The Longest Bus Ride in History Continued...

So to recap briefly, we had plans to meet up with a few girls from our class at 830. A few drinks were definitely in order after a long, hot week. We step out of our house and less than a minute later, we're on a bus! Great news because sometimes we're waiting for what seems like forever.

We get on a bus that we know will take us to a bus terminal, in hopes that this terminal will have another bus that will take us to an area' at least' near Trestevere, then we could just walk the rest of the distance. Unfortunately, the terminal didn't have a bus that went anywhere near our destination. A nice old man told us which bus to get in the right area. So we caught a bus that took us basically back past our house. The old man was correct and the bus took us to an area in which we were supposed to catch another bus that would take us to Trestevere or thereabouts. Unfortunately, we didn't know which stop to get off on so we went waaay past it and had to circle back around. We finally made it near Trestevere about 1030.

By this point, we were both really hungry but we were still intent on meeting up with the girls at the "McDonalds sign". We hopped on a tram and it took us the wrong way! So we got off, waited for the tram going the right way. We never did end up seeing that "McDonalds sign". We ended up going past Trestevere and to the end up the tram line. So then, we hopped another tram back towards civilization and food!

About 11:00, we were extremely hungry and we decided to forget about any meeting. We went to the first ristorante we could grab a table at. The food was nothing to write home about but it filled our stomachs and the wine calmed our nerves. We decided at this point to just call it a night and head home.

Unfortunately, we messed up on our busses again and ended up getting on a bus that dropped us off in some remote corner of Rome because daytime busses stop running at 12:30. Though on the bus ride we did see the Olympic Stadium and a couple other cool sites.

So we hoofed it to a main street and waited for a night bus along side a couple "ladies of the night" We hoped this bus would take us somewhere familiar. It didn't! In fact, we were on that bus for another 2 hours as it rumbled and creaked through Roman neighborhoods that we could probably never find again. Luckily, the bus driver noticed we were on his bus for an extremely long time and asked us in broken English where we were going. We told him and he told us when to get off. From this point things finally got better for us but it was also 2:30 in the morning. Then it became a process of taking two more busses (it's common to wait a half hour for a night bus) and we would be home free.

We ended up getting home at 4:30 in the morning, physically exhausted and mentally beat to a pulp but we made it after all. It wasn't exactly as we had hoped the night would turn out but it was a learning experience, none the less.

Sorry for the long winded story but it was a rough night and we thought some of you might get a kick out it.