"Where are you from?"

"America." "Do you ride busses for free in America?" "Uhhh..yes."

Friday we finally made it to IKEA, after a bus ride from hell. We've been told since we've gotten here that there's a free bus that will take you to Ikea. We thought we got on it. Apparently not. We were running around the train station going back and forth from each side trying to find the bus. We randomly walk outside of the station, down on the street and catch a random bus where people were coming off with Ikea bags. The bus stops and people get on. A man comes up to the four of us (because we're Americans) and pulls out a badge and asks us for tickets. I guess these guys hop on buses randomly and check if people have tickets. Of course, when we don't have them, this would happen to us. We were so confused, we were handing him ID's, student ID's, everything. We told him that our teachers said that it was a free bus and he responded "Well, where's your teacher?" He was such an asshole. He fined us 45 euro each, and when we said that we didn't' have it, we ended up having to still pay 94 euro (when tickets are originally 2 euro). So the start to our awesome Ikea day was NOT good.

We FINALLY get to Ikea and the first thing we do is eat. We all got the meatballs with gravy and cranberry jelly and some fries. After getting fuel to go shop, we grabbed our bright yellow bags and roamed the store. I'm obsessed with Ikea! That was my second time going there and I really had to hold back on grabbing everything! Our original purpose for going was to get mattress pads, but all they sold were thin little "sheets" basically that weren't worth it. So we spent money on new pillows instead. I got one that's kind of like a Tempurpedic. And we got matching pillow cases (deep purple). We left with candles, pillows, matching pillow cases, and hangers. All in all, a successful trip.

Okay, now for the trip home. We stood in the rain for 15 minutes waiting for the bus to come pick us up from Ikea. It was about a 30 minute bus ride home. We didn't really know where to get off so Bolling just picked a spot. Unfortunately, when we got off we didn't know where we were at all. We were just walking in a direction we thought was right, until we found some street signs (which were nowhere to be found!) We stood underneath an awning to figure out exactly where we were located, all while this whole time is pouring down rain. We're speed walking with our paper Ikea bags trying to find the bus station. We were probably about 10-15 blocks away from where we needed to go. As soon as we got to the station we hopped right into a taxi and went home. We were SOAKED.

When we got home we changed into dry, warm clothes then went to the supermarket down the street. We picked up things for dinner and some vodka and mixers for our trip to Venice then went to bed early because we were leaving the next day at 9 in the morning.