Dublin

This blog is a little late because I have had a crazy last week at school.   I will be blogging about my last week at school later this week. :) This blog is all about my trip last weekend to Dublin!

The travel group for my trip to Dublin, Ireland consisted of my friend Brandon, another BSU student from my class, my high school friend Amy (who is studying abroad in Spain and came later Friday evening) and myself. The other three girls Brandon and I normally traveled with planned a trip to Dublin next week.  They have other friends coming over, so we decided to go ahead and do Dublin on our own!

We landed in Ireland about 12:15pm on Friday, hopped on the bus and headed into the city of Dublin. After we dropped our bags off, we stopped at a little Pub called O'Shea's for a WONDERFUL lunch of fish and chips. It was a great meal!  Then, we explored Dublin and happened to find not one, but two bookstores! As many of you know, one of my hobbies is definitely reading. I love reading all types of books by many authors. I also wanted to make sure I found several children's books only sold over here, so I can take them back for my future classroom. After the bookstores, we continued walking around some more.  We met up with some other BSU students that were in Dublin for dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to wait for Amy to arrive! Once Amy arrived in Dublin, we went out to listen to some great Irish music, then off to bed to wake up for a big day on Saturday!

We woke up early Saturday, ate breakfast at the hostel, then headed out to do some sight seeing! Our first stop was Trinity College and it was a beautiful place. We walked around campus for a bit and wanted to see the Book of Kells, but it was a bit of a wait and very expensive, so we just decided to go ahead and pass and just hang out on campus.

After Trinity College, we made our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is a famous cathedral in Dublin. The cathedral was absolutely beautiful. I had a great time walking around and reading about the great history of the cathedral!

It started absolutely pouring when we finished touring the cathedral, so we stopped at a little restaurant for lunch and to wait for the rain to stop. After lunch, we headed on our way to Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle was one of the things I was really looking forward to going to visit, but we were sad to find out when we got there that it is currently closed and would open again until July 1st. Dang. It was still beautiful from the outside though!

After the castle, we decided to go and do some souvenir shopping! I have not done much shopping for myself except a few children's books, but wanted to find myself a nice piece of jewelry from Ireland. I am happy to say I found myself a nice Claddagh ring, and I absolutely love it!  We spent the rest of our afternoon and evening  in a few more shops, had a great dinner, then headed in for the night. I had an absolutely great trip to Ireland and was so glad I got to see my friend Amy! I definitely hope to make it back to Ireland one day. Next weekend, we are doing a day trip to Chester, then head off to Italy on Monday! Cheers until next time!

Paris

Paris was certainly an interesting and memorable trip. It did not start out the best, but it improved towards the end. Here is my adventure in Paris!

Our day started in Liverpool with us missing our 9:30 train to Manchester Airport.  We had to wait for the 10:15 train. The thing is, the trip from Liverpool to Manchester is one hour with additional time needed to get into the airport. So, we arrived at the airport at 11:30 and the gate for our flight was scheduled to close at 12:10. Security took a long time.  It was 12:10 when we got through security.  We were all worried that we had missed our plane.  Thankfully, our flight time was pushed back 30 minutes and we were okay.

Our flight landed safely in Paris, but we did not see any of the famous things you expect to see when you fly into Paris. This is because we had booked our flight into Paris Beauvais Airport.  Paris Beauvais is 65 miles outside of the city. Our journey continued as we had to take a one hour bus ride into the city. Once we arrived in the city, we had to take three different subways to get to our hostel. We finally arrived at our hostel. To be honest, it was not located in a good area.  We found out from one of the officers at the train station that we were in one of the roughest parts of Paris and we should get out if we could.  The only enjoyable thing about our hostel was being greeted at the door by the nicest asian lady dressed in flannel kitty pajamas, high socks, and croc sandals.

We left the hostel and went into the city to grab some dinner.  For dinner our first night in Paris, we had our first American meal in 5 weeks at McDonald's. It was the only thing open, was a lot more expensive than back home, but it was so good.  When we returned to the hostel, we all skyped or texted our parents.  We told them what was going on with the hostel and they all suggested we try to get a hotel the next day.

The next day, we woke up and got the heck out of  where we were. Sadly, we were not able to get a room for 6 people.  We were able to divide up into twos and split three rooms. It was a little more money than I wanted to pay, but it was better than the hostel from the night before. After we got to our hotel rooms, we headed off to see the sites! Our first stop was Norte Dame Cathedral. This was one of my favorite places to see in Paris because it was so beautiful and was amazing to see in real life. After Norte Dame, we stopped at a little street vendor and ordered crepes. Mine was filled with  Nutella and it was so good!!

After Norte Dame, we walked to the Louvre. Sadly we did not go in, but the outside was still very cool! I did the typical touristy pyramid picture.

We continued walking to the Arc De Triomphe.  With cars racing around the momument, we walked underground through a tunnel and up into the center of the arc.  Then, we headed off to spend our evening at the Eiffel Tower! The Eiffel Tower was absolutely amazing. It was a lot bigger in person than I thought it was going to be. We all grabbed a fresh baguette, some cheese, and champagne to enjoy.  We sat on the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower for four hours to wait for the light show that happens every night at 11. It was a great way to end the night!

 On Sunday we got up early and headed to the Catacombs in Paris! This was one of my favorite things I have done in Europe. This reminded me of my freshman year of high school when we read Cask of Amontillado in Coach Cooper's English class. It was a little creepy but very interesting at the same time!

We finished our Paris trip with a visit to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I was in heaven! This is the bookstore originally opened at a different location in 1919 but closed during the Nazis occupation of France.  It is where many great authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein would go to write and converse. This was recommended to me by one of my sorority sister's Wynne. I am so glad we went because it was exactly the type of little independent bookstore I love.  I even picked myself up a nice copy of The Great Gatsby and some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories to read on my family vacation later this summer.

While our trip did not get off to the best start, it ended very well and I am so glad I went! This weekend I am off to Dublin, Ireland with my friend Brandon and another one of our traveling buddies, Mary! Once there, we are going to be met by best friend from high school, Amy, and some other friends from BSU. I cannot believe that I only have two and a half weeks left here. I am definitely going to make the best of it and enjoy my time here. Cheers until next time!

Also Happy Father's Day to the best Dad ever!

Berlin

Berlin is an amazing city! It was not the prettiest place we have visited in terms of scenery, but Berlin was beautiful in its own way. Here is my blog all about Berlin!

My group arrived into Berlin about 9pm local time on Thursday evening. Just for a point of reference,  Berlin is an hour ahead of Liverpool and 6 hours ahead of home. After we got off the plane and made it through customs, we were on our way! Getting to downtown Berlin was tricky. Unlike Barcelona where a majority of things were in English and Spanish, everything was in German. As a group though, we have become good at looking for certain landmarks or learning the first letter of where we need to go to help get us to where we need to go. Also, we have learned that hand gestures and pointing work when communiocating with non-English speakers. Once we checked into our hostel, we were all very tired.  We we decided to call it a night and start early in the morning.


On Friday, we woke up and got our early start! We began with a wonderful breakfast. It was an inexpensive but big breakfast we could purchased through our hostel. It was wonderful! We had yogurt, toast, cereal  cheese, salami, and many more things! It definitely filled us up and we were then on our way to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We hopped on the train to take a 30 minute  ride to the concentration camp, then we walked 20 minutes to get there once we got off the train. It was an eerie feeling at the concentration camp. You could almost feel the sadness and horrible things which happened there. We spent about 3 hours in the camp just walking around and reading about everything that happened while the camp was in operation.

Where they use to do roll call several times a day. If someone was missing they would go find them, then start roll call over again.

The barracks where people were forced to live. 

Some people were locked up. 

The entrance to the camp.

After we visited the camp, we headed back to downtown Berlin and went to the Berlin Dome. The Berlin Dome is a beautiful cathedral! People still attend church there.  If you want to go up into the Dome it costs a little. We decided to go up! We climbed 287 stairs to get up there, but it was worth it because the view was so beautiful!

The view of the inside of the dome!

After the dome, we headed to an authentic German restaurant.  I had the best brat and sauerkraut of my life! It was served with potatoes and bacon.  It was a fantastic meal! We then headed back to the hostel, where we hung out and played games before we headed to bed. We turned in early to get ready for another fun packed day in Berlin.

On Saturday, we woke up and had the same great breakfast, then made our way to the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was so cool because on one side there was artwork and on the other there was graffiti. It was definitely a cool site to visit. Below are pictures of some of the amazing artwork I found.

After the wall, we went to the Holocaust memorial and museum  Like the concentration camp, there are not words to describe what it is. You just have to go and feel those emotions yourself. It was definitely a great experience, and I am glad that I went. We then had a quick bite to eat, walked through the Brandenburg Gate and sat in the park for a few hours just to relax. Berlin was a wonderful trip, and I would definitely go back again someday. Next on the agenda is my first full week of teaching at Much Woolton, then off to Paris on Friday! Thank you to everyone reading my blog and following my trip! I really hope you are enjoying. Cheers until next time!

Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona was absolutely beautiful! We spent 3 full days and had a wonderful time. I can't wait to tell you all about my adventures in Barcelona.

We got to Barcelona late Tuesday night and just crashed because we were all exhausted from traveling. We woke up early Wednesday morning and had brunch of toast, muffins, and juice, then headed out to see the sights! We decided to walk the main street which is called La Rambla. It is the main tourist street, but it was still good to see all the hustle and bussle. Barcelona was our first real culture shock trip. We were the minority language for the first time in our lives. It was definitely a good experience though because we learned to fit into their culture and learned to communicate through hand signals and pointing. I now know how it feels for people to United States and don't speak english. It's definitely a scary experience, but was definitely worthwhile.

We walked down La Rambla and stumbled across a local market. It was so cool! They had every fruits, vegetables, meat, nuts, cheeses, candy, etc. that you could think of. We decided that since it looked so good, we would go ahead and eat lunch there. I had fresh fruit and chips with fresh guacamole and it was only 5 euro, which is about $6.50. Definitely worth the money for a fresh meal. After we grabbed lunch, we walked down to the Port de Barcelona and sat by the water for awhile. We then decided we were tired from traveling so we went back to our hostel and took a siesta, which is a tradition in Spain where everything shuts down for a couple hours and everyone takes a nap. We were definitely oaky with participating in siesta!

The market! 

Port de Barcelona

The Spain and Catalan Flag

This is the independent flag of Catalan. The people with this flag want Catalan to seperate from Spain and become their own country. 

The water was so pretty!

After our siesta we headed out to find a nice place to eat dinner. We went and walked back near the port to tried to find a place there. As we were walking up the street about to give up, we were stopped by this restaurant manager stopped us and asked us to eat at his restaurant  He said if we did, he would give us a surprise at the end. We decided to go ahead and eat there. Let me tell it was a great meal and at the end our surprise was a glass of champagne. We had a great first day!

On our second day, we went on a three hour walking tour of Barcelona provided by our hostel. It was neat to hear about the history and see all the beautiful architecture. We did not do much the rest of the day besides walk around, then walked back to the market to pick up stuff to make for dinner. For dinner we made grilled vegetables, potatoes, and feta and avocado. It was a very good meal! 

 

Friday was our last day in Barcelona and we made it a full day. We started out but going up to Gaudi's tile park and it was so beautiful and pretty. He was obviously an amazing architect because his work is just stunning. After, we grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed off to the Sagrada Familia which was definitely an experience that is hard to describe. you honestly just have to go there yourself to experience. 

Barcelona was definitely a great trip! I cannot wait for Berlin, Germany this weekend! Cheers until next time! 

Pictures from the Sagrada Familia!