After almost a year of anticipation, on Thursday, August 16, 2012 I left for Riva San Vitale, Switzerland! Traveling to Riva was not an easy feat. A plane carrying 13 other students bound for Riva and I left Dulles Airport at 18:40 EST (traveling to Europe has forced me to using the 24 hour scale for time). While I was lucky enough to score a window seat, the entire plane ride was cloudy and did not provide scenic views as I had hoped. We touched down at 7:00 (5 hours ahead of home in Virginia) to Heathrow Airport in London, England. After exploring the luxurious airport, our flight to Milan, Italy left at 9:10. The flight to Milan was beautiful. I took a few snapshots while flying over the Alps:
The airport, Milano Linate, was quite small. We met up with 10 classmates who arrived on an earlier flight in the airport. We then faced our first obstacle when we started to pack the bus which would carry the 23 of us from Milano to our new home, Riva San Vitale. The only word we understood from our Italian-speaking bus was "im-poss-i-ble;" however, we defeat the impossible and packed the bus.
After a very hot and sweaty ride and a few wrong turns, our bus driver finally got us to the Villa Maderni! The Villa Maderni is over 200 years beautiful... I don't think I will ever get used to how lucky I to be able to live in such a beautiful place.
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| The Villa Maderni |
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| Just a taste of the villa's garden |
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| View from front steps of the villa |
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| Our apartment (inside pictures to come!) |
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| The walk to school |
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| Our apartment |
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