You couldn't have picked a more miserable day to travel.
It could be worse ... It could be raining.
It is raining. And it's freezing cold.
I should have brought a parka.
Can you go home and get my earmuffs, mom?
Thus is the inauspicious beginning of the Bayley-Ellard Italy Trip. Twelve students and their respective guardians gathering at the Bayley parking lot at 1 in the afternoon, huddling for warmth. A group picture is taken in the gym, good-byes are exchanged and two vans full of teenagers and their detritus are off to JFK airport.
... 90 minutes later the group reassembles. Headcount. 14 chicks, three hens. The hens need to establish their guardianship. We give instructions and they are occasionally followed. Many parents mysteriously appear at the airport. I hadn't noticed that we had been followed. The loyalties of our charges is clearly in question. The tickets are collected. Another group photo is called for. Mrs. Jewell has six cameras on her wrist! Click, click, click, fumble, fumble, click. We're not even in Italy yet, and we are fashion models.
Jessie Wintle calls a group to follow her. Kathleen Guinee is told that they're going the wrong way. She calls them back. Tickets are redistributed. Yet the chicks follow obediently. They are now sufficiently imprinted on us. This is important lest some teenager spends his/her 1st night abroad in an Italian prison. They must learn to stay together and follow our instructions. We must learn to get our act together. Everything is going according to plan.
We arrive at Gate 3 and attack Mrs. Betz's Ginger Cookies. Got Milk? Pizza Hut and Pepsi will have to substitute. A Concorde is discovered at the next gate and we check it out just as we are called to board our British Airways Boeing 777. It has a name on the nose -- Sir Arthur Witten Brown.
Finally we are aboard the plane. Each seat has its own video screen and telephone, and a little baggy of treats. Steve Madonna is particularly excited by the socks.
Socks! It's new socks! This is just like Christmas!
$10 a minute to use a phone? That's nothing.
(flight attendant appears)
No sorry, I don't need anything. I must have pressed the button accidentally.
You hit all the buttons.
Strobe lights! (flicking overhead light on and off)
Do you find flying scary?
Do you like roller coasters?
(Kelly's face goes pale)
Uh ... it's nothing like a roller coaster ...
After an hour of waiting and playing with all the buttons we finally take off. Jessie Wintle keeps her hand on Kelly, who keeps her face buried in a pillow. She also clutches a little stuffed kitten Jessie lets her hold. A bumpy takeoff causes the overhead to pop open, but ten minutes later everyone is reading magazines, knoshing and watching the BBC News. Clarissa actually works on homework, and Chris Jewel writes in his Journal.
End of a simple day 1.
To email us in italy send email to mewintle@aol.com and be sure to include the word "Italy" somewhere in the tile. I will forward your message to the appropriate person or the whole group as appropriate.
