, and every time I was almost asleep, something would wake me up. This flight was pretty turbulent at times, too. It wasn’t awful, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me nervous a few times.

They served us dinner about an hour after we got on our flight. We got to choose between chicken/mac n’ cheese/green beans, or pasta with marinara sauce and cheese. Each meal also came with a small salad, a granola bar, and a roll. I wasn’t extremely hungry because we had eaten at the airport about 3 hours prior, but I ate it anyways and it was actually really good. My favorite thing about this flight was that each seat had its own personal TV with movies, TV shows, and music. I was the lucky winner whose TV froze within the first hour of the flight, so needless to say I didn’t use it very much. Luckily I had books and music to keep me occupied, but it still seemed like the longest flight ever. I spent half of the time staring at the map seeing how much progress we had made so far, and how much time we had left until we land in Venice.

As I’m typing this, we have about 30 minutes until we land. I could not be more excited to step off the plane and finally, after what seems like years of waiting, be in Italy! (But more importantly, to stretch my legs). On a more serious note, I’d really like to thank everyone who is taking the time to read this. I’m so excited to document my trip, and to be able to keep everyone updated while doing so."