Kiliney, Dalkey, and Howth! Springtime is finally here!

April 12, 2010 9:38 a.m.

Hey guys! I'm sorry I have been so terrible at updating this blog! I have been extremely busy trying to get last minute homework done since this week is my last week of classes. I also have been trying to pack the last semester of my life into two tiny suitcases and my carry-on, difficult task! I am also trying to figure out the last minute details for my coming up soon trips to greece and italy and trying to fit 15 days of my life into a tiny carry on bag, which is not very easy!
I can't believe that this is my last week of classes and saturday I will be leaving on a 15 day adventure! This is what I have been planning for for a year and it is insane that it is finally here! I am going to be sad to leave my new friends here, but I am ready to get home to my friends and family I miss so much back home!
On Saturday my friends and I were going to rent bikes and ride around Phoenix Park all day. This past week's weather has been beyond beautiful, high 50's and mid 60's. For Ireland that is amazing! No rain whatsoever! So we figured that this weekend would be the perfect time to do that. I got up early Saturday morning to go to the library to print off some of my homework essays that I had written and while I was walking back I noticed that all the places to rent bikes were empty. All the bikes had already been rented! That was disappointing but my roomates and I knew we couldn't waste the beautiful weather, so we decided to hop on the DART (train) to go on an adventure. Meghan D., Meghan M., Kristen, and I ended up in Kiliney, a beach town where Bono and Enya live. Unfortunately, I did not see either one of them..we were hoping though! We hung out there for an hour or so just people watching on the beach then hopped on the Dart again and ended up in Dalkey. Dalkey is a small cute little town with a castle and fun little shops. I bought a book at a second hand shop. It also had a farmers market going on! We spent the majority of the day there then headed back that night.
Sunday was an exciting day for everyone because we had been planning on going to Howth forever now! 9 of us ended up going, and it was so much fun! Howth is a peninsula that is absolutely breathtaking. It is where W.B. Yeats lived, no one would get excited over that but me! He is a famous poet that I have learned about since I have been here. Howth was made for hikers, so that is what we did! When we first arrived we went to a farmers market there then were staring at the ocean and saw some weird things bobbing in and out of the water. That is when it hit us! SEA LIONS!! There were probably 8-10 of them just hanging out in the harbor people watching. It was the coolest thing, and I took probably ten million pictures so I apologize for that! But they were so neat! After watching them forever we went and got some ice cream. It was the most beautiful day of the year and everyone in Ireland seemed to have come to Howth. 100's of people were picniking, boating, playing vollyball, and tons of little kids were running around playing. It was a great, fun atmosphere. We headed up the hiking path after eating our cones and admiring the beauty. I can't even begin to describe how awesome it was hiking with the ocean on one side right next to you and a hill covered in heather on the other side. We hiked and took pictures for about 2 hours then headed back into town to eat. We didn't end up getting back into Dublin until about 10. We missed our stop on the DART, whoops! But we knew where w e were at the next stop so all was well. Needless to say, it was a great great weekend!
This will probably be my last post before I leave on Saturday so I will just give you a quick scoop of what is going on! This week I will be packing my life away and finishing my last paper as well as saying goodbye to everyone. Saturday is my roomate Meghan M.'s 21st birthday so we will be celebrating that with her! And I'm sure throughout the week everyone will be doing things here and there. Saturday night I leave to fly into London where I will stay in the airport until Sunday morning, I will be flying into Athens Greece. From Athens I'll be taking a ferry into Santorini, an amazing island off the coast of Greece. We will be in Greece until the 23, then we will fly into Rome where we will be traveling Italy for 10 days. May 2nd we fly back into Ireland and Amanda Buckingham will meet us at the airport. Kristen and I will show Amanda around Dublin for a day then we are taking her to Cork where we will stay with Kristen G. for a few days. May 4th we are going to go travel Dingle Peninsula then the 5th we are taking a bus from Cork directly to the airport so we can get on our flight on May 6th in the morning. Whew it's going to be a crazy ride but I'm excited for it!! May 6 is going to be crazy. When Kristen and I get home it will be 6:30 p.m. Iowa time, but it will feel like 12:30 a.m. to us. So I apologize in advance if I am cranky! I bet I won't be though, I'm so excited to see everyone!

Dublin, Doolin and Devin

March 22-28 1:00 p.m.

Sorry everyone for the delay on blogs!! I know I haven't updated anyone on galway or st. paddys, but i journaled it so I promise I remember!! I know many people are anxious to hear how my week went this week due to a special someone coming and visiting, so I figured I would update everyone!! Monday morning I woke up extremely excited at 5:30 in order to get ready and catch a bus to the airport to meet Devin who was due to arrive at 8:00. I checked his flight and it said it was going to land at 7:30, I almost had a heart attack. He did not know that I was going to meet him there so I had given him instructions on what bus to get on and where to get off ect. ect. and I knew that he would be on a mission to get on that bus right when he got there and I wasn't due to arrive at the airport until 8:00. Oh wow...but anyway I waited for him and when I saw him come through the doors I went to go run after him. Well...there were many tall skinny dark haired men on his flight so I had a bit of a problem trying to locate him..finally I saw him walking through the doors towards the buses so I took off in a sprint after him. I was out of breath after getting him...but the hug he gave me made up for it. During the bus ride to my apartment he was in awe at the surroundings..the way I was at the beginning of the trip.
He was a sleepy boy by the time we got back to the apartment due to not sleeping at all the 9 hour plane ride here, but after a short rest he was ready to go. My roomates were walking back from class when we left to go to the Guinness Factory so he got to meet them which was really nice...I'm sure they all already feel like they know each other from how much I talk about everyone to everyone else!
The Guinness Factory was really neat!! It was 6 levels going up in a cylindar shape. Each level had a different part of the guinness story behind it. One level was the history behind guinness..we saw the lease that Arthur Guinness signed for 9,000 years for 45 Great British Pounds a year..insane!! The next few levels were ingredients and how Guinness is made and one level was advertising. The best level by far though was the very top, the gravity bar. It is a 360 degree view of Dublin which is breath taking.
After the Guinness Factory we walked around Phoenix Park, a huge huge huge park where the President of Ireland lives. The swans and ducks are out now and the weather was beautiful. We stayed there until dark and then came back, ate supper, and went to sleep.
Tuesday we got up decently early in order to do some sightseeing before I had class! I showed him the Dublin Castle, in order to save some money, I just gave him a tour of the outside from what I remembered. After the castle we went back into the Chester Beatty Library. After reading my blog on its religion exhibits Devin became really interested and wanted to check it out. So we did..and I loved it just as much the second time as the first time, I even caught some details that I did not realize before, such as different aspects to Islam.
We walked around a little bit after that, i pointed out different parts of the city, some historical, and some that were just important to me. I have discovered that I'm not that great of a tour guide but thats ok! I brought him to my favorite coffee shop, the Bald Barista where we split a sandwich and had our mochas before heading off to class. The original plan was that Devin was going to go find Ireland's soccer stadium while I was in class..but it was quite the walk away so he decided to come to class with me. It was Abnormal Psychology and I think it might have swayed him to become a psychologist now...haha just kidding. After class we went souvenier shopping, then for a walk in St. Stephen's Green Park where there were more beautiful swans and ducks. We sat in the park awhile and just chatted which was really nice. By this point we were hungry so we went to the Purty Kitchen which is supposed to have good Irish food but their kitchen was not working so they were not serving food. So we ended up having wood oven pizza at this cute little place that I didn't know existed...it was wonderful! After the pizza we tried going back to St. Stephens Green to walk it off, but it was closed up, so we just walked around Graffton Street a bit then headed back home..we had an early morning the next morning!
The next morning we had scheduled to take a tour of Wicklow and Glendalough in the mountains. So at 8:30 we treked over to O'Connell street to meet the van that was scheduled to take us. We had a really cool informative tour guide which was awesome! A few more people joined us. There was even a family from Arizona, they were fun! The tour guide kept making reference to me since I had told him I had been there since January. Everytime he brought up a pub he would ask who had been there..I raised my hand for all of them...so now everyone probably thought that I was an alcoholic on there but thats ok..In reality I had either had food or went to listen to music at all of them, but people will think what they will think! So much happened on the tour I know I wn't be able to describe it all...but everywhere was absolutely amazing. Glendalough was beautiful..it had an extremely old christian cemetary and tower where monks used to hide and vikings used to kill them. The ruins of an old monastary was there and he walked us trhough, really bringing the story alive for us. In the backdrop were beautiful mountains and trees and flowers...the pictures are beautiful but do no justice to the beauty of Glendalough. From there we went up to lunch in a nearby town then headed further up into the mountains. He stopped the car every now and then to let us get out and take in the beauty around us. Fields of soon to be blooming heather were everywhere, and bogs with bog cotton surrounded us. I even stood on the bridge/street where P.S. I love you was filmed!!!! pretty much famous now :) We saw a mansion where Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods had rented out before..it was originally a wedding gift from a member of Arthur Guinness's family to his new bride. It was beautiful, set along a lake....we saw waterfalls and every natural beauty you could imagine. A lot of sheep as well...we even had to stop the van for them a few times to let them go across.
Upon returning back into Dublin it was decently late and we were sleepy from traveling all day..so i made some paninis and we went to bed early because we had yet another early morning ahead of us
Thursday morning we got on the 7:00 a.m. bus to Galway. It was a 3.5 hour bus ride..but very worth it..we were meaning to get a connecting bus to Doolin from there. The only buses that leave Galway to Doolin were at 10:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Our bus got in at 10:34 p.m. So we had several hours to kill in rainy Galway. But we had a great time just relaxing in a coffee shop and when it cleared up we hung out in a park. It was a good lazy day. At 6:00 we got on the bus to take to Doolin, thinking it would take a 1/2 hour. WRONG. It was an hour and forty five minute jaunt up curvy mountain roads right next to the ocean. It was beautiful and would have been wonderful besides the point that Devin and I had eaten fries with a very strange sauce on them right before we got on the bus and that caught up with us. I was ok besides stomach pains, but Devin had to lie down on my lap awhile while i put water on his head in order to cool him down...those roads were nasty! We finally arrived in Doolin, the bus driver was sweet enough to drop us off right where we needed to be. We hadn't even been walking a minute when I car came down and a man asked us if we were looking for the Daly House we said yes and he told us to hop in...and he brought us the rest of the 30 second walk back up to the Daly house. As soon as we walked into the door Paul (the man who brought us up) and Susan made us feel so at home. Susan went and made Irish coffees and brought us those and cookies while chatting with us about our trips and our travels. They were so sweet!! It was 8:30 by that point and both of us were still feeling sick so we went to sleep and got up early to have breakfast at 8:00. In the brightness of the beautiful day we could see how beautiful little Doolin actually is. From where we were eating breakfast you could just look out and see a 13th century castle, Doonagore castle. And everywhere you looked, earth's natural beauty was there to behold. Beautiful blue ocean that rose up to meet beautiful green mountains. Horses, cows and sheep dotted everywhere you looked and with every turn of the head new old beautiful historic ruins were there to behold. After eating an amazing breakfast prepared by Susan we went out walking to discover how tiny Doolin really is, a town of two roads really. It was a beautiful beautiful day and the sky was clear. We walked around all day. At noon we went on a tour of the Doolin Cave. A cave that opened up only two years ago. It is 200 feet underground and holds the biggest stalictite in the world! An inch forms every 1,000 years so that baby had been growing a long long long long long time! Thank goodness for the hard hats because we hit our heads on several occassions!! It was very very neat getting to see that. Afterwards we went to McGann's pub to have lunch then set out for the Cliffs of Moher. Paul was kind enough to drive us up and drop us off at the Cliffs. I can't even begin to describe how amazing this place is. The very edge of Ireland that drops 800 feet into the Atlantic Ocean...its beautiful! O'Brien's Tower sits on the edge of the Cliff overlooking the water. Devin and I just stared in awe for awhile. We took a lot of pictures but none of them capture even 1/3 of the beauty. We even saw a couple taking engagement pictures by them, i'm sure those will turn out beautiful!
From the Cliffs it was a 5 mile trek back to Doolin but thats ok, the views on the way back were amazing. Ocean, Doonagore Castle, sheep, cows, people...it was great! When we got back we went to O'Conner's pub and listened to some music. Doolin is where the traditional irish music started! We ate some fish and chips and jammed out for a few hours. You will have to ask Devin about his Irish girlfriends...
The next morning we unfortunately had to leave. We wanted to catch the 12:30 bus only to discover that the 12:30 bus didn't run that day..so we had waited for quite awhile for nothing but thats ok! The next bus wasn't until 1:45 so we went to O'Conner's to try their famous guinness stew....WOW it was AMAZING!! Huge chunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots, in this delicious guinness sauce. If you ever get the chance to try it..DO IT!!
We caught the bus and then were traveling back to Dublin for the next several hours but we had a great time listening to music, looking at scenery, and laughing...when we got back I took him to a pub called Fitzsimons to listen to music. The time change happened that morning so we didn't return home until technically 2:30..we had thought his flight was at noon, but we discovered when we got back that it was at 7:00 a.m. So we didn't get to much time to say goodbye due to having to rush to the airport..but its probably for the best...less time to be sad when we were together. It was an absolutely amazing week and I can't wait to see everyone again!

On the Search for Nessie

March 9, 2010 10:22 a.m.
Another successful weekend trip! Thursday morning Kristen O'Connor and I met up with Kristen Granzow at the airport in Dublin to catch our early flight to Glasgow, Scotland. We were worried about Kristen G. because she recently got diagnosed with vertigo, she is ok now but flying with that much dizzyness is not a good idea! She was given motion sickness pills though so all was well. We arrived in Glasgow and immediately sought out to buy a metro ticket to get to the Kelvingrove Museum. It is the 2nd most visited museum in the UK, and it's free so that is an amazing plus! The walk from the metro station was beautiful. It was a huge, but pretty and clean city with a university, and parks with little cafes scattered around. Museums and churches were huge stone buildings. I was struck again by the massiveness of churches and museums in Europe! Upon arrival at the Kelvingrove we walked into a beautiful room that up above housed a HUGE beautiful organ. With a sign that said free concert at 1:30. Kristen G. was quite excited to say the least! We walked around a little bit, then saw a sign for free tours. We met up with a group of 6-7 older ladies that reminded me of the Red Hatters in Monroe. I hope I am like that someday when I am older, traveling around with my friends, making snide, clever comments to the tour guide. They were hysterical but so intelligent. They knew a lot about each painting and each piece our tour guide described. They were all very interested in why we were in Glasgow and why we were studying in Ireland. They were very disappointed that we were just in Glasgow for a few hours because they listed off tons of places we should look into, they informed us that we HAD to come back. When they discovered we were from Iowa, they all looked at each other and chuckled, "Ah, the farmers!" They were quite excited about that. One woman informed me that the Scottish know so much about the U.S. but we know nothing about them. Which I have discovered is true in so many cases with so many different countries, it's quite sad really.
The museum was wonderful, housing many paintings such as Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross painting, a mummy exhibit which was fascinating (even had mummified head and hands which was really creepy), many Scottish paintings such as the Glasgow boys, and exhibits of all the fossils and things found in Scotland, the biggest turtle, elephant, to crocidiles and fossils of fish from millions of years ago. I wish I could have stayed longer. We listened to a little bit of the organ recital but by that time our backs were starting to kill us from carrying our bags around all day. And our stomaches wanted food, so we found a cafe and had some lunch. We then decided to just walk around in the park instead of going to another museum. We wandered the Kelvingrove park for awhile, playing on some toys, getting attacked by pigeons, and walked through the University area where they were holding their student elections. I guess it is quite the ordeal over there. There were signs EVERYWHERE to vote for people and people walking around in banana outfits, I'm still not quite sure why on that.
Afterwards, we got on a train and headed to Edinburgh where we were to meet up with Amanda Buckingham! When we got there, Amanda was no where to be seen. We were having slight freak outs because we had no idea where we were going and Edinburgh is a huge city. After a half hour of me trying to frantically dial her phone, she ran into the train station. The poor girl had gotten lost and couldn't find her way there so took a taxi. I feel so awful about it! But yay, manda and I were reunited! We took a taxi home, met her roomates, then crashed. The next morning we got up for a full day of sight seeing. We walked the Royal Mile which is the mile long stretch that has the Edinburgh castle on one end and the Palace on the other. They were both pretty neat, we just snapped some pictures. Walking into the city centre of Edinburgh though is fascinating because it is divided into two, the old city and the new city, and the new city is lower than the old city, it is on a hill and the new city goes downhill. Walking around Amanda pointed out her University in which the student center on it is where J.K. Rowling got her idea to model Hogwarts off of. We also saw the Elephant's House, the coffee house where J.K. Rowling wrote the first harry potter! It was SO cool! We went in later that day and had coffee just to say that we had! She also pointed out the Grayfriar's Lounge which is based off the legend of "Scotland's dog," supposibly there was a dog that went with his owner everywhere and waited for him and after his owner died he would just go to the grave everyday and everyday a different person would feed him and take care of him until he died too. So that was pretty neat!
After filling up on coffee and a snack to get energy, the girls and I headed up to climb Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano. I guess it takes climbing up Arthur's Seat 60 times to make Everest, that is why I now have a lot more respect for mountain climbers. Halfway up the volcano was not that bad, we all just cruised up it and chatted. There is a road and sidewalk that lead halfway up. The rest of the way up there is no trail, it involves climbinb up a steep rocky slope to reach the top. While singing Miley Cyrus's The Climb, we all started up, losing our breath and stopping a few times, we finally reached it! What a sense of accomplishment, and the view was amazing! On one side was the mountains and the other was the ocean, with cute little houses dotting in between. We stayed up there awhile before attempting to head down. We decided to take a different path...bad idea! Going down involved us scotting on our butts and dangling off of rocks with one slip that would send us tosseling down the rocky slope, we were slightly terrified some of the time. We all put our purses around our necks and started the slow process down the volcano. By the time we reachted the bottom all of us were extremely dirty and tired, but felt accomplished! By this time it was sunset, so when we returned to Amanda's apartment, we collapsed in the kitchen while we talked to her roomate Kat. She was really nice. Amanda lives with all Scottish roomates, all in which were wonderful.
The next morning we got up at 5:15 so we could make some pancakes before being out the door to meet our tour that was going into the Scottish Highlands. We got there to be greeted by a minivan bus thing and our tourguide. We also had a lady from India, three french people, and two other american girls who were studying in Galway in Ireland. The tour was amazing! It started at 7:45 and we didn't return to Edinburgh until 6:30 that night. We went into the mountainous area of Scotland, while Bill, our tourguide explained the history of Scotland and Edinburgh, he pointed out spots where bloody battles had taken place and castles where Mary Queen of Scots was born and her son James. The mountains were breathtaking. My pictures do nothing to describe how I felt when I looked out onto the loch (water) and saw purple and blue mountains being reflected on it's black depths. It was amazing. We stopped in little villages here and there, such as St. Augustus, a town on the loch ness. We ate lunch there, the pb&j sandwiches we had packed, and went monster hunting. I didn't realize that the loch was 22 miles long and 180 some feet deep. It was interesting because I guess scientists had come there trying to prove that the monster did not exist, but they caught things on sonar that they can't explain...interesting. Nessie was first spotted by St. Columba and ever since then there have been hundreds of sightings. So who really knows?
When we returned to Edinburgh we went to try haggis, which is pretty much intestine stuffed with sausage. It was really really really good!! After eating that we went back to amanda's apartment to get ready because we were going to a club on edinburgh university campus called the Big Cheese. It's called that because it plays cheesy music such as the spice girls and backstreet boys, aqua, ext. But it was AWESOME!! It was so fun, and packed with college people. At 2:00 a.m. when we left we went to a kabob place and tried frlafel. I don't know how to spell it, but it was good as well!
The next morning we got up and went to church with Amanda. It was a Presbyterian church and everyone was so nice. The message was amazing as well. After the service we were introduced to friends of Amanda's and invited to the student lunch. We went and had some amazing food, then listened to a lesson presented by a young married couple from the states. They are over there because the guy is getting his masters in Scotland. They were so nice, and the lesson was great as well, I took lots of notes! After helping clean up, we headed out to do some shopping. That night then we just hung out, ate some popcorn, and went to sleep to be on the plane early the next morning. It was a great weekend!! Next weekend in Galway with the school, so that should be really fun. The next few weeks are going to be insane so I don't know the next time I will be able to write! I have a ton of homework, and right after Galway, Kelcie Freeman and Malorie Seaman will be here. And Tuesday Amanda and Kristen are coming up as well as Chelsea and Andrea from Poland. The last people will leave on Sunday, then Devin comes Monday, so this is going to be an intense but amazingly fun month!

Golden Castle in the Sky

February 27, 2010 5:47 p.m.
Since returning from Barcelona I have been kind of a lazy girl...but it is well needed considering my lack of sleep in Spain! Wednesday I did nothing but slept and pit putted around the apartment like a zombie. My roomate Meghan and our friends that were going to Morocco finally got home at 2 a.m. Thursday morning. Ryanair is refusing to refund their flight too due to it not being their fault that France went on an air strike. It's awful and I feel so bad for them. Thursday Kristen and I sat in her room for literally 6 hours trying to get a general outline for what we are doing for the 3 weeks we will be travelling after classes are over. After that we went to Corinne, Maral, and Kate's room and had supper with everyone. Then we were all so exhausted we came back and went to bed. Friday I got up and loaded my rolly suitcase up with almost every piece of clothing I have over here and took it to Mr. Tubs to do laundry. I was sick of handwashing and everything just needed a good cleaning! I was nervous at first because all my friends have gone and had awful experiences with a cranky woman who works there. The washing machines are different than ours and she refused to explain how to work it to anyone, instead just called my friends stupid. I got lucky and had a really nice lady who pretty much did everything for me!! I am now wearing completely clean clothing and can't begin to describe how awesome it feels!!! I was smiling while putting everything away because it smelled so nice...I'm weird I know! After that Kristen and I went on a walk to find the hotel her mom will be staying in while she is in Dublin visiting. It ended up being a 45 minute walk away but we had a great time. We took pictures and did some grocery shopping. By the time we got back it was supper time so we decided to make our whole chicken that we bought earlier that week. I'm slowly becoming a cook!! We put the chicken in the oven and played some phase ten while we were waiting for it to cook, when all of a sudden we heard a weird noise. We opened the oven and our pan had split in two!! It was the weirdest thing! But now we have no oven dish except for a little pie tin to share between 6 people haha. We put our chicken in the pie tin and put the potatoes around it I had sliced earlier. We finished our game of phase ten then made gravy to put over it all. It was so good!!! Turned out pretty dang well for our first time cooking a chicken! I have discovered that the secret to cooking is just guessing what you think would taste good together and just trying it...scary.
Today was wonderful, I woke up at nine to the sun shining on my face. The first time in forever that that has happened! I got up and went jogging (mainly a power walk) up to Pheonix Park where the President of Ireland lives. It was so beautiful out. I just had my columbia on for a jacket and was sweating! Therefore, when I got back and told the girls how beautiful it was outside we decided to take a little mini day trip. Kristen, Corinne, Kate, and I hopped on a bus and took a twenty minute trip to North Bull Island. It was pretty spontaneous, but those are always the most fun! Ireland is bipolar about it's weather so by that time it was raining, but we sucked it up and walked down the pier out into the water to look at the beaches. It turned out to not really be a beach but kind of a bunch of mud surrounded by water, but it was still pretty and typical Irish. It was green and a lot of people were out walking their dogs. We saw the cutest elderly couple with their puppy walking hand and hand down the pier ( I took a picture ). My title is because in the distance you could see Howth, a little Irish town, and on it's corner was a shiny building and from the distance it looked like it was sitting on a cloud, so me being the dreamer that I am said it looked like a golden castle in the sky. That made everyone laugh and they decided that I had to of been that little girl who just sat around believing in fairies. I totally was, but I wasn't about to tell them that!! At the end of our walk we went to a coffee shop and got some coffee before heading back home. It was a good day! Tomorrow Kristen and i are trying out the Methodist Church from us to see what it's like..it's nice to be in Dublin a weekend so we can actually go to church!

Just hanging out like Monkies (Barcelona)

February 20-23, 2010 1:03 p.m.
Hey everyone! Despite some bumps we made it back into Dublin safely this morning at 2:00 a.m. We were supposed to make it home by 11:30, but France deemed it neccessary to go on air strike, therefore cancelling many flights (including my friends who were going to Morocco) and delaying many others. Ours thankfully was only delayed 2 hours and then we were on our way home!
Barcelona was absolutely amazing! Saturday morning the ten of us got up, packed our bags, and at 1:45 went to go meet the taxis that were bringing us to the airport. My roomates and I got in one taxi and then realized that it wasn't the taxi that we had ordered, he had just been trying to pick us up! We eventually figured it out and 3 taxis later we made it to the airport to head out! As many can probably guess we were all giddy with excitement, even the boys! The two hour 15 minute flight went by quickly thank goodness due to sleeping most of the way. We all figured we would sleep then because we knew we probably were not going to get a lot of sleep there! After exiting the plane, we realized we had the wrong directions to get to our hostel. But we found a bus, hopped on it, and thankfully there were some American students studying in Barcelona on that bus. Therefore, they helped us A LOT. They knew the general area of our hostel so they showed us how to use the metro to get there. One of the girls lived near where we were going so she rode with us the majority of the way. She also warned us against the pickpocketers. Barcelona recently got named the number one place to be pickpocketed...great. She said one time on her way to school, she got to school and realized someone had taken all of the pencils out of the first zipper of her bag. Can you believe people actually do that?
After we found our stop we literally stumbled upon our hostel because we really didn't know where we were going. We checked in, and headed up the 6 flights of spirling stairs to our rooms. Each flight had a net between the gap between the stairs, do people really try jumping? I'm sure thats probably what it was for though! Our room was a ten person room which is exactly the number of people we had so that was awesome..BUT...when we were sitting there figuring out the money situation we realized we payed 20 euro less than what we were planning on. After close inspection of our ticket, we realized they only checked us in for 2 days instead of 3, and Corinne didn't have the confirmation e-mail with her. Thankfully, after explaining the situation they had room for ten for that one night in a bedroom of 12.
That first night we were all exhausted after traveling for 10 hours straight so we headed upstairs. All of us were in giggly weird moods after eating McDonalds so we had the strangest but most funny conversations. At one point my roomate Meghan D. started saying something, then quickly said never mind. We all forced out of her what she was thinking. Which was..."Guys, we are all just kind of hanging out here like monkies," It was hilarious, but the funny thing was was that we all understood exactly what she meant! We all were being kind of crazy and some of us were up in the top barred bunks, and some in the bottom.
The next morning we got up and ate the complementary breakfast from the hostel then headed out to see the Sangrada Familia Church that Gaudi made. Gaudi was a famous architect in Barcelona...he is famous for his abstract crazy things that he did. I would say the church was beautiful, but it wasn't. It looked like it was melting, it was crazy. It has been under construction for a long long time and is supposed to be under construction for many many more years. It's the most famous church in Spain. After checking that out some of us headed to the Picasso museum, and some went to the chocolate museum. I opted for Picasso. On the walk there, we walked through little ally ways with apartments with clothes hanging to dry off of the railings. It was so spanish looking and beautiful in it's own way. Everything was so full of color here!! The museum was really neat. It was his amateur work up until a few years before he died. It was 14 rooms filled with his paintings and scribblings and "messups." It was really cool to see how different places and people affected his artwork. I literally saw how Picasso came to be how he ended up being in the end through his artwork. It was amazing. He is a person that you read about and there his artwork was, right in front of my eyes. After a few hours in there the 7 of us that went to the Picasso museum headed out to get some lunch. By the time we got out of there it was around 4, so we decided to go back to the hostel, nap, and then head out to supper. We ended up not napping, but laughing and giggling like little children again before heading out to supper that night. We asked the guys at the front desk where they suggested to go, and we ended up not ever finding that place but found an even better place instead!!! It was a little tiny spanish cafe that had exactly what we needed. I had paella, a traditional spanish dish. It was rice with mussels, tomatoes, and shrimp with a spicy sauce over it. AMAZING!! I'm craving some now just writing about it! Thank goodness Maral speaks a little Spanish otherwise none of us would have known what we were ordering or been able to communicate with any of our waiters or waitresses!
After hanging out there for awhile we headed back to our hostel where we hung out in the main lobbey, we played a game and ended up bringing 9 more people into the game that were in our hostel. 2 were from Denmark, 2 from Argentinia, 1 from Ireland, 2 from Scotland, and 2 from Austria. It was really fun. One of the guys from Argentinia told me I had a typical Argentinian face, whatever the heck that means! He said I looked exactly like one of his friends which is a bad thing. So I still don't know if he was calling me ugly in his own twisted way or what.....oh well! I'm ok with not looking attractive to Argentinian men! After that all of us headed out and went to a club called City Hall. It played Techno music which was weird, but it was really fun. Some of us headed back around 3:30 in the morning and talked until 5:00 a.m. That unfortunately was the night in which the next morning we had to be up and awake by 10:00 to check out of our room and check into the next room. Meghan D. and I got up and no one else would so we checked ourselves out and went and had breakfast. The rest just got up and went into the room. We ended up being in the same room as the Argentinians and Austrians. One of the Austrians looks EXACTLY like Taylor Lautner, it was the weirdest/coolest thing ever!
That day, some of us left and walked around for a little while, while the others got ready. We all met up for lunch. After that Maral and Meghan M. went to the aquarium, Kate and Corinne went shopping and the rest of us decided to walk down to the port. We walked down the main road, Las Ramblas, and that is fun in itself. At some points there are people selling flowers, and even people selling animals. That was really sad. There were bunnies, birds, hamsters, chickens, ferrets, and many more, all locked up in tiny little cages where they could hardly move. It was so sad! There were also at least ten people dressed up in strange outfits, just posing, and wanted money for it. One was dressed up like a fruit stand, one was a really scary looking gargoyle thing, one was a baby, and one was a golden angel. That one was neat, but the rest really freaked me out. I really don't know why people do that and expect money for it...After passing by these colorful characters we saw the 200 ft statue of Christopher Columbus in the distance and knew we had to be close! When we got up to him, it was really cool to look at. It was Christopher Columbus raised up on a platform pointing out over the ocean. On the bottom it was decorated in lions, it's a neat statue! After passing by Chris, I had my breath taken away by the beauty of the ocean. The sky was the perfect shade of light blue, the ocean was dotted with white yahts sailing around it. Seagulls were soaring in the air, and the Spanish in their colorful outfits were out walking, enjoying the 50 beautiful degree day! We walked around the port for awhile taking it all in, then walked back to the hostel where we took a nap again for a couple of hours.
That night we went out to a tapa bar. I wish we had these in Iowa! It's a menu full of anything you could want, and you pick out however many you want and they bring you a small portion of all of them. I only got 2 and was stuffed but it was amazing! I had 4 cheese riscotto and codfish. So delicious! After hanging out there, the ten of us headed back to the hostel where we were informed about a nightclub that the hostel was going to pay for anyone to go to. All of us planned on it, but by the end of the night only 5 went out because the rest of us were exhausted/sick with our sinuses. We went to bed around 12 but still didn't get much sleep due to 7 people coming in and out of our room all night. That's ok..that's what hostels are known for! 4 of us the next morning got up at 8:00, ate breakfast, then walked down to the beach. That might have been my favorite part of the trip. The beach was so beautiful, and it was 65 degrees! Maral, Meghan D., Kate, and I walked around on the beach for a few hours, picking up seashells and sea glass, staring into the ocean, talking, and just having a great time! It was beautiful, the sky was still kind of pink and the crystal clear water was lapping gently up onto the rocky sand of the beach. We realized after a little while that there was a naked man standing sort of near us. It was hysterical, oh Europe.
I got a text on the beach asking where we were, so we decided to meet up with the rest of our people at the Parc de Guell, another of Gaudi's creations. He had made it to be a walled in housing development, but it became a park instead. We took the metro and when we got to one of our changing stops, we saw Kristen and the boys on the other side of the metro, we yelled that they were going the wrong way so Kevin took off running up the stairs while the subway was pulling up and then ran into the subway, we were going to wait on the rest of them but we couldnt leave Kevin by himself, so we jumped on, only to be greated by Kristen, Brian, Kevin, and one of the Austrian guys shaking their heads and signaling we were going the wrong way. We of course didn't believe them until we were several stops along and looked at the map. We were heading to a different Guell. So we got off and got back on the right way. After a long long walk up hill we finally made it to the parc. But man was it worth it! It was so beautiful. It had columns of plaster and marble rising up on several platforms, all of which you could go up on and take in the most beautiful view of Barcelona. You could see all the way to the ocean. By this point all of us were just in our long sleever t-shirts, and doing great! The sun was shining just right where everything was breath taking to behold. Trees and shrubs were placed perfectly as to where you could see over them onto the city below but they added just the perfect amount of color and beauty to make it more than a picturesque scene. We walked up onto a stone area that rose up the highest out of all the points and had stone crosses on it. We all just sat there for probably 45 minutes, not talking a lot of it, just taking in the beauty of the moment. Many scenes from my travels will stay with me the rest of my life, but that moment with the wind gently blowing, the cloudless blue sky, and the view from tiny colorful houses all the way to the ocean, will be burned into my memory forever. I wish pictures did this justice, but it just can't. When finally our stomaches started calling, we headed out. By this point, our friends going to Morocco, Kate and Kevin Conlon, Corinne, and Meghan M. had headed to the airport. Therefore Brian, Kevin, Maral, Meghan D., Kristen, our Austrian friend, and I found a nice little cafe that served amazing cheap food. I ordered pizza, and yes I ate all of it! It was so cheap and so amazing! We had checked out of our hostel by this point so we had to kill time until 6:15 which was when we were meeting the bus. We decided to head down to the beach again because Kristen hadn't seen it. We all layed on the beach again taking in the warm warm sun when I heard hysterical laughing. I sat up to see yet another naked man on the beach!! This time he had a fan, she was taking photos of him at every angle you could possibly imagine! The 7 of us just sat with our mouthes hanging open, laughing hysterically!
After laughing for a good long while at that we decided to walk up las ramblas again and head back to our hostel to pick up our bags which we stored there. We walked back, got our bags, got to the bus station, got to the airport, and by this point all of us are exhausted. We bought some McDonalds then headed to our spot only to have announced that our plane was 2 hours delayed. I had gotten a call from Kevin earlier in which he said their plane was 2 hours delayed as well. They called us back a little later and told us their flight to Morocco had been completely cancelled and there was no way they could fly into Morocco for several days. I feel so bad for them, they had their hearts set on going there. Currently, we haven't heard anything but they were still in Spain as of this morning, trying to get a flight to Dublin. Hopefully today we will hear from or see them soon. Our flight left at midnight Spanish time (11:00 Irish time). We tried to sleep on the plane but they refused to turn off the lights and the flight was bumpy which didn't help us already freaked out passengers! When we finally landed at 1:30 all of us were cranky and wanted nothing more than to get to sleep. When we got to where we had to show our passports all of us got through without any troubles, except for Meghan. When she went to register with the garda (police) apparently they didnt put her in the system right, so it looked to the man as if she was trying to sneak into Ireland. He sat and yelled at her for over a half an hour, all of us could hear him threatening to send her back to Spain and then the U.S. Needless to say, we were all really scared by that point, not knowing what to do. Kristen went up and showed him her passport and card and he continued yelling at Meghan because he thought she didn't go register. It was ridiculous. Thankfully he let her through with the promise that she would get up early this morning, go to the garda, and get stuff figured out. The poor girl, I don't know how she wasn't balling. She left at 8:00 this morning and she still isn't back yet.
We went from beach to snow in less than 12 hours, so sad! But Spain was absolutely amazing, i wish to go back and travel more around it someday!

It's been awhile!

February 17, 2010 10:00 p.m.

Hey everyone! I was getting harrassed for not updating my blog in awhile (I honestly didn't realize it's been this long!!) So I figured I would do it for everyone :). To catch everyone up to speed, life has been insanely busy lately. Besides Thursday-Sunday, I have been doing nothing pretty much but going to class and working on homework, trying to get things done. I have 4 papers due friday (only have half of one left!) And I had a presentation due today in Irish Drama. It was about deconstructionism, do not ask me what that is because honestly I couldn't tell you! As a psychology major, I find it almost impossible to think philisophically, but I highly admire people who can...luckily for me I had 2 friends who are English majors who were my partners phew. Today was really nice because Brantley and Corinne (my partners) and I went to a coffee shop early to work on our presentation. We then went to St. Stephen's Green park and ate our lunches. It was so nice out today. The sun was shining, no wind, the sky was beautiful, and families were out just strolling around the park, old ladies were feeding the birds, and dogs and their owners were playing catch. It was so wonderful just to sit and people watch with some friends. After class, Kristen and I went shopping for dessert and garlic bread for our roomate supper tonight. The Meghan's made lasagna, and Kristen and I made brownies, salad, and garlic bread. It turned out rather delicious if I do say so myself!!! Now, I am back in my room avoiding my last paper :).

But now for the fun stuff...BELGIUM!! Thursday morning at 4:40 a.m. I set out of the apartment with my backpack to meet the bus on O'Connell street, about a 35 minute walk. I only got about an hour of sleep the night before due to me being really excited about going, dreaming of chocolate and waffles I guess! I took a taxi to the airport and met Kristen G. who had slept there the night before. We both went through security, then dozed off for awhile. Our plane got delayed by 20 minutes or so due to it snowing in Belgium. After dozing for the hour and half plane ride, we stepped off the plane into the snow sprinkled, 22 degree ground. It felt like home!! All I could think of was Iowa, even though I am sure it is more snow covered than Belgium. We took a bus from the airport into Brussels and then took the subway to the city center. It was around 9:00 and we couldn't check into our hostel until one. At first I was not impressed with Brussels at all. It was big and busy and honestly, it kind of scared me. I did not realize that French was the main language spoken there, until I tried buying a bus ticket and the man looked at my blankly for a second before answering me in a heavy accent...Though, once we went deeper into the city and started exploring I realized that it was a place full of beautiful architecture and absolutely amazing food. We walked into the main square and both just stopped and stared for awhile. The buildings were paved in gold, and figures of saints and other characters were etched into the stone. It was beautiful with the snow gently falling onto the ground. After taking in the beauty we immediately found a waffle place, in which I had the most amazing waffle of my life. I don't know if I can ever go back to eggo waffles!! The waitress carried out our plates, Kristen's was heaping with strawberries and chocolate, and mine was heaping with bananas and chocolate AND whip cream. We were like two kids in a candy shop at that point. Mmm I didn't realize that I had not really lived until I had a Belgian waffle.
After stuffing ourself full, we picked up our backpacks and headed to the chocolate museum. Right when we walked through the door, we were handed a cookie that had been dipped in homemade chocolate. Right after my first taste of Belgian chocolate I knew I was in trouble for the rest of the trip. The museum was quite interesting. It told of the history of chocolate. Decorations, such as pure chocolate statues lined the walls. We were warned not to try and nibble on them because we would need a dentist afterwards. After reading the history behind it, we were taken into the kitchen where a grandma like lady explained how they made the chocolate and how each different piece was formed. It was so fascinating. We even got more free chocolate! After that we went upstairs in which there were more chocolate "artifacts" but the most interesting things to me was 4 dresses made entirely of chocolate. They did not look like it at all, but that's what they were claiming! Kristen is going to a ball soon, so I told her we should just make her a dress out of chocolate. I thought it was a good idea anyway!
After the museum we walked around and looked at little shops. I kept seeing chocolate shops with carvings of a little boy peeing. I was so confused and slightly disgusted, until Kristen suggested we go see the statue of the little boy peeing. Weird I know, but it's a famous statue in Belgium of a little boy peeing into a fountain. Influential people such as Elvis Presley have come and donated clothes to the little boy, they are now on display in a museum. After taking in that sight...we decided to go find our hostel. We stayed in the 2GO4 hostel. It was really nice. They had free internet usage and a kitchen where we kept the bread, nutella, and apples we bought to live off of for the weekend. Kristen and I stayed in a room with 6 other people. I met 3 of them. One girl and her friend were from hong kong. Her name was Circle. She had been traveling for about a month and had been everywhere! She told me her favorite place was Switzerland, so I might have to go check that out sometime. Kristen and I also met Randy, another one of our roomates. He went out to a pub called Delirium with us that night. It was an interesting place. First of all, it took us a lot longer to find than we anticipated due to Kristen and I both being slightly map iliterate. I more so than she, but thankfully Randy was with us and knew how to read one! We walked in and everyone was speaking French, including the singers that night, but they opened with John Lennin's Imagine! And kept on playing American rock songs all night, they sang in perfect English but in between songs would talk to the audience in French...strange phenominon.
When we got home, we headed to bed in order to get up early the next morning for a full day of sightseeing. Randy came out with us again. We walked to the main square again, went to a vintage store, a really neat church, and the building that used to be the biggest building in Europe. It was really cold so we didn't stay out too long, and that night Kristen and I were to be on a train heading to Bruges.
At the train station, we had the worst time. We were planning on buying a weekend train ticket that would give us half prices on tickets. The old stubborn man we talked too refused to sell it to us, he refused in Flemish/French, I'm not really sure what. Then we went to a machine to buy it and it wouldn't take any of our cards at all and it did not accept cash. We were slightly panicking at that point, not knowing what to do. And while in the state of slight panic a man came up to me asking me if I had any tickets that I wasn't using that he could have because he collected them. Now usuually i'm a trusting person, but I wasn't falling for that scheme. I'm pretty sure the second i opened my purse he would have been all over my wallet...We finally found a ticket man who spoke English and he sold it to us. Grr, that cranky old man probably knew how to speak English he was just being difficult. I really wish I knew how to speak another language. I feel really selfish not knowing anything other than English, which forces people to speak to me in my language instead of me being able to converse with them in their native tongue. We caught our train finally and headed off the Bruges! We ended up getting off at the wrong station, the station before the one we were meant too so we did not have directions to our hostel from there. Therefore, we just picked a random direction and started walking along the highway with our backpacks. It was a true backpacking moment. I was kind of scared when I saw people with giant backpacks walking alongside the road in Iowa, but hey, now I was that person. I have a new respect for those people. After walking for about 40 minutes, getting directions from some nice strangers, and attempting to read random maps along the road, we made it to our hostel. This hostel was called the snuffelbackpackers hostel. We arrived around 9:00 that night, we walked into the main area and saw a ton of people, so after we dropped our stuff off in our rooms we headed down to the main lounge to look at a map and meet some people. It was a guy's birthday and he started talking to us, then invited us to sit with him and his friends. We met 3 people from Austrailia, one from New York, and one from New Orleans. The Austrailians were so funny, everyone was really fun. I was talking to the guy from New York, and he was telling me how his trip to Amsterdam cured him of smoking weed. He then complemented me, I think, by telling me that I didn't look like a weed smoker. I personally was glad to hear that...
They invited us to go out with them, but Kristen and I decided to hit the hay instead. To get to our room we had to walk through another room. A room of 12 people, all from Spain who did not speak any English besides hi, what are you doing, and bye. Kristen and i were in a 4 person bedroom, but the first night we had the room to ourselves which was nice. The next morning we went down to the free breakfast, and at 9:00 a.m. rented bikes, we didn't return them until 8:00 that night...my legs and butt really hurt the next day!! It was literally like a fantasy though. We rode around on cobblestone pathes, next to a little brook with ducks and swans and beautiful trees. The houses were Victorian style and there were windmills dotting the hills. It was such a nice day too. The snow was gently falling and people were out walking their dogs, biking, or just strolling around. It was like something you would read about. We went to a second hand store and played around in there for awhile, we visited a windmill, and a neat art museum. We of course also stopped at some chocolate stores, Bruges is the chocolate capitol over the world after all! That night we went and ate spaghetti at a palce called Medards that our map recommended. At each hostel in Belgium we were given maps of the cities made by locals that had tips on where to go and how to save money. It was so wonderful and helpful. We had to have the bikes back by 8:00, so we headed back and played scrabble and ate apples the rest of the night. The next morning was Valentine's Day, and we didn't even think about chocolate stores being closed on Sunday, but we wanted to buy our roomates chocolate. We bought a bus ticket to the train station, and then headed out to try and find an open chocolate store. We were not having any luck and were about to give up, when we saw lights and people walking around inside a store. It wasn't one of the big name ones so at first we didn't think much of it, but we walked in and the woman gave us a free sample. SO GOOD...she then explained how they were family owned and handmade their chocolates. She then went on to ask if I knew Rick Steve's. "I only own about ten of his books!" I said. She pointed to her desk and it had 3 years worth of Rick Steve's family Christmas cards on it. "My mama was featured in his show too," she said. That had me right there. Kristen and I bought chocolate and then headed off to Ghent! We got on the train, and arrived in Ghent in less than a half hour. It was snowing like crazy there and super chilly. We took a wrong turn yet again, and ended up in the totally wrong direction than we were intending to go, but we really only had one thing on our list of things to do, so that was ok. We found the church we were looking for eventually, and thank goodness we did. It was so impressive!! The reason we went there was to see the "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" alterpiece. I am going to just copy down what I wrote in my journal about it:
"Ghent was not as cute as Bruges, but it had it's own mideval charm about it, despite all the construction it was under. St. Bavo reminded me of the Westminster, very beautiful with a lot of history, especially in the crypt. The man playing the harp was a nice touch to set the mood. Kristen, I could tell was very anxious to get to the alterpiece though, she had been talking about it since last year. I honestly did not know much about it and didn't understand why it was such a big deal that people would spend four euro to see it, but then I saw it. An audioguide was included in the ticket price. It was a fifty minute long description, going over each of the 24 panels in great detail, explaining and pointing out different minute details that I know I would have never noticed no matter how long I stood admiring it. The last bit was the fascinating history of the alter piece. The 50 minutes went by shockingly fast. I was captivated by every description I was given. Jan and Hubert Van Eyck painted the alterpiece for many years, finally finishing in 1432. The brothers painted 24 panels, 12 on each side of the piece. The first and 5th panel show Adam and Even naked trying to cover up with fig leaves. The 2-4 panels show Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesis and God in the middle. As well as angels in ehaven singing and celebrating. Those 5 cover the first row. The 2nd row was filled with images of ordinary people to saints and apostles traveling towards the middle panel in which your eyes are immediately drawn to a lamb with a pncture in his chest and blood spilling into a chalice. Angels and the apostles are bowing down to it. On the back was different images of Mary and several saints. This huge alterpiece is encased in glass now, but throughout history, every panel had been cut up and sold individually, m any to German museums, saved from a fire, hid in salt mines from Nazis, put back together only to have 2 panels stolen. One was returned with a ransom note for the other piece. It has never been found and the thief is long dead. Now it is in Ghent in St. Bavo's church to be admired for its beauty. And it truly is one of the most beautiful pieces of artwork i have ever seen."
The church was really cold so afterwards, Kristen and I went into a waffle shop to warm up with some coffee and waffles. After that, we headed back to Brussels to a hotel to stay before flying out at 6:25 the next morning. It was Kristen's birthday that day!!!! I feel bad because I spent most of it sleeping on the plane, but when we returned back to Dublin we hugged and she headed off the Cork and I walked back to Blackhall.
I had felt like I hadn't seen my roomies in forever so that night we all ate supper together and caught up!!
Last night, my friends Kevin and Kate's mom was here visiting and invited everyone of our friends to go out to eat, with her treating at the Porter House. I was really excited because I have heard there food is really good. She bought 11 people's meals, desserts, and some people's drinks. She probably spent over 25 euro on each person!!! And she kept wanting to buy everyone more!!! She was such a sweetie. It was a lot of fun.....well that pretty much is my life so far!!! Tomorrow will consist of finishing a paper,and Kaitlyn Lewis is coming to visit tomorrow night with some friends so that should be fun. Saturday-Tuesday of next week I'll be in Barcelona, Spain with nine friends. That should be really fun!! I'll update my blog then I promise!!

London and 6 Nations Rugby!

February 7, 2010 4:11 p.m.
I came home to a lot of e-mails anxious to hear how London was so I wanted to update my blog right away :). London was great! Wednesday night I went to bed around 9, hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and leave our apartment at 3:45 to catch a bus to the airport at 4:15. Our neighbors next door were having a party, and I decided to stay in due to having to get up early but my roomates Kristen and Meghan decided to go and then just sleep on the plane. I didn't get any sleep that night either due to noise and me just being excited to go to London. 3:15 (when I got up) came entirely too early! Meghan Donovan, had the flu for several days and felt awful so she decided it was best not to come. I felt so bad for the girl! While we were in London she let us know that she went to the doctor and she actually had a sinus infection AND strep. Ugh..no wonder she felt awful!
At a little before 4 a.m. Kristen O., Meghan M., and I headed out to O'Connell street to meet the bus to take us to the airport. On the way there we saw people just coming in from the night before haha. There night was ending and our day was just beginning. Needless to say we were all very tired, but excited. When we reached hotel where the bus picks people up a taxi driver offered to take us to the airport for the same cost as the bus. After some deliberation and finding out the bus was running late, we decided to take him up on his offer. We arrived at the airport and went through the procedures to get through. As soon as we found our terminal us three sleepy girls fell asleep. We then fell asleep again on our 6:25 a.m. flight,55 minute plane ride to London.
Upon arrival in London it was a rainy kinda gross day. Security was ridiculously easy to get through which is scary. No one even looked at our passports! You are supposed to go through customs as well, but no one was even there to do that. Kinda scary huh? Kristen G. was flying in from Cork to London, and she wasn't supposed to get in for close to 2 hours after we got there. We all curled up on benches and fell asleep with our backpacks as our pillows. I'm sure we looked like real winners, but we were tired girls! I woke up to my phone vibrating, Kristen was at the end of the airport and didn't know where we were. She had come in a different security place than we did. Eventually we found her and Britney (a girl who goes to UNI/Cork too). Britney was meeting up with some friends in London. After getting some breakfast we found a bus to take us to the center of London which would be a 75 minute bus ride. Needless to say all of us slept most of the way on that as well! After arriving at the city center we had a hard time trying to figure out where we were and how to get to where we needed to go. London is HUGE. After roaming for a few minutes and looking at my map we finally got pointed in the right direction and walked a long walk to our hostel. We saw some pretty sights on the way there though so it was worth it! We stayed in Journeys London Eye Hostel which conveniently changed its name to Journeys Waterloo hostel without telling us. It's ok though we figured it out soon enough! The man behind the counter was very nice and even stored our bags for us. Before heading out for the day we decided to check out our rooms. They weren't too bad! We had booked a room in which there would be 12 girls. While we were there there were only 5 other girls besides us though. They were nice. They were from Spain and one was trying to get a job in London and the 4 others were heading back to Barcelona the next day. Beds were 3 stacked together with blue curtains to pull in front of you while you were sleeping. The bathroom was the awkward thing. There was one toilet stall and then one sink and mirror for 24 people. I didn't even look at the showers because I wasn't going to be taking one and I really just didn't want to know what they looked like!
After checking our room out and asking our hostel manager the best way to get to the Tower of London, we decided to save money and set out for it by foot. The hostel manager said it would take around 25 minutes. WRONG. With the directions he gave us, we walked for about an hour. Yet again, it's ok though, we saw some cool things. The river Thymes is amazing when the sun is hitting it or at night when the lights of London are twinkling on it.
We arrived at the Tower of London and overall, I think it might have been a waste of money. There were some cool things to it, like the crown jewels, but everything else was set up in a way that made it seem fake. I know it isn't, and it actually happened in history, but it was set up all wrong. The crown jewels were AWESOME though! We saw the inauguration crowns with thousands of jewels, and a gown made entirely of gold that was worn by a queen, weighing 22 pounds. The history behind all of that was fascinating. After leaving the Tower of London we took a bus to the London Eye. That was really cool! I have been on it before, but I got talked into going on it again and I'm glad I did. It's HUGE. It moves at an extremely slow pace with glass domes in order for it's riders to get the full effect of London itself. Riding it at night was awesome. My pictures turned out blurry and I can't even begin to describe how pretty it was. Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, Westminster, and much more all lit up over top of the Thymes river..it was so pretty.
After that ride and grabbing some food we were all so tired that we crashed in our hostel at 9:00. I stored my bag and had all my money on me, and used my coat as a pillow so that nothing could get stolen. We met a guy in our hostel who had said the night before his ipod had been stolen. I was still paranoid though so I didn't sleep much that night either.
Friday morning I woke up to Kristen G. opening up my curtain (I was on the bottom bunk) to tell me that it was 7:30...yay! We got up early so we could go get in line at the half price ticket booth to see what shows were playing that night! Our hostel supplied toast and cereal which was a good deal. So after filling up on that we headed out to Leicester square to find the half price ticket booth. We bought an underground transportation day ticket for that day thank goodness! Probably the best investment of my life. We jumped on the subway and found the ticket booth. Some of the shows looked good, but we wanted a classic show, so while I kept our place in the already long line, Kristen went to look at other booths. We ended up going to another booth and buying a ticket to see Les Miserables for quite a good price!
We then hopped on the subway to Buckingham Palace where we were meeting Meghan and Kristen to see the changing of the guard at 11:30. We got there at 11 and already many people were swarming to try and see it. A man behind us asked a police officer where the best place to stand was and he said away from the castle, because more happens on the square than inside of the castle. Kristen and I ran to the rope then to get a good view of the square. Meghan and Kristen found us then we watched the proceedings. A marching band of men with those funny hats comes through the square, marches around, then enters the castle. While they are playing and yelling at the two guards on the inside who are being relived the horse guard comes through the square (I'm not sure why). While this was going on we were debating on how exactly you are chosen to become a guard of the Buckingham Palace, do you get paid a lot, and do you get benefits? Hmm...things to ponder. It was really neat and I didn't see much that went on inside the castle, but we were surprised when the band started playing Thriller and the Beatles (a little out of place?)
After watching that we went to the Westminster Abbey which was so so so beautiful. We got a free audioguide and right when we played it, we saw our other friends who were in London as well! Weird how in such huge cities you run into people! They told us how they missed their flight yesterday due to passport issues, and had to pay extra 100 euro each to change their flight, so they didn't get in until later afternoon Thursday. Poor guys! We all went our own separate ways with the audioguide in Westminster. It was SO amazing and I'm glad I got the audioguide. It took probably 2 hours..but so many amazing people are buried in there. 1,000s of years worth of English monarchs, poets, musicians. Handel, Mozart, King Henry IV, and many many more are buried there in magnificent tombs and chambers and vaults. It was really intriguing hearing the history behind everything while wandering around looking at it all. In the end we all obviously ended up in the same area, so we met up and we then decided that while Kristen and I were at the play the rest of them would meet up for supper, then we would try and catch them later depending on when the play got over.
Meghan, the Kristens, and I then went to the National Gallery which was free and housed Van Gogh paintings, and so many more treasures!! I could have stayed there forever, but unfortunately we only got to for a little over an hour. It was huge as well! i only got one wing done in that time period! We all then headed back to our hostel, Kristen and I got ready for our play and the other two girls took naps.
Les Miserables was awesome!!! It has been running over 25 years and still was sold out when we went. It is a musical that follows a man throughout his lifetime and the many crazy circumstances he runs into. The music is still stuck in my head. It was well worth the money paid for it!! We were the second row from the back, but honestly it was so small that it felt like we were right up next to the stage. It started at 7:30 and didn't get over until 9:45. It went by so fast! After leaving the theatre Kristen stopped at McDonalds and I stopped at Cinnabon. We then decided to get the whole use out of our subway tickets so we rode around and ate and talked. It was fun just to sit and people watch! We were then going to go meet up with the rest of our group, but Kristen and Meghan said they were headed back to the hostel to sleep for a few hours before we needed to leave for our bus at 3:30 a.m. This whole early morning thing will probably kill me yet! We decided it was a good idea so at midnight we all went to sleep to wake up at 3:15, so at 3:30 we were out the door. We bought bus tickets to get to the station to take another bus back to the airport. At 4:20 we boarded the bus to take us back to our airport at catch a 8:05 flight.
When we reached the airport we had to wait in line for a long time to get our tickets stamped to be able to board. After finally doing that, the girls got breakfast (i kept part of my cinnabon for that) and then we all sat in chairs and slept for a half an hour. When we boarded the plane which was delayed a half hour due to fog we then were delayed another hour for fog. That's ok, more sleep time for us! But due to that we had to quick like get ready for the 6 Nations Rugby game when we got back to our apartment. We all had to shower so one right after the other showered really fast then we were out the door to find Croke Stadium. We bought the cheap tickets so we figured our seats would be awful, but no it wasn't at all!! We were right up in the action. Rugby players are TOUGH! There was no stops like in football and they don't wear pads or helmets! It's amazing that they still have all their teeth! And barely any of them got hurt, but they were pounding into each other like crazy! I think I like rugby a lot more than football. It was a great day for it too...really sunny until the walk back. We played Italy and won 29-11 Yay Ireland! It was fun just to be in a mix of the Irish and Italian crowd, and each cheered for their own team and got along really well. They even played the Italian national anthem. We had two Italian men right in front of us and they would cheer for Ireland sometimes and Ireland would laugh and cheer for Italy sometimes too. You would never find that in the U.S. it was really cool! Overall, it was a very very busy but really great weekend! We slept for a solid 12 hours last night into this morning, but man was it needed! We now have tickets booked to Scotland for the first weekend in March, we planned that out this morning. I get to go visit miss amanda over there with the kristens! But next stop..Belgium next weekend!