Dublin, Ireland

Hannah, Jenn, and I left for Dublin after school on Friday afternoon. We first had to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Luxembourg to pick up our visas because our initial visas expire in the beginning of April. I really like the visa stickers they put in our passports. They make our passports look so well traveled.

I should preface this story by telling you about RyanAir's ridiculous weight restrictions. Checked bags are only allowed to weigh 15 kg (33 lbs) and carry on luggage can only weigh 10kg (22 lbs). Also, purses, laptops, etc. must fit into your carry on luggage and are included in the weight. If you go over the weight for either bag, you have to pay a fee (somewhere between 35-50 euro). And it costs 15 to 35 euro to check a bag (depending on when you do it). For our two week trip, we decided to each bring our backpacks and fill them with clothes and then share one checked bag. We figured that if we all put clothes in our backpacks and the rest of the stuff in the checked bags we would be fine with the weight restrictions. Wrong. Each of our backpacks were either exactly at the allowed weight, or slightly over, and our checked bag weighed a good 10lbs over what is allowed so we were faced with the dilemma of whether we should pay for another checked bag, or try to eliminate weight. Being poor college students, we chose the latter. I stuffed as much as I could into my pockets, including my bible, journal, chargers, camera, ipod, wallet, and few other small things. My coat probably weighed at least 7 lbs. Hannah filled her pockets as well, and Jenn got creative with hiding her purse under her shirt. It sort of started out as a joke, but when we realized it was actually possible to eliminate the weight, we went for it. In the end, our checked bag ended up being .3kg over, but the nice lady working the baggage counter let it slide. Today when we fly to Edinburgh, we'll take the same measures plus tiny foot Jenn is wearing her Sperry's inside my large tennis shoes, i'll probably stick the straightener in my sleeve, and we're all planning on wearing multiple belts. Should be a fun time going through security.

After our flight landed, it was a huge pain carrying the checked bag through Dublin as we tried to find our hostel. We definitely should have packed lighter. When we finally did get to our hostel, for some reason they weren't expecting us until April. Since the hostel worker felt bad about the mix up, he gave us a 6 person room all to ourselves, and he took 25 euro off the total price. Love when that happens! Besides smelling extremely strange, our hostel was pretty decent.

Saturday morning we got up with the intention of sightseeing but we really just ended up walking around and shopping. Dublin has some incredibly cheap stores. My favorite part about walking around the city was just hearing the accents. Irish accents are awesome. Also, everything is in English! It's almost strange to see signs I can actually understand. Oh, and they drive on the left side of the road here. It's funny because you can tell who isn't from this area by the way they look when they start to cross the street. All of us used to driving on the right, look the wrong way before trying to cross. Dublin must have had problems with this in the past because they now have directional cues on ground saying "look right" or "look left". Very helpful.

For lunch, we went to a bagel shop-- first time i've had a bagel in 3 months. It was delicious and we met a really nice Polish lady who joined us for lunch. She has been living in Dublin for 3 years so she gave us advice on where to go and what to see.

Saturday evening we went to a pub and had fish and chips for dinner. Considering I don't usually like fish, the meal was better than I expected. Later we went to a different pub and listened to live music.

Sunday we got up at 6am and took a PaddyWagon tour to the Cliffs of Moher. The bus left at 7am and we didn't return until 7pm. We made a few stops along the way and finally got to the cliffs around 1pm. They were absolutely amazing! I would say they're my favorite thing I've seen since I've been in Europe. I'll post pictures on Facebook so you can see them. After we spent about an hour and a half at the cliffs, we left and went to lunch. They took us to Fitzsimon's bar that had a nice buffet. I got turkey and veggies. Then we stopped in Burren, which is a city in Ireland where there is literally no soil. Because of some scientific reason I didn't understand (Jena, maybe you know?) there is something going on with the tectonic plates in the area and the ground looks very different than the rest of Ireland. It pretty much all looked like rock. Also, where they dropped us off, there was just a herd of cows hanging out. I originally thought they were wild cows, but they had tags so I'm going to say someone probably owns them. I don't know why they were there or why there wasn't a fence or something. I actually saw a lot of animals while looking out the bus window including cows, sheep, little baby lambs (so so cute), and an unidentifiable animal I've deemed as half sheep half dog. It looked a lot like a white Rory, so mom and dad, you may want to check into this. The only bad part about the trip was that Hannah, Jenn, and I sat in the very back of the bus. The seats didn't recline and it was a very long ride through many bumpy and winding roads. I thought I was going to puke numerous times, but luckily I held it together.

Monday the whether was pretty much terrible. It was cold, rainy, and windy. For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to go to the seaside. We took a 30 minute train ride to Howth, and when we got off the train and attempted to walk to the sea, it was nearly impossible to keep our umbrellas up. We were using them as shields from the wind and it was hard to walk. We eventually gave up the battle, put our umbrellas down, and got soaked. We went to the tourism office, learned there was pretty much nothing we could do in Howth under the current weather conditions, so we headed back towards the train station. We did get to see a few seals in the water and we enjoyed a soup lunch before going back to Dublin.

Since the rain continued, we decided to see a movie. We saw Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston and Gerald Butler. It was pretty cute.

The rest of our time in Dublin was really just a lot of walking around. We didn't actually see a whole lot of famous sights. Today is scheduling day for fall semester classes so we're hanging out in the hostel until after we schedule because we need to use their internet. When we leave here, we'll go get lunch, and then probably walk around the Trinity College area. Our flight to Scotland leaves around 8 tonight so we'll take a 6pm bus to the airport. We will then stuff our pockets and board the plane.

Je suis allé à Paris!

Since I have been slacking a little on my posts, I'll try to make up for it now. This could be long, so brace yourselves.

Hannah, Jenn, and I left for Paris Thursday afternoon. We took the high speed TGV train from Luxembourg City to Paris. The TGV is more expensive than normal trains and it's talked about a lot so I expected it to be really nice, but it's was kind of a let down. The TGV has nothing on Spain high speed trains. The train ride was 3 hours so it allowed me some quality time to read. I recently started reading John Grisham's The Pelican Brief and I'm really enjoying it. I realize this is a old book but it's new to me.

Anyway, enough about trains and books. When we got to Paris, we got on the metro and took it to the stop where we were supposed to meet Hannah's family. Although I nearly got trapped in the metro doors, we made it without complications. We took an escalator up to ground level and Hannah's family was supposed to be waiting at a cafe by the exit. We looked around to find them and then I heard Mrs. Griebner yell, "There they are! Girls! Hannah!" She was jumping up and down and waving her arms. Hannah tried to run to her but she had to cross a busy street to get there and needed to wait for the light to turn red. Meanwhile, she starting crying because she was so happy, then I realized the whole Griebner family was crying, and Jenn and I were teary eyed as well. The light changed, Hannah ran across the street, hugged her family, and successfully completed the most precious reunion I have ever witnessed. Luckily Mr. Griebner filmed the whole thing. On May 7th, the airport could be a very emotional place.

We then headed to our apartments, which were conveniently located in the Eiffel Tower district. Hannah's family stayed in one apartment and Jenn, Hannah, and I stayed in a studio around the block. We could see the Eiffel Tower from our window! When we all got settled in, we walked to the Eiffel Tower, got asked to buy 1 euro tower keychains about 100 times, and took many pictures.

We then took a long walk to the Arc de Triomphe. We saw the eternal flame for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. We waited around a little while because many former military men and women came to the flame and we thought they were going to do something similar to laying the wreath on the grave as we do in the US, but nothing really happened so we left.

We walked down Champs des Elysees, did a little window shopping, and decided to eat dinner. We ate in a small Italian restaurant where I got tortellini. After dinner we walked over to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up. It's much prettier at night!

The next day, we got up early and got breakfast at a French bakery. We actually ate breakfast each morning at different French bakeries. Great, great decision. After breakfast, we took a train to the Palace of Versailles. We were given an audio guide headset so I learned a little about each room. There are really only 2 facts I can remember though-- 1. to prove the legitimacy of her children, the queen was required to give birth in public. icky. And 2. in the bed where Marie Therese slept, 19 royal children were born. If you would like to know more about the Palace, you should probably google it. I'm all out of facts.

We left the Palace, grabbed sandwiches for lunch, took the train back into the city. We got off the metro at the Opera House and walked around the building, then started walking towards the Louvre. When we realized it would be cheaper to get in if we came back later, we decided to go to Notre Dame first. Hannah, Jenn, and I climbed to the top. It was cool to see a different view of the Eiffel tower. Also, I can tell I'm getting used to climbing things because it now only burns my legs a little. We went up to the bell tower, looked for Quasimodo, and came back down sad. He must have been in hiding.

After Notre Dame, we went to another Italian Restaurant and I got Gnocci Poulet. It was a super tasty chicken and potato dish. The Italians served my stomach well in France.

When dinner was over, we headed to the Louvre where we stayed for 2 or 3 hours. I saw enough artwork to last a lifetime (or until the next day when I saw more). It was cool to see the Mona Lisa, who is teeny by the way, and other pieces I recognized from my art class. We were all exhausted when we finished at the museum so we walked to the metro and let it carry us home.

Saturday morning, we walked around the district by our apartment and did a little window shopping. We went into a North American store where we hoped to buy some of the comforts of home, but we were quickly discouraged when we checked prices. A box of Mac & Cheese was 7euro ($11), cake mix was 6.50euro ($10), a tiny jar of peanut butter was 7.50 euro ($12), and cereal was 12euro ($17)! As much as I wanted pretty much everything in the store, I couldn't bring myself to pay the ridiculous prices. Luckily my mom sent a box of Mac & Cheese over with the Griebners. We decided to split the price of chocolate chip cookies so we didn't leave empty handed.

We later met up with Hannah's family and toured the Luxembourg Gardens. I'm not sure why the Luxembourg Gardens are in France, but they are. We walked around for awhile trying to find "the biggest flee market in Europe" but we were unsuccessful. We also tried to go into the Picasso Museum but it's closed until 2012. After so much walking, we were all tired so we went back to our respective apartments and relaxed for a couple hours. We got dinner at a restaurant by the Eiffel Tower. I got chicken and fries.

We walked to the Eiffel Tower after dinner and we were able to see the light show. We were told it would last for 15 minutes and it actually only lasted for 5, but it was a beautiful 5 minutes.

On Sunday morning, we had to check out. We moved all our stuff into the Griebner's apartment and got breakfast at another bakery. Hannah, Jenn, and I visted the Eiffel tower one last time and then went back to the apartment because the weather was colder than we expected. We ate lunch with Hannah's family in the apartment and hung out there for a little until they had to catch their train to Belgium. We said our goodbyes, and since our train didn't leave until a few hours later, we visit Museun d'Orsey and Orangerie. D'Orsey mostly had impressionist paintings and Orangerie has a room filled with Monet's Water Lillies. Looking at artwork wears me out. By the end of our time in the museums, I was more than ready to jump on the train and head back to Lux.

No one was assigned to the seat next to mine which was really nice. I had a relaxing ride back and read more of my book. When I got home, I skyped my family, which I always enjoy. Yesterday I got to skype with Kelly and Jena! Jena woke up at 5:30am New Zealand time to join us which was awesome of her to do! And Im obviously glad she sacrificed sleep for us. What a sweetheart.

I have 2 more days of class this week, 2 weeks off for spring break and base course tour, then only 12 days of class and 3 exam days. I will be home in Ohio in 45 days. Time flies!

Pescara, Italy

Going to Pescara was slightly random. Lauren, Hannah, and I found cheap RyanAir flights and we found out it was on the beach, so we booked the trip. It ended up being a great decision! The weather in Pescara was pretty nice but not exactly beach weather. It was around 60 degrees and sunny but the wind on the beach made it feel colder than it actually was. That didn't stop us from laying on the beach...even if we were wrapped on our winter coats. We pretty much just spent the entire time walking around the city (it was small), shopping, and hanging out on the beach.

Last Thursday our Political Science class were invited to dinner at our Professor's house. The British ambassador to Luxembourg came and spoke with us. He taught us a lot about the political structure of the UK which helped to clear up a few questions I had. For the most part he was a pretty interesting speaker. When the Ambassador left, our professor told us stories about his life, mostly from his WWII experience. I loved listening to him. His life should probably be made into a movie.

Today is my host brother, Sam's 4th birthday. We're actually celebrating tomorrow though. I'm not exactly sure what that means in Europe but I have heard rumors of a cake. Danie's birthday was last Wednesday and we had delicious cake for that.

Classes this week are kind of a joke. I only had 1 on Monday, 3 today (yuck..), 1 tomorrow, none Thursday, and I'm skipping class Friday to go to Paris. We're leaving Thursday afternoon and meeting Hannah's family is Paris! I'm really excited to see them and to go to Paris. I just counted and I only have 18 days of real class left. This is because we have two weeks off of school for spring break and our base course trip and I no longer have class on Thursdays. Time is flying!

Ladies Night at the Movie Theater

I went to go see Dear John tonight at the movie theater in Luxembourg City. It was ladies night so I figured they would have a special deal on prices or something, but we actually got a cheaper price and we were all given a free mini bottle of champagne as well as a goodie bag. The Luxembourgers know how to take care of their ladies. The movie was sad but really good. I liked it better than all of the other Nicholas Sparks movies. It was a big deal that Dear John was playing because it wasn't supposed to make its way to Luxembourg until this coming summer but they played it for ladies night and then I think they're bringing it back in the summer.
Also, we got off at the wrong bus stop on our way to the movie, but it actually turned out to be a good thing because we stumbled upon a really nice mall with a huge grocery store. Rumor has it, the grocery has an American aisle with American food. I will definitely be going back there to check it out.

Roma!

I spent this past weekend with Hannah in Rome! We had a late flight on Friday and and early flight on Sunday so we were really only in Rome for one day. It was a little rushed but definitely worth it. The weather on Saturday was perfect! It was close to 60 degrees and very sunny, which is heavenly compared to today in Lux where the temperature is a mere 28 degrees.
We woke up early on Saturday and went to the Vatican first. We went in St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. Both places had some art that I've learned about in my art history class. The Vatican wasn't exactly what I was expected it to be but it was still cool to see it.
After the Vatican we went to the Trevi Fountain where you're supposed to wish for true love. You put a coin in your right hand and throw it into the fountain over your left shoulder. Apparently it guarantees you'll find true love. I did it twice to secure results, obviously. We actually saw the fountain the night before and then went back to the fountain Saturday night. I'd say it was one of my favorite places in Rome.
When we left the fountain, we went to the Spanish Steps where we met up with Amy Wheaton. It's nice to see people from home while in Europe! The steps pretty much looked like normal steps but there was a nice view from the top. We got lunch together and ate it at the Trevi Fountain. From there we went to the fountain that's in Angels and Demons....I'm not sure what it's called. We also went to the Parthenon and saw where Raphael is buried.
One of my favorite places we went was the church at Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, which has a door with a keyhole that frames St. Peter's Basilica. The view is gorgeous! It's surrounded by several gardens with orange and lemon trees so we walked through those as well. From there we walked to the Coliseum. It seemed almost unreal to actually see it in real life. We didn't get to go in, so I now have an excuse to go back to Rome.
We walked around, did some shopping, ate dinner at a small italian place where I got tortellini, got gelato, then headed back to the Trevi Fountain. FYI the gelato in Rome isn't as good as the gelato in Florence. The Trevi Fountain was an interesting place for people watching, which we did a lot of.
Sorry this isn't a very detailed post. If you want to know more, just ask me.