Chapter 4

Ciaaaao East Coast! I have arrived. A week ago yesterday, I had a 12 hour travel day due to over estimating the time it would take to get through the airport, multiple delays, and a very screwed up layover in Chicago. Plus, since there is a 3 hour time difference between Arizona and DC, my internal clock is going haywire. For example, my first night on the East Coast I stayed up til 2am DC time which is only about 11pm AZ time.. But I had to wake up at 8am DC time (5am AZ time) which was terrible. 

Anyways, the countdown has basically stopped for me. I had been counting down the days til August 26th, and now here it is two 9 days past that. I have spend the past week spending time with my great aunt and uncle in Washington DC and NYC. I was also able to meet up with one of my close friends who I went to school with in AZ, Nick W., which was awesome as we hadn't seen each other in a year and a half. 

Right now, I am supposed to be sleeping because I fly out tomorrow night and the rest of the day is jam packed with orientation activities, but my roommate and I have been talking for the past couple of hours all hyped up on pre-departure/exchange adrenaline so sleep has escaped me. Anyway, the plan for today is pretty crazy. All day orientation, a shuttle to JFK at 2pm, and then a flight to Zurich leaving at 9pm. So we fly through the night and arrive in Zurich on the 5th, and then fly to and arrive in Rome the same day. Once we arrive in Rome we have the rest of the day to relax and recuperate after an 8 (ish) hour flight. On the 6th, we have another orientation before taking a train/bus/plane to meet up with our host families on the 7th. Its super hectic and I'm exhausted just thinking about it all. 

To be honest, the amount of orientations we go through here is insane.. And its such a tease because here we are already checked into the program but still days away from meeting our host families. I wish I was meeting them tomorrow! 

That's about all I have to update you all with for now.. I'll write a better post about all the things I did in DC and NYC when I have more time and aren't so exhausted. Buona nottte! 

... ps this post was written at 1:40am. Ahhh all this excitement is screwing with my sleep schedule!