Sunday... the extra day.

I woke Sunday morning to the ringing of a telephone, which was my wake-up call. Let me just tell you... there are few worse ways to wake up in the morning. The first... being shaken awake. The second, that annoying beeping noise no one actually likes on an alarm clock. The third... a telephone ring. And not one of those fun ones like on a cell phone.. no. The good old-fashioned "ring, ring" of a telephone.

I was not a happy camper.

After a nice, long, hot shower at 5:15 am, I put on the SAME clothes as the day before, since our luggage was all in transit from the previous day, and all we had was our carry-ons. My carry-on consisted of my laptop and all the fragile souvenirs I was bringing back to the States.

If my life depended on myself and that backpack, I would have died.

Luckily, I didn't have to depend only on my bag, because my luggage made it through to the next airport. After a nice breakfast (paid for by Lufthansa for making us miss our flight..) we found our gate and waited to fly from Munich to Frankfurt, Germany.

Then we waited to fly to Atlanta. Our international flight was 9 1/2 hours, and I barely slept. I slept probably two to three hours, thanks solely to the benedryl I had popped earlier. I was upset I couldn't sleep more.

The view, however, was GORGEOUS. There are fewer things more beautiful I have seen than the Alps from such a high view.. and whatever was more beautiful I'm pretty sure I saw in Italy.

When we got to Atlanta, we had an hour and-a-half to make our connecting flight to Little Rock. Piece of cake, right? I wish it was so easy.

We had to go through immigration and customs, then passport control, re-check our bags onto the plane to Little Rock, get screened through security yet again and find our desk for Delta so we could get our boarding passes at the gate... all in an hour and-a-half.

Sweat perspiring on our foreheads as we ran through the airport, we made it to the gate... somehow with time to spare.

The last flight was so easy; it was only an hour. Our seats were in row one, which meant we had some extra foot room. The view out the window was gorgeous; above the clouds, the sunset honestly had every color of a rainbow. I would have taken pictures but the camera was in the overhead compartment and I might have got shot if I turned on my phone in the air.

It was so spectacular though; I wish I could share.

When we hit the ground in Little Rock, we breathed a sigh of relief. I had never been so excited to be back in Searcy-- we had been traveling for just about 48 hours at this point. We just wanted clean clothes, a shower and a warm bed.

Thankfully, Penny's parents were at the airport, ready to pick us up when we got there. We were worried we were going to tell them the wrong time due to the time difference in Italy, the time change from Atlanta to Little Rock and also taking daylight savings into account.

We drove back to Searcy and made it to Harding at about 8:30 pm central time.. or 2:30 am Italy time (after daylights savings, of course.) It was the longest trip of my life. It was longer than driving to school from New Hampshire within a course of two days.

Being back in Searcy has thoroughly excited... and depressed me. I love seeing my friends that I haven't seen or been able to communicate with in so long, but I miss seeing new things everyday. I miss meeting random people and hearing their stories, but most of all, I miss the art and beauty of Italy. At least their grass was green.