We're in Ireland? Dublin for St. Patrick's Day!

Dublin for St. Patrick’s day? I can honestly say that is something I NEVER thought I would have the chance to do…but here we are! We survived the most outrageous, hysterical (we still can’t stop laughing), and probably the most fun weekend so far.  Since we booked the trip over four months ago, and since it also happened to be STACI’S 21^ST BIRTHDAY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), we had high expectations for this weekend.  But I have to say, Dublin far exceeded our expectations.

When we landed in Ireland (still cannot believe I was actually in IRELAND…), I was expecting to see rolling green hills and sheep roaming around everywhere.  Instead, we were greeted with an adorable city filled with ridiculously nice people (every single person that we met was so friendly and loved to help us), green things everywhere, and a whole lot of beer. 

Here’s how we did Dublin:

We arrived at the airport to be welcomed by hundreds of St.Patrick’s day balloons…even the airport is festive!

And after overcoming the confusion of having the cab driver come out of the wrong side of the car to help us with our bags and then proceed to drive on the wrong side of the road… we made it to Barry’s Hotel of Dublin! Although it was also a Casino, it turned out to be very nice.  We met our friends Amy and Sam (they are both studying abroad in London) who were staying at the hotel with us and began our Dublin adventure.

Before doing anything, we of course had to stock up on our St. Patty’s accessories for the weekend…

Our first stop? The Guinness Factory, of course.  We learned about how Guinness is made, and then had the chance to drink a perfect pint at the Guinness Gravity bar -  a bar on the top floor of the factory that is made of all glass and has a 360 degree view of the entire city.  

We also saw the Dublin Castle, which was beautiful!

We couldn’t be in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day and not go see St.Patrick’s Cathedral! The inside of the Cathedral was beautiful, and it reminded us a lot of the churches in Florence.  

St. Patrick!

We also stopped to see Christ’s Church on the way, which was beautiful as well.

Since it was St.Patrick’s Day weekend, there were a lot of festivities going on during the day.  We decided to check out the Irish Dancing Festival where we learned some Irish Dancing steps, along with a few hundred other people in the middle of the street! 

We also took a walk all the way down the River to George’s Dock where we found the Irish Craft Beer Festival.  This was a festival on the dock with live music where we tried Irish Cider and Guinness Pie!

As we walked around the city, we also found the Spire of Dublin, a giant Stainless steel monument on O’Connell Street! 

And we walked over the O’Connell Bridge, which had a gorgeous view!  

The best stop of the entire weekend? The Dublin Zoo.  On Saturday morning, all of my friends and I made the impromptu decision to take a little trip to the zoo.  We hopped on the tram (the main form of public transportation in Dublin) and began our journey.  

With Irish Coffees in hand, we made our way into the Zoo.  We quickly realized that we were the only people over the age of 5 there, and also the only people dressed head to toe in green St.Patrick’s Day attire…but that didn’t stop us from having a great time.  Since we were in Ireland, this was very different from any other Zoo I have been to before.  We saw tigers, lions, seals, penguins, Rhinos, Gorillas, Chimps, Peacocks, and our favorite…the Giraffes!

Since I’m sure you are all sick of seeing all the food I eat, I’ll spare you most of the food we ate in Dublin.  However, we did try Boxty- Irish potato pancakes – which were delicious! And we couldn’t resist the Guinness cheesecake for dessert!!! Apparenty the Irish just put Guinness in anything…

Now let’s not forget the most important part of the weekend…THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!! We started the weekend off with a bang when we got the live guitar player at the bar to sing happy birthday to Staci at midnight! He also did an impromptu performance of “Staci’s Mom” right after…YAY Abbie G!! We of course had celebratory birthday hats, balloons, biscotti and chocolate from our favorite spots in Florence, and a LOT of birthday candles to blow out!!!

"Staci's Mom has got it goin' on!"

And we obviously had plenty of celebrations in the Temple Bar area – the main area where all of the best bars and restaurants are.  No matter what time it was, there were hundreds of people walking around on the streets, live music playing, and ridiculous costumes everywhere.  We even made friends with a horse!!

We woke up on Sunday morning to loud music, and when looked outside we found the St.Patrick’s Day parade was starting right outside of our window! We were lucky enough to catch a few minutes of it before heading off to the airport.

And even the airport was green!!!

It is going to be tough for a weekend to top this one… Well played, Dublin. Well played.

It was very interesting to get back at 10:30 PM on Sunday night when none of us had even started studying for the MIDTERMS we had on Monday, Tuesday, and Wendesday…whoops! Somehow we survived the week (and hopefully passed!) and just finished packing for our Spring Break!!! We are having a minor panic attack that Spring break is happening already…but we could not be more excited.  We spent a great last day in Florence with a Panini from Pino's, gorgeous views from Piazzale Michelangelo, and gelato from Gelateria de Neri. 

Next stop: London, Amsterdam, and Paris – get ready, here we come!  6 countries, 3 weeks.  Is this real life?

Arrivederci!

Jordan

P.S. The Italian word of the day is: Buon Compleanno - it means HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Barcelona Baby!

Ciao again!

So, usually I wouldn’t do rushed back-to-back posts like this – but I am running out of time considering we are leaving for another country tomorrow! But I am dying to tell you guys about our trip to Barcelona this past weekend.  Since my parents visited Barcelona this summer and told me how incredible it is, I have been so excited to visit.  But Barcelona far surpassed my expectations.  I absolutely LOVED this city.  The people, the food, the culture, the architecture, the nightlife and the beach all come together to create this vibrant, young, and modern city with so many different places to explore.  The fact that it was 65 degrees and sunny the whole time we were there was just an added bonus. 

Although we were slightly overwhelmed at first considering every single person I have ever met in my entire life was in Barcelona this weekend for Abroadfest (a big techno concert on Thursday night that almost every student I know studying abroad this semester came to), it turned out to be a lot of fun! I don’t think we walked 5 steps the entire weekend without running into someone we knew.  But it ended up being really fun to see all of my worlds colliding with my school friends, camp friends, and even some home friends in one place! 

Even though a lot of Barcelona is about the nightlife (we were very concerned that we wouldn’t survive since they stay out until the sunrise here, but we somehow lived to tell the tale!!), there is still so much to see during the day.  On Friday morning, Staci and I headed over to La Boqueria food Market – just a quick walk from our hotel on La Rambla – and met up with our good friend from school, Zack. He is studying in Barcelona this semester, so we were lucky enough to have him as our personal tour guide! Zack and our other friend Kevin explored the market with us and tried several free samples from different stands and we each got a delicious fresh fruit smoothie.  I quickly fell in love with the market (I think the markets are going to be my favorite place no matter where we go….) and of course wanted to try everything.  

After the market, we headed over to the Gothic quarter to see the cathedral and the old synagogue.  It was a very cool area and had some great little streets to walk around on. 

Next, Zack showed us around his favorite area called Born.  We explored some of the streets before going to check out El Mercat del Born (another awesome market…Zack knows his audience..) where we sat down for lunch at one of his favorite tapas bars!  The first of many tapas this trip…my favorites were the tuna and avocado and the grilled calamari!

After lunch we decided to make our way over to Parc Guell (Gaudi’s famous park), which was without a doubt, the highlight of my weekend.  This was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  I could not believe how massive the park was, and the rocks and sculptures were unlike anything I had ever seen before.  After exploring the park for a while, Zack hiked us all the way up to the top of the mountain to one of his favorite spots where we had a perfect 360-degree view over the entire city.  This was the most incredible view I have ever seen.  We were literally on top of the world!

Next we went to see La Sagrada Familia, a Church designed by Gaudi that has been being built for over 100 years and STILL isn’t finished! This was also one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The architecture of both the outside and the inside was completely surreal - it almost looked fake!

That night, we had a big dinner with 10 of my friends from SDT at school! We went to a great tapas place called Cerveceria Catalana.  It was so much fun to be with everybody, and we couldn’t believe that all 11 of us were actually sitting together at a table in Barcelona! 

Saturday morning, all 11 of my friends met in the lobby of our hotel to go for lunch at a famous sandwich place called Bo De B.  Everyone we know in Barcelona had been raving about this place, and apparently you have to wait in line for at least an hour to get a sandwich since the line is always so long. We accidentally got there way before it opened (oops), but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since we ended up being the FIRST ones in line (typical)!!! And let me tell you, this sandwich was well worth the wait.  Zack told me to get a chicken sandwich with everything on it…so that’s what I did.  A delicious chicken sandwich with avocado, every vegetable you could ever imagine, and 4 different types of sauces all piled into a delicious baguette. 

After digesting our lunches and recovering slightly from our food comas, we headed up to Mountjuic (aka Mountain of the Jews).  We got to see the national palace of Barcelona on top of the mountain, and the Olympic stadium (that was used for the summer Olympics in 1992) that is behind it! Thankfully we had a lot of stairs to walk up to get to the top so we got some exercise in! I also randomly met a women who lives in Westport on the walk up…small world! The view from the top of the mountain was absolutely magnificent.  Since the sun was shining and it was so beautiful out, we decided to sit on the stairs and enjoy the view while listening to a guitar player who was playing music for everyone.

After that we checked out some more of Gaudi’s architecture: La Casa Mila (left) and La Casa Battlo (right).  These are both apartment buildings that Gaudi designed on La Passeig de Gracia (a big street that is basically the 5^th avenue of Barcelona).  Both of them were very cool to see.  

Afterwards, we all took a long walk along the Port Olimpic all the way down to the beach to watch the sunset! The beach was beautiful, and it was so nice to enjoy it with everyone together.

Before our last dinner, a few of us decided to go see the light show at the Magic Fountain in front of Mountjuic.  The fountains were spectacular and it was so much fun to watch!

Aaaaand....I found PAMMY!! <3

After the light show, Staci, Jenna, and I had dinner at Tapas 24 – one of my parents favorite restaurants from their visits this summer!  I had been hearing about this place for months and my dad had of course already prepared me with a very detailed list, so we knew exactly what to order.  Here are some highlights:

Pan con Tomate:

Bikini Sandwich:

Patatas Bravas:

Potatoes with Fried Egg:

Chocolate Ganache for dessert:

Everything was absolutely delicious...Dad, you have yet to steer us wrong!! The patatas bravas and bikini sandwhich were two of the best things I have ever tasted.  They were so good we had to get another order of both! Staci and I are still dreaming about them…

For our last night out, we all went to a bar called Chupitos that has over 100 different types of shots to choose from.  Somehow we wound up trying a “boyscout” which involved the bartender lighting the bar on fire and us roasting marshmallows on it!

When it was time to go to the airport the next morning, we were not ready to leave… I would have stayed another week just to lay on the beach! I still cannot believe how quickly it went, but it was so much fun and this was definitely my favorite weekend so far. 

I wish I could keep going, but unfortunately it is already 3 am here and I am waking up in less than 4 hours to get on a plane to DUBLIN for St. Patrick’s day weekend and STACI’S 21’ST BIRTHDAY!!!!! I had to get this last blog post in before I left! Hopefully I will make it back alive so that I can tell you about it…wish me luck!

Arrivaderci,

Jordan