The trip to Rome had been planned for almost a year. When I started talking about my trip we decided that it would be great to meet in Rome in the beginning of the Easter holidays. I couldn't ask for better travel mates to the Eternal City: Barbara is a student of architecture and Elisabetta speaks Italian. I am blond.

I left the Norwegian class in the airport in Barcelona and found my flight to Rome. As soon as I boarded the plane I was hit by a wall of noise. It was so LOUD in there! I remembered being in a place were people observed mauna - silence - and the people there didn't even bother to explain it to the Italians, because it was just not possible for them to be quiet. Have mercy. On the plane the woman speaking in the microphone had to scream to let everyone know what people should do in case of an emergency. I thought that surely my ears must be bleeding by now. And when we landed in Rome, they applauded loudly. So happy to be home. Rome sweet Rome.

The first thing I notice when I am waiting for the train to Termini (main train station) is that everyone is dressed so well. Even the guy sweeping up cigarette buts on the platform looks nice. When I wait to collect my luggage I see a woman in a sari and immediately feel calmer, a sense of familiarity. I walk along with my backpack and from a shelf in a bookstore the Dalai Lama smiles down at me, and I take a deep breath. The whole trip has been like this: I'll come across something from the place I'm going to or from a place I have been. A kind of hidden red thread that only I can see. It's nice.

I take the train to Termini, the main train station in Rome. I'm grinning to myself the whole way there. It's such a treat to be met at the train station, my melancholy side is very pleased. I am so exited about being met on the station and to see them both again. We will have a great time come rain or shine. When I left Norway in the beginning of March it was so great to say 'see you soon - in Rome!'

As the train roll into the station I have small happy butterflies in my stomach and my grin is getting bigger and bigger. I'm ready with my backpack on my shoulders long before the train comes to a halt. How crazy to see familiar faces in an unfamiliar place. Great hugs and much noise. We're not hungry for a big dinner and so my first meal in Italy is at McDonald's next to the station. We were high on the event so it was a great meal. I was asked on two dates in the first ten minutes, and truly realize that people here really are different to anywhere I've been before. The hotel is very nice and close to the station but in a quiet area with cafes and restaurants around the corner. After I've settled into the room we go for a nightcap across the street and when I ask the waiter to take a picture of us he says: I'm not Japanese but I will try. And we're on. From that moment everything is funny and we have endless reruns of the same jokes and they morph into new jokes until they are barely recognisable anymore, but even more funny. For some reason the sum of our energy wants to come out in song. It's like a musical in the end. I tell them about the Catalan waiter in Barcelona that asked me: I don't like? and it's immediately a hit. So this will be the grammar for the week, use first person instead of third person when you ask a question.

The next five days are filled to bursting capacity with art, food, monks, nuns, architecture, vino rosso, conversation, waffel jackets, earthquakes, wild gesticulation and uproarious laughter. It still seems like we spent only five minutes there, or was it five weeks?