Rome: Traveling Makes Me Hungry For Pasta (Friday April 23)

Friday marked the end of the semester at UCD and therefore the big UCD Ball. The UCD Ball is like a festival put on by the school. They transformed the soccer fields into a festival like atmosphere. Flags waving, port-a-potties lining the streets, and security galore. We needed wristbands to get in and out of Roebuck, and there were men in tuxedos at all the entrances. A lot of hoopla for what we heard turning out to be like 1 live band and a DJ playing the Vengaboys. Random. According to Stacy who remained on campus, it was just a drunken debouchery and tons of ambulances had to come. We left UCD at 1 pm, before any of the festivities began. We caught our Aircoach, which took longer than normal to get to the Dublin Airport.

We were expecting the Dublin Airport to be packed, with air traffic halted for 6 days just a few days prior. But surprisingly the Dublin Airport was pretty quiet. We got through security and then headed to grab some overpriced lunch at the foodhall. A ham & cheese panini and then off to the gate. When we got to the gate, we were not pleased to see a group of Italian pre-teens. None other than the same group of preteens who had been slow dancing awkwardly and taking over our zone at the Wicked Wolf the night before. Small world, yes. Even smaller for Claire, who got the pleasure of sitting near them and their loud selves for the entirety of the plane ride.

To be honest, I was a little more nervous about this flight. All the talk of planes falling out of the sky due to volcanic ash was a little unnerving. Plus when I boarded the plane, the engine was making a sound that I didn't think sounded particularly good. But I got into my window seat, 8A, and fell asleep off and on, while a baby cried for the majority of the flight. The flight was about 2 and a half hours and then we had to catch a train into the city and Roma Termini. The train was pretty full of tourists (all equipped with guidebooks) and we had a spanish couple sit next to us who instantly knew we were Americans. Amazing how quickly they can figure it out.

We got to the station, walked outside to find it pouring rain and me with my umbrella left in Dublin. We found our hostel pretty easy and walked in looking like wet dogs. The lady at the counter said they didn't have our reservation, but Claire pulled out our confirmation email and the lady found us a 4 bedroom dorm instead of the 8 bed we had reserved. We carried our luggage up the 3 floors (pianos in Italian) and then headed to get some dinner. It was already like 9 pm at this point. The hostel reception pointed us in the direction of an Italian restaurant around the corner. We found it no problem and settled in the quaint local place for some real Italian food. Bruschetta and spaghetti. In Italy. It doesn't get much better than that. Full of carbs, we headed back to our hostel and to bed. Big day of sight seeing in the morning.