Italia: Up in the Air

Yesterday, I boarded the plane from the Columbus airport to fly to Atlanta. I didn’t even finish a magazine and the flight was over. We wasted time at Atlanta eating lunch. I was really impressed by the fact that they had a Qdoba in their airport. I can barely find a Qdoba in Columbus, yet here we walked right past one when we were trying to find our gate. Of course I had to have some. It was probably the most expensive Qdoba that I’ve ever eaten. I paid just over $7 for my burrito (chicken and cheese only) and a mandatory side of chips and salsa.

The plane ride over to Italy was really long – just over nine hours. The food wasn’t very good either so it’s a good thing that I indulged in Qdoba. I sat between two blonde girls on the flight over, neither of them said much. I tried to sleep during the flight, but it wasn’t happening so I ended up working on a journal entry that I needed to make for Ohio Wesleyan's PE 200.9: Obesity and Prevention in Italy and the United States. Right before we left the States, professor Fink gave us a huge packet of reading materials and a notebook for us to reflect in. I didn’t realize we would be doing work beyond our presentations during the trip...

My first thoughts regarding Italy though are that it isn’t exactly my cup of tea. It seems a lot more rustic than Ireland was - something I definitely wasn't expecting from all the praise people have put upon it. Even though we’re staying in an actual hotel with twin beds, an elevator, and private bath, it seems as if the buildings are closer to falling apart and the people are less friendly. Maybe it’s just the fashionista edge they give off, but everyone seems to be looking at us and I would say our travel group looks a lot less American than the Girl Scouts group did in Ireland.

Stairway of the elegant Hotel Dock Milano in Torino

I slept on most of the bus ride to Turin though, so I might have missed some key details between here and Milan. All I know is that I saw some rice fields and was thoroughly disappointed to find that they don’t drive on the other side of the road here like they do in the United Kingdom. I thought that was all of Europe, but I guess I’m wrong. Their steering wheels are even on the same side of the car. The only difference was the kilometer reading instead of miles, the manual transmission instead of automatic, and the diesel fuel instead of regular.

The town of Turin or Torino seems fairly nice though. There’s a pizza place on even corner and a lot of bars that look like little casual restaurants, the trattorias that Italia is famous for.