Hola Barcelona!

It was great to spend the entirety of four days in Barcelona. It’s the city I have spent the most time in thus far (other than London of course). We finally got to soak up some sun and warm weather, and eat outside! Getting to our hostel was a bit rocky as it was about 9 o’clock at night, so very dark, and we barley spoke the language. We had a map and directions but we had to ask a couple of hotel receptionists for better ones. We also felt a bit vulnerable wearing such large backpacks, targeting us as being obviously foreigners, but we made it to the hostel and dinner was waiting for us when we arrived. Yes, that’s right, the hostel we stayed in provided dinner, which was cooked every night at 9. So we ate and then waited for Liz and Megan to arrive.

The next morning we let ourselves sleep a bit after travelling the night before, before setting off to explore the city. We first headed to La Rambla, a street with many shops and outdoor booths and food, which we frequented the next four days.

La Rambla

We took the day mostly to wander and ended up finding a gorgeous church.

Liz outside the church 

Pictures don't do it justice

My new favourite architect is Antoni Gaudi. Our first day we came across a house he designed, called Casa Batlló. The outside is like nothing I’d ever seen before.

Casa Batlló

We decided on a whim to take an audio-guided tour of the house. I am very glad we did because it is a gorgeous house with every nook and cranny carefully planned to give one an under the sea feeling. There are no 90-degree angles in the house and the splashes of colour are so vibrant.  

Flower pots in the courtyard 

The walls surrounding the main stairwell are covered in blue tiles, which get darker as you proceed upwards to continue with the underwater theme.

It was so beautiful and warm out we decided that going to the park was the best plan. So, of course, we headed to Park Güell, which was also designed by Gaudi. Situated at the top of a hill, we had an amazing view of the city from the park!

We walked around for quite a while and did not get to see then whole thing. It is just so huge and like the house, there was so much detail from the structures to the mosaic used to decorate it to the flower gardens. Oddly enough there was no grass at this particular park, only sand. However, this did not take away from the splendour of the area.

We could even see the Sagrata Familia, a church also designed by Gaudi, which we visited the next day. More about Barcelona to come!

La Sagrada Familia

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, salud! ~Laura 

Easter weekend in Ireland

Liz and I made our way back to the bus station to head to the Cliffs of Moher. I was excited to see the Irish coastline, as I had not been to the ocean or other large body of water in quite some time. I must say I enjoyed the tour guide on our first tour much better. He was a smoother driver on the windy Irish roads, as well as much funnier and light hearted. Don’t get me wrong this tour guide was great, just not quite as likeable. I am amazed by the amount of information these tour guides know and how often they are driving buses. Many of them give the tours 5 or 6 days a week and the bus leaves at 10 and does not get back until after 6! Not a career I would aspire to have; however these guides seem happy and energetic.

We first stopped at the Aillwee caves. These caves predate the Egyptian Pyramids and were discovered in the 1940’s by a farmer taking his dog for a walk. His dog chased a rabbit down a hole and the farmer went in after him discovering the amazing naturally made caves. They are full of stalactites and stalagmites. These are those bits of minerals in caves, which look like drip sand castles or hang down from the tops of caves like icicles. Our tour guide described them well. He said stalactites are things that drip from above and stalagmites are things that tend to get dripped on.

A waterfall in the caves

Me in the caves!

We then made our way to the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs rise 120 metres above sea level. We walked to the very top. A bit later in the season, puffins can be spotted living on the cliffs. We were disappointed not to see any, Liz more so than I, however it was still totally worth seeing the cliffs. The pictures don’t give them justice.

It was a bit windy! 

The Cliffs of Moher 

Liz and me at the cliffs!

After our tour we took the 3 hour bus ride back to Dublin to be there for the weekend. It was very cool to be in Ireland for Easter weekend, because everyone takes the Christian religion quite seriously. Did you know that it is a law in Ireland that you can’t serve alcohol on Good Friday? Well, it is. Our hostel was quite loud well into Friday night because people couldn’t go out to drink, so they partied in the Lobby instead. Liz and I were exhausted from the tour so we went to bed in anticipation of a long Saturday because we figured most things would be closed Sunday so we wanted to do touristy things Saturday.

We set out on Saturday to see three things: 1. The Book of Kells 2. The Natural History Museum and 3. The Guinness Factory. We were lucky enough to see it all! As well as do some meandering and see the city a bit.

The Book of Kells is in the Old Library which houses thousands of books old and new. The building is beautiful and the books are in great condition.

The Old Library

The Natural History Museum was quite educational. It was awesome to see some owls!! I do love owls. 

Owl

And Liz finally got to see her puffin. Not quite the same as seeing a real live puffin, but pretty close. 

The queue to get into the Guinness Factory went on forever. But since Liz and I bought tickets online we got to skip it! That is really the way to go. We got to see how Guinness is made, from the grain to the hops to the water and mixing it and letting it sit, it's really quite the process. 

Lovely day for a Guinness!

We decided to search for a pub with live traditional Irish music for our last night in Ireland. We came across the Arlington Hotel, which we didn’t realize would have quite the show. We got to see two different bands play as well as a professional Irish Step Dancing team! The music was great, we even recognized a couple songs and the dancing was impressive. We shared a beef and Guinness stew with a side of chips to go with our last Guinness and it was delicious.

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Sláinte! ~Laura

Galway and Kylemore Abbey

How to win the heart of an Irish boy: bring him home and cook him up a pot of potatoes! Or as they say in Ireland: spuds. That’s what our first tour guide said anyway. A friend from UVM named Liz (yes it gets confusing with the two Lizs) made the long journey to England and we met at the airport before flying to Dublin and then making our way to Galway. We arrived on Tuesday and realized just how small it is. Especially compared to London, which I am now used to. There are many adorable shops, pubs, and restaurants, including gelato in the area, but not a lot of touristy things to do so we decided that a day tour to Kylemore Abbey was a good plan. So we bought tickets and got up to leave at 10 Wednesday morning. Our bus driver and tour guide was very good at manoeuvring the bus through narrow winding streets while he told us stories and facts about Ireland. He was very funny, threatening our lives if we talked too loudly, left rubbish on the bus, or broke the law.

Our first stop was Kylemore Abbey and the Victorian Walled Garden, the largest walled garden in Ireland located in Connemara, which was right next to . The Abbey was what drew us to go on the tour. It looks like a castle, settled at the foot of a very large mountain. The Abbey has quite the history, originally built by a man named Mitchell Henry for his wife, Margaret, who unfortunately died shortly after and didn’t get to live there long. It was then converted into an abbey and then most recently became a boarding and day school for girls, which closed in 2011.

Kylemore Abbey

Liz and I outside the church 

The garden was huge, with many pathways through the green grass. I can’t even imagine how beautiful the garden would be in the spring and summer months blooming with hundreds of flowers.

The Venetian Gardens 

The Irish countryside reminds me a lot of home, with some added sheep. The roads are like the roads we travelled on in Greece, narrow and windy. Mountains stretch high towards the clouds as far as the eye can see. The people who live in these parts depend greatly on the land. Much of it is bog land full of turf, which can be dried out and used in the wood stove for heating houses. Acres and acres of fields are owned by farmers who grow spuds, which are eaten or sold to make a living.

The bogs of the Irish country side

We also went to a town where much of the movie "The Quiet Man" was filmed. I haven't seen the movie, but I loved the town.

We spent the next day exploring Galway via a self guided walking tour. Our hostel, Barnacles, was located brilliantly in the centre of the town and the sites surrounded it. Galway is home of Claudah, the popular claudah ring is named after this area. This is where the cornamellla marble is found. This is a green stone, which is used to make jewellery, among other things. I believe we went into every jewellery store multiple times to look for the perfect rings. We did finally find rings with the marble in them, all a bit expensive but locally made.

We have this coffee shop in Portland, ME 

The streets of Galway

An older Irish man made my day in Galway. He stopped to ask if we were lost because we were looking for a specific jewellery store and he commented on our American accents. We told him we were okay and he asked where we were from. After explaining where in the states he said he’d been to Maine and liked it very much. He then stated that I looked Irish, more so than Grace and Liz who I was with. I told him I was, and my last name and he replied that he had in fact last met a Curtin in Galway! I did not realize I had such Irish features, but proud to be told as such.  

That evening Liz and I sat in an Irish pub called The Kings Head, had a couple of beers and chatted for a couple hours. It was great to hear some live music being played, even though it wasn’t Irish, and enjoy a Guinness. We decided we did not need another day in Galway, as we’d seen it all so we planned another day tour for Good Friday. So we went to bed on the early side to ensure enough sleep to make the next day enjoyable. 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Sláinte! ~Laura 

Being a Londoner

I don’t think I could ever get used to how loud the sirens are here. The fire alarm in my building is quite startling, and I jump when the driver of an ambulance or cop car turns it’s sirens on while I am walking past on the sidewalk. All alarms just seem so much louder than they are in the states. Another traffic topic to note is how quickly I got used to the cars coming from the other direction. Within a few days looking right became habit. My dad was a bit worried. “When you first get there, be careful crossing the street. You hear all these stories about Americans visiting Europe who get hit by a car coming from an unfamiliar direction.” To his credit, when I was little, I used to give my parents quite a fright by running out into the street without looking. However, that’s not the whole reason one would get hit by a car here. A big part of the reason is that cars don’t stop for pedestrians here like they do in the states. They just barrel on through the crosswalks, occasionally slowing down but rarely stopping for people to walk across. I have had people kindly stop for me, but more often they won’t.

It’s also a good thing I don’t bike around here because although my parents taught my sister and I bike etiquette, they signal with the right hand instead of the left! This of course makes complete sense given the origin of the hand signals. Before cars had blinkers and lights people stuck their hands out the window to alert other drivers of turning or stopping. Given that drivers here sit on the right side of the vehicle, they would have used their right hand. Thus, as I have witnessed cyclists to do, they signal with their right hands.

Despite all of this I finally feel a bit more like a Londoner, which probably has a lot to do with my most recent purchase of a black quilted jacket, complete with corduroy elbow patches! Black is the new black around here, and elbow patches are all the rage. On my way to and from Sainsbury’s to find some things I need for my upcoming trip, I felt like I fit in much better not wearing my red North Face coat. I do love that red coat but the past couple of months I’ve been that American wearing brightly coloured outerwear. So now that it’s been two and a half months and we are going to be travelling, I have finally found myself a black jacket.

Yes, we are off to Dublin soon! Followed by Barcelona, Paris, Prague, Vienna, and Lucern, all before coming back here for part of third term to finish papers (of which I have two) and take final exams (of which I have none!) before Europe Trip Part II (as we are calling it). It seems that the backpack my cousin Christine lent me for this trip is going to see lots of places and be very useful, thanks Christine! I also get to see a friend, Liz, who is arriving here tomorrow and she is joining us for our adventure! I can’t wait to see Liz and show her around London, a city which I have grown to feel quite at home in. Although not as lovingly as my own home, don’t worry Grandma Betty!

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, cheers! ~Laura 

Stonehenge and Bath

Saturday I got to go to Stonehenge and Bath with the programme I am studying abroad with. It was nice to get away after being extremely stressed by school the past week. The bus ride was a bit long, and I got a little travel sick, but the trip was a lot of fun! When you first look at Stonehenge, it seems like a bunch of big rocks in a field with sheep. The rocks actually have quite the history and predate the Egyptian pyramids. No one is quite sure why they were brought here from Wales or how they were transported all this way. The heaviest rock weighs 45 tons, which is the weight of seven large elephants! And a third of the rocks are actually buried underground. So how did people get such heavy rocks to stick in the ground like this so long ago before we had the machinery to do so? No one knows.

There are many myths and stories told about how the rocks got to their resting place. One is that the devil flew them there, and to explain the few rocks scattered around the area, he dropped some along the way. There were other myths described in our audio guide, but it was so cold and windy, and I stupidly forgot my gloves, so I couldn’t stand around and listen any longer. But I am glad I got to see Stonehenge.

The next stop was Bath and even though it was grey out, the English countryside was beautiful. It looks as if there is a green quilt blanketing the earth for miles. I hadn’t seen sheep in a very long time, there were so many of them! We didn’t stay in Bath too long, but we got to see some of the main attractions. We went to the Jane Austen Centre, which is located in a house she used to stay in for long periods of time. I am embarrassed to say I have not read any Jane Austen, but I love the movie Pride and Prejudice (the newest version) so I bought it while we were there and I plan to read it before leaving London.

 


                

First building we saw

We also saw the Circus, which is a perfect circle of Georgian style houses, and the Royal Crescent, which is semi-circle shaped and looks out over Victoria Park. Both places are rare because of the curved architecture not seen many other places. 

The Circus 

The Royal Crescent 

We couldn’t go to Bath and miss seeing the Roman Baths. They were discovered a long time ago and many aspects of Roman Britain culture were built up around the baths. Much of the original architecture of the building and statues surrounding the baths still stands and a museum was created to teach the public about the time period. I found bits of it pretty cheesy, e.g. the videos of people dressed as Romans acting out silent scenes as they think the Romans would have acted projected on the wall. However, the audio guide was well done, even politely letting us know that we didn’t need to listen to all of it.

The hot spring from above 

Oldest stones from the Roman Period 

Bronze head of the Goddess Minerva 

The Hot Spring (we were jealous of a bird swimming by!)

Located adjacent to the Roman Baths is The Pump Room. This room is mentioned in Jane Austen’s books and many important functions happen in this room (in her books as well as now). It will be cool to read about The Pump Room now that I have been there. We wanted to get afternoon tea but didn’t have time. We were however able to get a peek inside during lunch and it was smaller than we expected but rather stunning.

The Pump Room 

Bath is a beautiful, historical city and the pictures don’t do it justice. Partly because it was so cloudy and cold when we visited. 

Most of the city resembles this street

I would recommend it to anyone visiting England! 

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, cheers! ~Laura 

The Churchill War Room

The universe does not want us to see Macbeth. It’s just that simple. We have now been to the box office to get day tickets 4 times, and the one time it worked, although it ended very fortunately, we had quite the series of unfortunate events. We also tried to get tickets through Arcadia, (the program we are all studying abroad through) so that’s 5 times we have tried to get tickets. Yesterday was definitely the most painful. After getting to sleep at 1:30 because I was skyping my mom, (which was lovely to talk to her!) I woke up at 6 to shower before we left at 7. We got to the box office at 7:15 and there were already 14 people in line. It was raining and cold so we decided to go back to bed.

However, the rest of that day was lovely! I took an audio tour of the Churchill War Room with Megan. I was impressed with the presentation of the museum. The War Room has been left the way it looked when WWII ended.

The War Room

 I personally am extremely against any war or fighting of any kind. It was the way I was raised. But I decided to go into this museum with an open mind. It takes a lot of military planning and brains to be involved in a war. (A waste of these resources if you ask me). The people working and sleeping in the War Room lived in stuffy dark conditions. Most of them smoked making the air quality that much worse. It was amazing to see the rooms they lived in. Their small size caused extreme moments of claustrophobia to most people sleeping there. The furniture denoted social status. I would have gone crazy down there, and probably would have become severely depressed. 

One of the rooms in the bunker

It is scary how the individuals living there felt so safe and secure, while in reality a bomb that hit the area at the correct angle would have demolished the bunker. I learned so much about WWII as well as living situations and conditions during war time; Not something I would be pleased living through. It seems ridiculous to me to be fighting with another country, especially after learning that Winston Churchill was able to create alliances with past enemies to help Britain fight.

A map used by Churchill to plot the routes of enemy soldiers

 We did learn a lot about Churchill. He was a wartime hero, putting so much time into military planning and keeping the country safe. He was a bit lazy and liked to live like a rich aristocrat, but he accomplished so much. Did you know he painted in his free time? I did not until Saturday. He painted when he was young and then took it up again upon becoming depressed after retirement. He was described as an amateur painter, but I like his paintings quite a bit.

Churchill's smock, paints, and a couple of his works.

We also celebrated St. Patricks Day Saturday by hitting up a pub in Camden Town. Alcohol around here is so expensive. £4 for a pint at the pub we were at and it can be more expensive than that! So after getting one Carlsberg we decided to head to the UCL pub, The Huntley, for £1.70 drinks. Things close quite early around here so at 12 we either had to move downstairs to another UCL pub, Mully’s or head back to our flat. We decided to call it a night and head back. I know, early, right?

Happy St. Patricks Day everyone! I hope you had more fun than me yesterday; I did schoolwork all day and will be doing it all week. It’s my last week of classes, but I have three assignments due. However, I have just those hurtles to get over before three exciting weeks of travel!

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, cheers! ~Laura