They always say to go the extra mile. Well, we went the extra mile and then some.

The original plan was to fly to Frankfurt, Germany, at 4:55, have a four-hour layover, and then fly to Florence, Italy, and be there by 2 p.m. However, on the way to the Miami airport, we found out the employees at the Florence airport were on strike the next day when we were flying in so all flights going into Florence were canceled.

After getting in line four different times and waiting about three hours total at the Miami airport ticket counter trying to figure out what we were going to do, we ended up getting on our flight to Frankfurt with no clue when or where we would go from there.

The flight to Frankfurt felt more like a sleepover than anything. I sat with two girls who are on our trip and almost everyone around us was from our trip too. We talked about which movies we should watch and gave recommendations if we just finished a really good one. At one point one of the girls asked if I could braid her hair for her. It was so fun getting to bond through this crazy ordeal.

We landed our eight-hour flight in Frankfurt and spent the next six hours waiting around for answers on how we would get to Florence. I may not have slept much on the flight over (I was too busy watching Pitch Perfect 3 and I, Tonya, both of which I highly recommend), but I got really comfortable laying across the airport seats and zonked out for a good hour. When I woke up, we were told we would be spending the night in Germany and then we would all be on different flights to eventually get to Bologna, Italy, and then we would all take a bus for about an hour and a half to Florence.

My roommate Ashley and I were the last of the group to check in to the hotel and when we did, they asked if we wanted to wait for a room with twin beds, which is what the rest of the group got. We figured we had waited so long all day, a little more wouldn’t kill us and waited about 20 minutes in the lobby for our room. When we got to the room we laughed out loud at what we saw. We just spent all that time waiting around to get this…

You couldn’t even squeeze your hand down between the two mattresses! So much for separate beds.

I got to the airport early for my flight out of Frankfurt into Munich, Germany, so I got a real German pretzel while I was waiting. My flight was at 10:15, which left me with 3 minutes from the time I got off that flight to the time boarding started for my flight from Munich to Bologna, Italy. Miraculously all of us with that connect made it with no problem!

The flight from Munich to Bologna was on a super small plane. It was by far the smallest plane I’ve ever been on if you don’t count the eight-seater sea plane I took to the Dry Tortugas from Key West last year. This was also the only flight to offer barf bags in the seat pouches. Coincidence? I think not. Fortunately, none of us had to make use of them.

After finally landing in Italy, we hopped on a bus to take us to the taxi hub where taxis would take us to our apartments. We were so close to finally getting to Florence, yet there were still more setbacks.

Because of the timing of our flight, the rest of our group was leaving for a walking tour of Florence right as we got to the taxi hub. The problem was, all our apartment keys were picked up by our roommates and left in our locked apartments. The plan was to wait at the taxi hub until everyone finished the tour. Then I heard a girl living in the same apartment building as me, Coral, say one of her roommates was still in her room so we could leave right then and I could hang out in her apartment until my roommates got back. We got in the taxi and drove the 30 minutes to our apartment building only to discover her roommate was in fact on the tour and not at the apartment.

We ended up waiting outside and in the lobby, where there was no cell service, for an hour not even completely sure if we were in the right apartment building or not. We finally got in to Coral’s apartment when her roommates came back from the tour and we got ready to go to dinner since we were starving and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Then we realized most restaurants in Italy close from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. for a siesta so we had about 30 minutes to kill before we could eat. We walked all over Florence exploring every little nook and cranny, taking tons of pictures along the way.

We ventured to the south side of the Fiume Arno, a river, to find a place to eat. My friend who studied abroad in Florence last year sent me a huge list of the best places to eat in the city so we decided to try I-Tarocchi and its famous (by my friend’s standards) fagottini di pere alla crème di taleggio a.k.a. ravioli filled with pear in cheese sauce. I know pears, ravioli, and cheese sauce seem like three things that don’t go together at all, but trust me, a picky eater, when I say it was insanely delicious. I was so grateful for that recommendation because I never would have tried it otherwise!

When we got back to the apartment after dinner, my roommates and I unpacked all our luggage to get settled in for the month. When one of my roommates Shannon was unpacking her suitcase, she got a horrified look on her face and realized she was missing four pairs of jeans, two skirts, and a couple tops. Thinking there was no way she left a huge pile of clothes in the hotel in Germany, she started panicking that her luggage had been tampered with sometime during our travels. She was freaking out and called the hotel to see if she had somehow left her clothes there.

While she was on the phone, I opened a drawer to put some of my clothes in it and I find none other than all the clothes Shannon thought someone had stolen. I started cracking up and ran to tell her I found her missing clothes, much to her relief. She had just unpacked them and had totally forgotten! I think that’s when you know we all need a good night’s sleep after three days of traveling.

I couldn’t be happier to finally be in Florence and have our apartment all set up. I can’t wait to share our next adventures coming up later this week so stay tuned!