Hello from home/the United States/California everyone! Today was a LONG day and an early day too; we woke up at 3am to get ready and leave our hotel. We left our hotel at 3:30 since we had to walk a little bit to the meeting point for our water taxi that was meeting us at 3:45. Our flight was at Venice Marco Polo airport at 6:50am, so we got driven there and arrived around 4:15. It was a longer boat ride than we thought, but it was pretty cool to see the city in the dark- some people were even still outside sipping drinks when we walked through St. Mark’s Square to get to the taxi dock!
We got to the airport and checked in; it was somewhat confusing because the airport was laid out kind of weirdly, but we checked our bags and went through security successfully. For our flight from Venice to London Gatwick we flew on easyJet (our travel agent booked it before we read the airline reviews..) so we were nervous, but everything seemed fine besides some underwhelming service at the bag drop. There was a little café for breakfast and we were all starving so we grabbed croissants and waters there. The croissant was the sweetest one I’ve had (a little too sweet for this early in the morning) but it did the job. We waited at our gate for a while and got shuttled over by bus to the plane.
We took off late and the flight was 2 hours so we ended up landing in London at about 9:40am. However, England is on a different time zone an hour behind Italy and France so it was actually 8:40. I just listened to music and watched Pitch Perfect on the flight (I noticed it was on Netflix when I was looking for things to download on the app!) so it went by quickly even though I didn’t manage to fall asleep. We were nervous about flying easyJet because of the negative reviews but it ended up being completely fine and all of our baggage came through quickly, since we somehow got the option to upgrade to priority boarding and luggage retrieval (for 18 euros total!) when we checked in.
After arriving and collecting our baggage we had to take a shuttle to the other terminal of Gatwick Airport and check-in for our Norwegian flight to LA. We checked our bags again and went through security which actually took a decent amount of time; the airport was bigger than I thought and it was pretty crowded, especially in comparison to the Venice airport. We immediately went to eat once we got to the gates and shopping area since we were all starving. Most of the places were still serving breakfast (it was 10:30 by this point) including the restaurant we went to- I got scrambled eggs on toast with bacon and it was definitely the best and most filling breakfast I’ve had in a while.
We waited around for over an hour because our flight was at 2:10pm, but boarding actually started pretty early at around 12:50. We flew Norwegian Air again just like on our flight to Paris, and everything went smoothly. It was a VERY long flight and I didn’t sleep much (a couple hour-long naps at various times), but they provided two small meals and there was lots of free entertainment on the built-in touchscreens. I also watched a documentary on Netflix called The Secret that I really enjoyed- it’s about the Law of Attraction and I would highly recommend it. We landed around 5:10pm at LAX and it was such a relief after the long day.
Before getting our bags and leaving the airport, we actually did our interviews for Global Entry. We did the first part of the application a while ago and it was available to finish when arriving from international flights; it’s a service that puts you in shorter lines for security/customs at the airport. It didn’t take too long (we all had to answer a few questions individually, take our pictures, and scan our fingerprints) but my brother wasn’t feeling well and we had to wait a while for my dad’s friend to pick us up since there was so much traffic so we ended up leaving around 6:30pm. We stopped at In N Out (oh, how I missed it!!!) since we were all starving and arrived home by 8:30pm.
My family members all got ready for bed and crashed as soon as they could (we’d been awake for over 24 hours and they didn’t sleep at all on the plane!) but I suddenly caught a second wind of energy. I unpacked my suitcase and backpack and ended up putting everything except food items away, so that made me feel productive. I also took an hour in bed to decompress and catch up with my friends and social media. I wanted to make a to-do list since I have LOTS to do now that I’m home, but it got too late once I showered and got ready for bed, so I just went to sleep with Netflix in the background.
I’m posting this from the comfort of my bed and my own personal space (aka no more cramped hotel rooms), and I’ve never felt cleaner or better. This trip was really the trip of a lifetime but it was also very draining by the end so I’m happy to be home now. More content about the trip will be coming soon (packing related, a reflection, etc.) so don’t fret if you’re looking for more travel posts- just stay tuned! This trip began at the very beginning of my summer (we left the first day of summer) so there is lots more in store for the next couple months ahead, and there will definitely be different types of content on here to reflect that as well. I’ll update you as always!
-Brooke
(Sadly, I have no pictures from the day as it was just a travel day; I also didn’t get a window seat on either of the flights to get some shots of the views. We flew over the Alps again which was beautiful though.)
I inserted this picture of St. Mark’s Square since technically this was the last scenic place we were in throughout Italy/Europe when we saw it in the dark today… I forgot to take a picture of it then but it was all lit up.
adventures of a typical high school student 