7-Jan-2006

Arrived in Paris at 9:30am to make a connecting flight to Torino. The Paris airport was not designed very well and pretty crowded. On top of that, our flight was delayed an hour which wasn’t much fun when we’d just gotten off an 8 hr flight. We just wanted to be done with flying. I am taking this trip with two of my friends, Casey and Jeff, and plan on meeting many more cool people.

While driving to our hotel from the Torino airport, we saw a lot of squatter settlements. That made me nervous, but there was also beautiful scenery. The mountains surround the Torino area and are just beautiful. I was disappointed that there was not any snow on the ground when I arrived. After all, with the winter Olympics on the way and being so close to the Alps, you would think that there would at least be some fluffy white stuff. We met the rest of the students studying in our program at the hotel and headed out for dinner. Carrying luggage was a rough time. I had just enough bags to have everything be really awkward. My snowboard bag through me off kilter and I managed to embarrass myself whenever I was carrying it.

Our first dining experience in Torino was interesting. The program covered the bill and we had a choice between pizza and pasta. I chose four-cheese (formaggi in Italian) pasta and it was good. I didn’t feel that the restaurant was overly generous with the sauce, but I managed.

After dinner our bodies were exhausted from the flight, so we headed back to the hotel and slept like logs. Sleep was a very good thing.


@ the airport