I left Seattle on Monday evening and arrived in London by Tuesday afternoon ready to take on Italy at full throttle. My friend Olen and I flew together on British Airways from Seattle to Milan by way of London and we took full advantage of the free drinks on our flight over. While on the plane we heard that it could take over an hour to get from one side of the Heathrow airport to the other, but we only had about half of that to make our connecting flight to Milan. Fortunately luck was on our side and we made it to our terminal with plenty of time to spare. Once our plane landed in Milan I think I forgot all of the Italian I had been practicing for the past 4 months in less than 3 seconds.

Thanks to Olen’s Spanish skills we were able to find our way to the correct train that would take us to Lake Como. While we were in the airport I made sure to buy a bottle of wine, because we were going to need it once we made it to our hotel room…

I left Seattle with two backpacks and my computer, thinking that I had packed lightly, but after carrying all of my stuff around for 3 hours I was about ready to ditch all of it and wear what I had on my back for the next seven months. Thankfully I talked myself out of that idea.

Our train ride was an adventure with all of our stuff on a packed commuter train from Saronno to Como with everyone else that was on their way home from work. I barely fit on the train with my entire life on my back before the doors closed but, where there is a will, there is a way.

Once I made it to our hotel in Como, it was time to get the party started! The other 14 people in our group had already arrived the previous day, and were already settled in the hotel. I did not have very high hopes about the hotel we were going to be staying in, but I think I set the bar a little too high. The room had a bunk bed, a desk and a window…but not quite enough room for all of our luggage.