i can hardly believe that this is actually happening. i'm really going to italy. this week has been crazy and today was absolutely insane getting ready, but i've learned a lot:
my parents helped me get this really nice camera for my trip (sort of an early graduation present / congratulations on paying for all of this by yourself) and when i started packing last night it was nowhere to be found. i had just moved out of my dorm yesterday and had moved stuff into the house i'm living in over the summer and into storage in the attic at school - so i figured that i had just put it in a box or something.
so i drive all the way back to williamsburg, already freaking out because i was dumb enough to forget it in the first place. i check the house to see if anyone is home (i don't have a key yet) and they aren't. i then call and get my area director to let me into storage in the attic of the dorm to see if maybe it's up there. i go through ALL of my stuff. still nowhere to be found. getting a little more panicky i drive back to the house. i can't get hold of the girls, so i call the realtor to get the landlord's phone number. they don't have it. instead, a man comes to try and get the key from the keypad-lock-thingy that's on the stairs (it's this little box that you punch a code in and then the key comes out). it doesn't work. finally, he gets it open and lets me into the house so that i can look through all of my stuff there. THE CAMERA ISN'T THERE.
now i'm in tears - bawling actually. i call my dad freaking out because i feel so stupid for having lost it after i tried so hard to keep everything organized and to be responsible. i start worrying that maybe i threw it away by accident or that it fell out of my car when i was stopped in a parking lot somewhere or Lord knows what else could've happened to it. amidst all of this i go to the police station to see if maybe someone turned it in there - no luck.
then i get a phone call from my area director asking me ' just how much stuff were you planning on leaving in your closet?' i had left a whole box of things in my closet. including my favorite stuffed hippo, my tennis shoes, a longaberger trashcan that santa had given me, a few shirts, my ironing board and (thank goodness) my camera.
literally, this is the most upset i've been in a VERY long time. but when i called my dad he kept saying 'it's just a camera caitlin - it's ok. calm down it's just a camera. you're going tomorrow regardless of whether or not you have that so don't stress about this so much' and he was right. it was just a camera. i needed the chill-the-heck out. it was just a camera.
moral of the story: calm down. don't worry about the things that [ultimately] don't matter.
itinerary for tomorrow:
3:45am - wake up and get ready for a loooong day
4:30am - leave for the airport
5:30am - arrive at newport news airport
6:30am - plane takes off
8:00am - plane arrives in boston - meet denee
8:30pm - plane leaves boston for rome, italy
next day: FLORENCE, ITALY
check out my florence blog:
http://wherethestarsareupsidedown.blogspot.com/
