These are the Alps

Alright, so I left my home in Steubenville, Ohio, and made my way to La Madonna Della Salute, in Roma, Italy. In all, the trip took 24 hours-- from when I left my home to my arrival. In between, I saw some pretty cool stuff. In landing at JFK (with a lot of turbulance, might I add), I saw the islands off of the New York coast-- but no sign of New York City (alas).

The flight across The Pond was six hours of ugliness. Besides flying at night (which allowed for no sight-seeing whatsoever, even if it would have been just the ocean for six hours), the flight was really rocky. This wasn't a side-to-side turbulance, but a "drop" and lose your stomach sort of turbulance. Not fun at all when you think you're going to toss your cookies. I skipped dinner and tried to get some sleep.

Haha, not a chance. When the plane stopped being obnoxious, the 4-year-old in the row next to me decided to take up the helm. Everyone wanted to sleep, for our movie was "Wimbledon" (what the heck!?!?) and alcohol was $4 a glass. People wanted to kill the kid. And, I did too for a bit. I flew with one of my friends from Steubenville-- Steve-- and he put things in perspective: "thank God for that kid's lungs."

We landed in Paris, France-- in the dark (alas)-- and went through customs. That went something like this:

"Dockoooments?"

--- "Oui." (pull out my passport)

"Go ahead."

That was it. No major security check, no claiming of anything, no questions about where I was going. Just, "go right on ahead, help yourself to our country." And the only Anti-American sentiment I got was when I showed my passport to the flight agent taking tickets. She took my passport with a grin and a few pleasant French words-- but then her attitude changed dramatically as she saw that I was American. She slapped down my passport on the ticket counter with a dirty look, slid it back across the counter for me to take, and waved me onto the plane. Spikey French.

The flight from Paris to Rome was pretty short-- about 2 hours-- and the breakfast pastries were REALLY GOOD. It was cloudy the entire flight, except for a brief few seconds when we crossed the most western section of the Alps. Here's what I saw:

Pretty awesome. And if that's the most western section-- and therefore not necessarily the tallest peaks-- I'm curious as to what Switzerland looks like. I'm so going there.

In our descent to land, the clouds lifted a little and I saw the countryside of Italy-- very rural, very agricultural, very pleasant. This too, I will explore more.

In Rome, the drive from the airport to my home in downtown Rome (the Roman Forum, to be exact) was exciting. Italian drivers are crazy, as you might expect, but even crazier than I ever was. This is an indescribable experience. And, just to be clear, I did not drive.

When we started passing the ancient ruins, most notably, the Collesseum, I nearly cried. It is so beautiful here and so ancient. Somehow, in this place, the connectedness of history is in its most tangible form. You cannot escape the fact that you are at a place where famous, historical events took place. In passing the Collesseum, I passed THE COLLESSEUM with all of its history attached. And somehow I became a part of that history. I no longer was an isolated point on a piece-meal timeline. Rather I was a point among an interconnected series of points, ranging from present to the entirety of the past, resting on a vibrant timeline.