Black Smoke

Well... our spring break trip started out kind of chaotic. We left the Bonn hbf at around 3 AM and arrived in Dusseldorf about 2 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave for Rome. We were a bit confused when we got there because we couldn't find any checkins for Ryanair. Little did we know that there are 2 different airports in Dusseldorf... So after two taxi rides of about 150 Euros each, a difficult check in, and running through the airport, we finally made it onto the plane. Let's just say, I am NEVER taking Ryanair again.

Rome was beautiful, and I can't wait to go back sometime in the near future. We met a reporter from NBC in Houston at the Colosseum because we were taking a group photo with our Aggie flag. She was so excited to meet us and invited us for an interview on Tuesday at the Vatican! That Monday, we met with Bill in front of St. Peter's Basilica for a short interview when the black smoke appeared for the first vote of the Conclave. Our video was on the 6pm news in Houston that night! We visited the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, a beautiful park that overlooked the entire city of Rome, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon in the 4 days that we were there. We also ate gelato... a lot of gelato.

Next stop on our spring break adventure was Athens, which was a bit colder than we expected. Our hotel was across from the beach, which would have been a little better if the weather had been in our favor. We made the best of our time though, and we spent a little bit of time on the beach and the rocks off of the pier. In Athens, we went to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, the National Archaeological Museum, and adopted a gang of stray dogs. When I say adopted, I mean a group of 4 dogs followed us and attacked every vehicle or person with food in sight. For some strange reason, they "liked us" and followed us for about an hour before we could ditch them.

Sadly, spring break is over... But I am happy to be back in Bonn! Next stop: London in 4 days!