Ciao Adamo!

 Last night, we helped Adam finish packing for what I hope will be an amazing adventure!

He is taking classes this semester at the Sapienza University of Rome.
It is the largest university in Europe with over 150,000 students.

Adam has been preparing for this since Freshman year.  It was necessary to become pretty fluent in the language since all of his courses will be taught in Italian. 

 He will be renting an apartment in Rome with some other students who are from Italy.  He has never met them.  He knows nothing about them. They probably don't even speak English. 

We left home today at noon and drove him to JFK Airport.

I don't know exactly how Adam was feeling, but I was feeling nervous and excited for him - and a little jealous!  I probably would never have dared to do this at his age! But then again, I had never even been on an airplane at his age. 

 Crossing the bridge into Long Island, we could see the NYC skyline.
 

 In just about 2 hours, we were there.

 Vance dropped us off and went to park the car.

 I helped Adam bring his bags to check-in.  We had used "space bags" to pack all of his things.  You vacuum out all of the air and you can fit a tremendous amount of clothes in the bags.  So much  that the bag weighed over 10 lbs more than the allowed weight, so there was a $75 fee.  Very worth it for all that he packed!

 I took this picture because of the American flag - something Adam will not be seeing again until August when he comes back home.

 Since we were so early for his 5:35 flight, we got him something to eat and sat with him for a while.

 This lady sat down at the table next to us with her dog...

 I thought perhaps she was coming from the Westminster Dog Show.

 But upon closer inspection, I decided probably NOT.

 We walked him to the security gate where we said our good-byes.

One last picture of my baby before he leaves -
and before an airport security guard came running toward me yelling to put down the camera!  Haha!

We hope and pray that everything goes smoothly for him.  He doesn't have a cell phone yet (he plans to get one once he gets settled), so we will have to wait until he finds a way to email us to let us know he has arrived safely. 

He also plans to write a blog.

I can't wait to read it.
I miss him already!