Well today was finally our big day! We all met up at the MSP airport this morning at 9:15, checked our bags, and headed through security. We had a few hours to spend, so as groups we split off to get coffee, food, and other essentials for our long day of travel, my group went to Chili’s to tide us over. Our flight into Atlanta got delayed about 30 minutes which was unfortunate, however it just meant that we were able to spend less time in our layover, plus we had time to take not one but two sets of pictures!

While we were waiting during our layover, the flight had been overbooked so every 10 minutes the flight crew came over the intercom announcing a higher and higher reward for any people willing to take tomorrow’s flight instead. By the time they finally found some takers the pot had increased to $1,500 per person, it felt like we were at an auction except convenience was up for sale.

On the international flight, Aveline and I stopped into the cockpit to look around and take another picture with our flag to get our trip started!

We arrive in Rome at 3AM CST so any updates on our time when we first arrive will come in tomorrow’s blog post, but so far I think that its fair to say that we are all very excited to be out of the sky and back on ground as soon as possible!

– Ben