"Il y a dix milles personnes qui font la queue!"

Add this to the top of my grievances against snow. I left for Rome on Sunday, February 1st and until I landed in London, had a great trip. I learned that O'Hare is huge, Burn After Reading is a waste of time, but High School Musical 3 is thoroughly charming. Things started to go wrong when we got near London. The pilot informed us that due to some snow, things were backed up at Heathrow and we would have to do some circles before landing. No big. So we do circles for about half and hour and then land. Four hours later we got off the plane. Apparently when it snows in London, all hell breaks loose. Fortunately, I met up with another IES Rome student, Mackenzie, on the flight and was able to tackle the next part of the journey/nightmare with her. Upon entering Heathrow, we learn that all flights in the foreseeable future are canceled. Every single one until 5:00pm, and it was currently about 10:00am. As Mackenzie and I tried to figure out what to do amidst the chaos that is certain to ensue in a such a crisis, we were directed to Terminal 5 Departures, and when we arrived there my stomach sank. The line for re-booking took up the entire terminal. We got in line and there I spent the next nine and a half hours of my life. Yes my friends, it took us longer in that line than it took us to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Happily, we picked up another girl that was on our flight, Katie, and the three of us tried to amuse ourselves in the never-ending slow shuffle that prompted another line dweller to exclaim on her cell phone, "Il y a dix milles personnes qui font la queue!", or "There are ten thousand people in line!" She may have exaggerated a bit, but not much. (That was one entertaining feature of waiting- listening to all the different languages and different accents around me. Much better entertainment than the constantly replaying ads for Nokia [and Nokia alone] reminiscent of 1984 that accost one and all from big screens all across the terminal. Sickening after multiple hours.) Besides picking up Mackenzie and Katie, another stroke of luck hit when I thought I spotted one of my future roommates, Stephanie, in the line passing our part of the line. I knew I would be meeting up with her in London, so we had figured out how to spot each other. Just as I was about to intrude on her conversation, she said, "Holly must be here too!" I took that as my cue, and magically met the one person in Heathrow I was looking for. Stephanie soon turned our trio into a foursome, and together we stuck out the hours in line, finally reaching the desk just minutes before they finally closed for the night, booked a flight to Rome at 7:30 the next morning, and set out to find food. Side note: I never thought I could love a baggage cart so much. After eating, we ventured outside the airport for a (very) brief touch of London, and then looked for a place to set up camp for the night. We were kindly provided mats and blankets, which we used to build a little corner for our 5ish hours of sleep. Heathrow looked like a refugee camp, all because of a measly couple inches of snow that managed to incapacitate this massive enterprise. And really, London's great snow storm of '09 was nothing to bat an eye at. A light dusting was more like it. But anyways, I awoke the next morning after the best sleep of my life (note sarcasm) and our foursome went through security in time to have breakfast (the first time I've ordered porridge off a menu) and proceeded on to our gate. Here we said goodbye to Katie, whose journey brings her to Istanbul, Turkey, with promises that we will see each other again. I really cannot thank God enough for setting me up with those three. They made the whole experience infinitely more enjoyable. The three Rome-ers boarded our only a little delayed flight (on which we all got to sit by each other) and finally reached our long-awaited destination. We do, however, still await our luggage, but we feel lucky to be here as there are many who still are not. We were greeted at the airport by IES staff and awarded some snazzy bags (sarcasm one more time) with important info about orientation and all that jazz. Our IES group, which had grown to 7, was loaded into taxis and shipped to the IES Abroad Center. Observation 1: they really do drive as crazy as you think they do. To quote Captain Barbosa, the rules are more like guidelines. Observation 2: everything almost seemed fake at first. You see copies of Italian architecture and design, but it's like, no. This is the real thing. Observation 3: Rome is incredible. The IES Center is right across the Tiber River from the Castel Sant Angelo, which I could gawk at a whole whole lot but tried not to for fear of looking... stupid. I haven't spent much time in it yet, but if first impressions count for anything, Rome is truly amazing. We spent a little time at the center; then went to our appartement, which is great; then our Italian roommate Michela took us to buy bus passes and missing necessary items such as shampoo; and then we sat in our kitchen while Michela made us dinner and from time to time broke into quiet song in Italian. Rome is great and intimidating. I'm thrilled and uneasy. Especially after the difficulties in transit, I still can't believe I'm actually here. But as I am about to pass out from exhaustion and I have already rattled on exceedingly long, I will sign off here. Stay tuned for episode 2: when will I get my bag?

Holly