When in Rome!

Heidi and I left this morning around 1:15 to walk to the Hauptbahnhof. There weren't any buses running since it was Thursday night. I would never have done that alone, but Heidi didn't want to pay for a taxi to take us there. It was cold outside, but since we were walking quickly it wasn't bad at all. We actually made it there pretty quickly. Usually it's about a 45 minute walk including walking down the Haupstrasse, but I'd say we made it in a little more than a half an hour. We wanted to make sure we didn't miss our bus, so we walked into McDonald's so we'd at least be warm. Of course we had to get something in order to stay in there so I got fries and Heidi ended up having two cheeseburgers. The bus pulled up just as we finished and we were able to get right on. Heidi brought the second cheeseburger with her and ate it on the bus. She was still hungry and said they were so good that she almost got another one. But then we saw that they were closing so she didn't. Oh Heidi.

We tried to sleep on the bus, but just couldn't. I was somewhat uncomfortable and not too tired at that point. I think I was just really excited to be going to Rome! When we got off the bus there was snow on the ground! It was FREEZING! We walked as fast as we could from the bus stop up to the check-in place, but I nearly froze. I was shivering so much and my face was really red. My asthma also started bothering me. I think it's because I kept talking as we walked up, using up the breath that I needed to save! Heidi got a croissant at the little bakery inside and then we went through security. We had to wait there for about an hour and Heidi got a Twix bar to eat. I swear that girl could constantly eat and then eat some more. Looking at her, you would never think that though!

The last few times I have flown with RyanAir I have used the online check-in option because you don't have to pay the 3 Euros that they make you pay when you check in at the airport for priority boarding. Each time they tell me that people with American passports can't use that option, but they've let me by anyway. On the website it just aks for a government issued ID from Europe and I have one of those! There's a number on my visa that is supposed to serve as that ID. It was issued by the government! I don't understand why I can't use it! And NOWHERE on the website does it say anything about US passports. Well this time they made us pay. But we didn't have 6 Euros readily available. So we held up the line a bit and then they let us go through. We got seats in the first row so we had a ton of leg room. I think we slept almost the whole way there. We were exhausted and cold when we arrived. I don't think I ever defrosted! We followed the directions Makenna gave us to get to the busses and we bought our super cheap 1.50 tickets. The bus was coming in about 30 minutes so we stayed inside and Heidi picked up a newspaper and tried to figure out what it said. She knew it had something to do with sexual violence and it also said the word two. So before I knew it she had turned around and was asking the Italian women behind us to translate it into English. The woman had no clue so she got her friend who told us that it said two women are killed everyday as a result of sexual violence in Italy. Awkward. We said thank you and then decided to walk outside. I was slightly embarrassed. But the bus finally came and we quickly got confused. Makenna told us that there would be masses of people and that we should follow them onto the bus. No masses. She also said that we would have to stand on the bus crammed like sardines. We got seats easily. She also told us that there would be no other stops than the one we needed, but there turned out to be quite a few. We knew the name of our stop, but nothing else. The first time the bus stopped I got worried and thought that maybe we were supposed to get off there. But then I realized that the final destination of the bus we were on was the place we wanted to go. Once we got there we had to find Makenna. Luckily Heidi found her pretty quickly and we bought our metro tickets and hopped on. It was so good to see Mak again! This time, in her city where she knew exactly what was going on the entire time!

The metro ride took about a half an hour and then we walked to where Makenna lives. It was a cute little street with restaurants and such. I was so surprised by her apartment. Everything was from Ikea and looked so cute! Joanette's (one of her roommates) mom had also just arrived so we talked to her for a little while. They used to live in Mannheim and she could speak a little German. After they left I decided to take a little nap because I was so exhausted. Heidi showered and even fell asleep for a little while too. We went out and walked around for awhile after that and saw the Pantheon and just some of the city. It was so pretty! We briefly walked past things we were going to come back to later in the weekend and then went back to Makenna's for dinner. We stopped at the grocery store across the street first and Heidi and I got some yogurt and Musli for breakfast. Both the Musli and yogurt were German brands! Can't get away from Germany even if I try! Makenna made a zucchini pasta dish with red sauce. Yummy! We ate sooo much and were sooo full! We just hung out the rest of the night and ended up staying up pretty late!