One Year: “We are biding our time For these myths to unwind For these changes we will confront”

I am currently sitting in the Portland airport, waiting to fly back to NY. It’s 5:30 am… flight leaves at 7:40. At this point I’m pretty ready to go to sleep, having not slept at all.

It’s interesting the difference a year makes. Last year I had the craziest, and probably worst, week of my life – many finals, little sleep, and packing up my entire dorm room into storage and two giant suitcases to trek back across the country, and 2 weeks later to Ireland.

This year, on the other hand, I finished all schoolwork and finals on Monday night. I spent most of Tuesday lying in bed sleeping and watching tv. The past two days have mostly involved working at my job in the library (data entry, but I listen to NPR podcast, so it’s actually not bad), as well as a trip to Hawthorne to get my hair cut, then the linguistics holiday party at my prof’s house. Then this evening was all packing… and even though I didn’t get any sleep, it was a pretty relaxed packing experience. I mean, I was done early enough that I got to enjoy a cup of tea and wash some tv before I had to leave.

Amazing the difference a year can make… and not just in terms of stress levels or amount of sleep. Saying goodbye when you’re only going to be gone for a month is much different than leaving for 9 months. This time around I’m going back to NY for 4 weeks… more than the amount of time I’ve spent there over the past year in total. And there’s no preparing to head off to a whole new continent. Instead I’m making lists of things to do to make sure I don’t get too bored over break. In the span of 1 day (Tuesday) of not doing anything I got bored… what am I supposed to do for 4 weeks?! (Oh, I know… doctors appointments. 6, in fact. That’s what I get for being home for 4 weeks – enough time to see multiple doctors. Oh joy.)

There are times when I miss Cork more than I can actually fathom. I think all my friends are tired of hearing about “in Cork I did this” “in Cork things worked like so” etc. There are more things that I miss than I can count or describe, and some of the things I miss I can’t even really put into words. Yet at the same time I know if I went back there right now it would be wonderful, but I’d also miss Portland. Sadly I can’t have both… 6,000 miles of separation is a lot.

Anyway, to conclude (as it’s about time for me to go through security (fun times) and get to my gate: 4 weeks in New York… definitely different than my winter break of a year ago, but an adventure none the less. Just a different kind of adventure.

The River Lee & Georges Quay/Father Matthew Quay, Cork

“This is my home, this is my only home, this is the only sacred ground I have ever known.”

Well, I’m headed home now (writing some of this on the train ride along the Hudson River – it’s a beautiful, beautiful day). And then tomorrow I turn around and head for Cape Cod for 2 weeks (YAY beach!) It feels like a lifetime ago that I was in Europe/Ireland.

I’ve spent the past 6 weeks on a totally different adventure: babysitting two kids (a girl age 6 and a boy, 3) in upstate, middle of nowhere New York. It was a complete change from traveling around Europe and studying in Ireland. A lot of the time it was really fun, although also pretty exhausting. It was nice to be in one place for 6 weeks though – before this the longest I had been in one place since the end of March was 2 weeks. So in some ways being in a place where there was just not a lot to do or places to go was really relaxing.

I went on a number of beautiful bike rides. I’m used to cycling through mostly-wooded areas, with lots of steep hills. The scenery up where I was was quite different – rolling hills, lots of farmland, and even on the “bigger” roads, just not very much traffic. There were also windmills up on a ridge. I love windmills – they’re so beautiful.

I also started running more – something I hope to continue. There was a great running path along what used to be the Chenango Canal, over to the airport, along the side of the runway (whoever thought you could actually run next to the runway of an airport?!) , with a view of the windmills. There were a couple times I got a beautiful sunset too.

In general I saw tons of animals. On one bike ride I saw: cows, goats, chickens, sheep, deer, a (dead) frog, horses, rabbits, woodchucks, and possibly a few others that I forget… On my runs I would often cross paths with deer, and I ran past a horse’s pasture.

Babysitting was something completely new to me. I enjoyed it, although it was pretty tiring, especially when it was hot out. There were definitely times where I just wanted OUT/to be done, but then there were times that were absolutely wonderful. I especially liked the fact that they both (although more-so the 6 year old) liked to learn about things. When I explained about something new I would instantly get her attention, and it really was instant gratification. She had a color-by-number with arithmetic book, and the 3 year old decided that he wanted to do one too. So I said “alright, we can try” and got out a big box of blocks, and we did adding and subtracting and multiplication and division with blocks. They both liked a couple of my shirts – in particular my “Pentagon, Hexagon, Oregon” one, and my “Hypotamoose” one. I told them about what a right triangle is (you can fit a square in one of the angles), and the hypotenuse is across from it. The 3 year old and I watched construction every morning while the 6 year old was at work, and the other day we saw how a giant crane formed a right triangle with the ground, and the arm of the crane was the hypotenuse. Aside from coloring and puzzles and watching trucks, we did lots of pretend, muffin making, berry picking, playing Castle Block at the playground, blasting off to the moon on the swings, having picnics, reading books, and lots of other things. I even taught them a little Irish (two nursery rhymes I know).

Two weekends ago I went (with the family, although I got the weekend off) to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, which was utterly fantastic. I’d been twice before, but this was the first time I camped there for the whole weekend. I did a LOT of contra dancing. Contra dancing at FRFF is wonderful – the dancers are all great, and the bands were so awesome. In particular, I loved a band called Giant Robot Dance. On Friday night (dances on Friday and Saturday went to 2 am) they played Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” which was so much fun to dance to. Although it was a bit hot (that’s kind of an understatement…), I had a blast. Aside from dancing, there was tons and tons of awesome music. Some favorites included: Red Molly, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, the Beatles cover session, the Harmony session, and a ton of others.

Well, I’ve just finished a delicious peach, and the train is now back to places I recognize. Under the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, past Bannerman’s Island and the blown-up castle, past Storm King, through the tunnel at Breakneck, oh hai West Point, past Anthony’s Nose, under the Bear Mountain Bridge, back into my stomping grounds, so to speak. And here’s Peekskill. Time for me to get my stuff together and prepare to get off. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Back in the house: I’m here for around 17 hours. I leave in the morning for camping on Cape Cod for 2 weeks. YAY! It’s so weird to be here though. In the past year I’ve been here less than 4 weeks. But once I’m back it’s kind of like everything else I’ve done away from here is a dream. It’s at once completely familiar and utterly strange. I lived here 18 years, so of course everything’s familiar. Yet every time I come back it also seems like things are a little weird – not quite how I remember them. I don’t know that I can really call it home anymore, but at the same time I don’t have enough distance to call it my parents’ home.

Alright, I need to go to bed – up early to drive to the Cape!

Sitting on top of the world

Tonight was unexpectedly awesome, so despite the fact that I have ages and ages of adventures and blogging to catch up on (I really have been awful at keeping up with this blog recently), I want to write about it instead.

I got home from my week-long trip to Italy last night (Wednesday). It was an extraordinary trip. I spent 4 days in Florence and 3 in Venice. I definitely was not ready to return to Cork. Not to say that I don’t like Cork, but rather that I met so many awesome people when in Italy, and right now Cork is just… kind of lonely? Both of my flatmates have gone back to the States, so I’m all alone in my flat. Without anyone here to motivate me/to interact with, and without any classes or reasons to go out and do stuff, I kind of just find myself sitting around the flat, going online, watching TV, etc. And especially in the 24 hours after I got back from Italy, I found myself getting more and more lonely, depressed, and homesick – for family, friends, Reed, and Portland.

Anyway, around 8pm this evening I decided that I really needed to get out of the apartment. Especially since I had very little food left and really wanted some veggies (not something that you eat a lot of when you are on a budget & traveling). So I headed off to Tesco. The weather was utterly beautiful – sunny & warmer than it has been the whole time I’ve been here (i.e. above 15 C/60 F). The sun doesn’t set until around 9:30, and it’s not completely dark until after 10pm.

I walked along the river over towards Tesco, enjoying the weather and being outside. As I came to Oliver Plunkett (a street running through the center of Cork) I heard some awesome music. There were three guys playing really good bluegrass-y type music; one on mandolin, one on fiddle, and one on guitar – they also were singing, with very good harmony. A sign said that they were from Portland, Maine USA. I stood and listened for a little, then continued to Tesco. Got my shopping done very quickly, and hurried back to where they were playing. I stood on the street corner and listened to them for another half an hour, and I talked with them some in between songs (when you’re traveling/in a foreign country, it’s really wonderful to talk with someone who has the same accent you have!). They had come to Dublin about a week ago, I think, and they were planning on spending the summer making their way through Europe busking.  I didn’t have any money on me, other than my debit card. So when they were done and gathering up their stuff I said “hey, I don’t know if you’ve had dinner yet or if you’re hungry, but I’m was going to head home to cook dinner, and I would love to cook you dinner if you’d like.” So it was that I brought 3 musicians from Portland, Maine back to my apartment in Cork, Ireland, and fed them dinner! Obviously, it turned out to be a fantastic evening, way better than I expected!

With Tricky Britches, of Portland, Maine USA: Seth, Tyler, Me, and Jed

I have to say, I think that before two months ago, I would never, ever have had the self-confidence or courage to do something like this – just invite 3 strangers into my home and cook dinner. That’s definitely something I’ve gained from my traveling – much more self-confidence, particularly with interacting with new people. Because when you travel alone everyone you meet is a stranger, and if you don’t just introduce yourself and start talking you’re going to have a really, really lonely time of it. It’s also amazing the kinds of adventures you can have and people you can meet, if you just open yourself up to it. Life can be so crazy, but so good.

Anyway, time for bed – I really do need to study tomorrow for my last exam, so I should get some sleep and get up at a decent hour. I swear I will write all about my traveling adventures and post pictures soon – I really will, I promise! But not right now.

Onwards

I’m currently in Munich, visiting Jessica & Nick – two Reed friends who are studying here for the year. It’s the last night of my trip. Tomorrow (which is actually today already) I head back to Cork. If all goes as planned, I should be back in my flat in 21 hours or so. I can’t believe that it’s been 4 weeks already. If I think about it, the time seems to have flown by, but at the same time that night long ago when I stayed up packing and preparing seems like ages ago. I have done so many things. When I actually start to think about everything I’ve done, more and more things pop into my head – more than it seems could actually even fit into my memory. Yet I feel like I remember each of them so clearly, as if they just happened.

Until a few hours ago I was actually pretty ready to return to Cork. I’ve been very tired the past few days, and yearning for all the comforts of being in one place, in my place: my own bed with familiar sheets and my quilt, my own shower that I know how to work, more than 2 pairs of pants, a clothes washing machine, my own kitchen, tea in my own mug, my computer and my internet… But then I was looking out the window of Jessica’s room at the beautiful blossoming trees and the sunset over the student dorm buildings of Munich’s Studentenstadt, and I realized how much I’m going to miss this – having new views out the window, not knowing what the next day might hold in terms of adventures or discoveries. Yes, it will be rather nice to be back in Cork with all the things I’ve listed. But I’ve grown so much in the past 4 weeks that I think it is going to be quite odd, and I expect I will be a bit unhappy and tired of it fairly quickly after all this traveling (I realize that I always am excited about returning home after a trip, but that does fade incredibly quickly as I realize internet and TV and other such things that I find at home really aren’t quite as great as they appear in my mind after all the excitement of traveling).

But then I also think about all the adventures I have left to come – 2 more months in Europe – some in Cork, maybe some time in Italy, then traveling with my parents around Ireland & to London; this summer – being home, then in more northern NY, then Cape Cod; then junior year at Reed begins, and with it being back in Portland, and the possibilities that both of those hold. Onwards I go, o whatever other epic adventures the future might bring.

Transience

I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of child-like wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are 5 years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
-Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There

It’s been a whirlwind, jam-packed, crazy past 11 or so days. I’m currently in Amsterdam, but in an hour and a half I’ll be getting on a train which will take me up to Denmark. It’s a night train, so I’m getting in tomorrow morning. This should be an adventure. I hope I’ll sleep… although considering how tired I am I don’t see how it would be possible for me not to sleep.

I got to Amsterdam on Wednesday, following a very tiring day of travel from Brugge (Bruges)in Belgium – I stopped for 5 hours in Antwerp and for 2 hours in Rotterdam and walked all over both of those places. I was in Brugge for 2 full days, and before that I was in Paris, where I started & spent 2 full days and another half day.

I finished Bill Bryson’s book Neither Here Nor There on the train to Brugge, and I really like the quote above, because it so completely describes what it’s like to travel, espcecially when you don’t speak the language. You really don’t realize how hard it is to cross a street until you have to do it in another country! And it feels a little like as soon as I get the hang of a place I’m on my way again. But that keeps life exciting!

I’ve done too many things to talk about, especially because I only have 12 minutes remaining on my internet time here. Probably the most amazing was visiting the Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, around 10 pm. It’s right across from the Notre-Dame Cathedral, and it’s the coolest bookstore ever. I sat and read a book for a while downstairs, and then I went upstairs for a little to see if I could use the typewriter (they have an old typewriter that you can try using). Upstairs is really neat – the only books for sale are the kids books, and the rest is their “library.” They have a whole bunch of benches and chairs and things, and you can sit and read for as long as you want. There’s also a piano in one of the rooms. Anyway, I got upstairs and realized that the music that I had been hearing – really beautiful piano playing – was coming from the piano in the next room. A British student was playing really incredibly Chopin. So I grabbed the nearest interesting-looking book I saw off a stack of books (which turned out to be a poetry book by a guy from Cork, which was quite neat), and sat and listened for a while. After the Chopin, he and another British student started talking to each other about music, and they ended up playing some duets/singing. It was just a really cool and amazing place to be – sitting upstairs in a historic bookshop in Paris, listening to incredible music.

Other incredible moments have included: seeing the Eiffel Tower light show out of the window of the Louvre, meeting & hanging out with a friend from the internet in Paris, watching a Beatles cover band play in the medieval main square of Brugge, standing on the Muur (a famous hill) and watching the Tour of Flanders, wandering all over Amsterdam and trying not to get hit by a bicycle, some of the people I’ve met here in Amsterdam… there are so many more and I’m definitely forgetting many, many things, but I now have less than 2 minutes of internet time left. Time to head out.

Epic adventure!

Right. Well. In about 20 minutes I am headed off to the Cork airport for the start of my month-long trip traveling across Northern Europe. I am unbelievably excited. I’ve been planning this trip in my head for at least a year. I’m also fairly nervous. I mean, I’m traveling ALONE for a month. Which based on my previous experiences traveling this semester, I think I’ll actually be okay with. But it’s still fairly anxiety-provoking.

This morning I am flying to London. I’ll have the morning and early afternoon there, and then I’ll take the train from London to Paris. Over the course of the month, I will travel from Paris to Bruges, to Amsterdam, to Arhus, to Copenhagen, to Berlin, to Nuremberg, and end up in Munich. I’ll fly back to Dublin on April 28th. I’m going to be doing the whole thing by train – I have a 6 day, 4 country Eurail pass that I’ll be using. I hope to try to update this blog as I go, but it’ll probably depend on how much internet access I have.

I can’t believe this is actually happening! I can’t believe that I managed to fit all my stuff into one carry on pack. I generally tend to overpack, but I think I did a pretty damn good job packing for this trip.

My pack - 1 month of stuff.

Alright then. Time to head out. Here goes!

An Seachtaine Seo Caite – The Last Week

This past week has been very interesting/odd. It started with my writing this on Sunday night:

Bím an-ghnóthach le déanaí. Scríobh mé aiste do mo rang seandálaíochta, agus bhí scrúdú do Na dTeangacha Ceilteach (rang eile) agam Dé hAoine. Agus táim ag foghlaim do mo scrúdú Gaeilge. Mar sin, táim ag scríobh blog post as gaeilge… tá sé an-dheacair! Agus táim ag éisteacht le CSPAN agus an vóta ar athchóiriú cúraim sláinte.

Tá pictiúir an oiread sin go raibh gá dom a chur suas! Agus tá eachtraí ann an oiread sin go raibh gá dom a scríobh faoi.

(Ack I can’t do it anymore – I don’t know how to write about health care reform/US government in Irish, and the vote is currently going on… Dems have 203 votes ATM – EEEEEK)

(Translation: I am very busy of late. I wrote a paper for my archaeology class, and I had an exam for The Celtic Languages (another class) on Friday. And I am studying for my Irish exam. So, I am writing a blog post in Irish…. It is really hard! And I am listening to CSPAN and the vote on health care reform.

I have so many pictures that I need to put up! And there are so many adventures that I need to write about.)

That last sentence remains completely true! But I never did finish writing my blog post as gaeilge. It was incredibly difficult, particularly as I got more and more excited about the health care vote, especially since I really don’t have the vocabulary in Irish to discuss health care/politics. By the time the House did vote it was about 2:45 am here. I had both the CNN and CSPAN video feeds up – I would watch one until it appeared that it was lagging quite a bit, then I would move to the other, and back and forth. I also had the NY Times live blog up. The most interesting/entertaining thing I was following though was the #hcr twitter feed. By the time the House voted, #hcr was trending, and every 15 seconds or so twitter would tell me that there were over a thousand new tweets for #hcr. I mostly just skimmed through them, catching the general ideas floating around the world at that moment. There were a few tweets that I saw that were very well worded/that made a very good point that I RTed or replied to, and then I got replies back and it started to seem like rather than just watching the flow of information I was part of it. So that was cool. And it was a really exciting way to watch the vote happen. Since the vote was done electronically, everyone was just watching the numbers. So you would see a couple hundred tweets saying “206!!” or “9 to go!” or something like that – everyone was counting down.

So of course I stayed up until about 4 am watching it, and then had to wake up at 8 am for class. When I did wake up I had a really bad sore throat. I kind of thought it was just one of those morning things, right when you get up, like. But as the day went on it apparent that that was not the case, and I spent most of the afternoon in bed. And basically I’ve spent the whole week sick/trying to get better. Finally I went to the health center and got antibiotics. I’ve only taken one days worth (of seven), but already I’m feeling better. Way less congested. My ears have finally un-clogged! And my throat doesn’t hurt nearly as much. So hopefully I will be completely better soon.

I had my Irish oral exam on Thursday and my written final on Friday. Each of these is worth 45% of my total grade. It was really not fun studying for them/taking them while I was not feeling well. However, considering that I wasn’t feeling well I think they actually both went quite well! The oral in particular was quite scary. I forgot how hard and scary oral exams are. The last one I really remember was in 8th grade Spanish. I think I probably had an oral in 9th and 10th grade, but it definitely didn’t stick in my mind. I do remember having to do presentations for both those classes though… And last year in Spanish we had to do class presentations, but no oral either. While the class presentations were quite difficult and scary, the oral has a certain special scariness. I think I remember my 8th grade oral so much because I was at the a somewhat similar state of language ability as I am now – ie I can say some things, but I am not at all comfortable. My language abilities are entirely based on translating from English in my head, which means I have to consider every single word I say.

In any case, my Irish oral had 4 parts: reading a passage, answering questions based on a brochure, describing a picture, and answering questions from my teacher. You were given a few minutes to look at the passage, the brochure, and the picture before the exam started. You were asked questions/were conversing with your own teacher, while the other teacher (there are two Intermediate classes) listened and graded you. In all, it was about 15 minutes of me talking/answering questions. Afterwards, I was actually pretty proud of myself. I definitely did mess up some – nerves and getting flustered and not remembering all the words/grammar (there was a point where I completely blanked out on how to form the present tense. It was the last thing we learned – past tense is easier to learn in Irish – and I was so used to the past tense by that point in the exam that I just kind of went “uhhh” for a minute). But I actually managed to talk for 15 minutes in this crazy and unfamiliar language. I don’t think I realized that I knew enough to actually be able to do that.

That’s one of the things that’s really hard about learning Irish – there really aren’t a ton of opportunities to speak it/practice it. I mean, there are definitely way more here in Ireland than anywhere else. And I do hear it spoken sometimes. But everyone is bilingual. So there’s never an instance where you **have** to use Irish. Even when I went to the Dingle Gaeltacht (something which I still need to blog about) – it is an Irish-speaking area, but tourism is so big there that everyone speaks and knows English, and they don’t really expect newcomers to know Irish, and it’s really scary and intimidating to start a conversation in Irish with someone who’s fluent in it. Anyway, basically what this means is that I haven’t had much chance to have extended conversations with fluent speakers in Irish.

So yeah, the oral was quite difficult, and I definitely didn’t do perfectly on it, but I did realize that I do know a bit of Irish. Same was true about the written exam. We had been writing small compositions all semester, but this was the first time I had to do it without having my notes/a dictionary in front of me. I think I wrote 4 or 5 paragraphs in Irish on the written final. So again I think I had a realization of “hey, maybe I know a little bit more of this than I think I do.” One of the hardest parts about it was getting the spelling right. Blargh, Irish spelling and pronunciation are so difficult. For example, there’s a term that means “great” that is pronounced “air oww-ss.” It’s spelled “ar fheabhas.” This was also why we had to read a passage in Irish for the oral – to test our pronunciation. Mine is definitely much, much better than it was at the beginning of the semester – I’ve got the pronunciation of the consonants down pretty well, but the vowels still give me some trouble.

Anyway, after the final on Friday I went out for coffee with some friends from the class. It was a kind of “goodbye”/”we’re done” coffee celebration. Because that’s the really crazy thing – classes are done. Last week was the final week of classes. I will not have any more classes until next September. I do have 3 exams in May, but no more classes. So this coffee really was kind of a goodbye. Lots of things last week had a feeling of ending, of finality. Which is so weird! Because I feel like I’ve only just gotten here, like I’m just getting settled in. And in a sense, that’s true too. I may be done with classes, but I’m only halfway through my time abroad – I don’t return to NY until mid-June. On the other hand, tonight was the last time I will see one of my flatmates. The 3 of us + 2 of our friends who live down the hall all went out for Chinese as a kind of final gathering/final celebration. Tomorrow 3 of them head out on a trip, and one of them will be returning to the US right after that.

In 1 day I leave on my epic month long European traveling adventure. So amidst all the work and studying I’ve been doing, travel plans and preparations have been occupying my mind completely. I still can’t really believe that a)I’m going to be traveling by myself for a month, and b) that it’s finally time to do this – I’ve been planning this trip for a year. And now it’s almost time…. Wow.

I actually still have a lot of stuff I need to do to prepare tomorrow. I leave early Wednesday morning – I have a flight to London, and then in the afternoon I will take a train to Paris. There were other things I wanted to say in this blog post about this last week, but I can’t remember what… ah well. For now, that will have to be all. I hope to make another blog post before I leave, but we’ll see whether that actually happens.

10 hours in London

Continuing with the catch-up blogging…

We flew out of Madrid to London-Stansted on Sunday morning. And of course because Ryanair is rather crazy and has flights at weird times – with the cheapest flights being late at night and early in the morning – we had a whole day layover in London. I.e. we didn’t fly back to Cork until Monday morning. SO, we had a full day in London. We decided to sleep in the airport again, because otherwise we would have to leave downtown London at around 2 am, and it just wouldn’t be worth it to book a hostel.

In any case, we were all exhausted when we got to London – we had to get up at 3:30 am in Madrid in order to get to the airport. But we got off the plane, got through customs, and found the desks of the different bus companies in to downtown London. I usually prepare and plan extensively for any trip I make, whether it is overnight or a 2 hour trip to a new coffee shop in Portland. I always know where I’m going, and often I’ll have a map (printout from Google Maps) with me. This was not at all the case with going to London. I knew that there were a few bus companies that went into London, and I knew the approximate cost of a bus to London. But I had no map or anything. I did manage to pick up a free tour guide pamphlet/map thing from one of the bus companies at the airport. But basically, we just went up to the counter of the cheapest bus, asked which stop got us closest to all the sights in London, and got on.

We spent the day just walking. We got to Victoria Station at about 10 am (or maybe 11? I don’t remember), and we left about 8 pm. In that time, we walked about 7.5 miles, spent a good hour walking around a bookstore (it was warm!), at least an hour in a very touristy coffee shop/deli thing, and around 2.5 hours in another diner/coffee shop (so much tea).

We walked from Victoria Station to Buckingham Palace (we actually got there when the changing of the guard is supposed to happen – we didn’t realize though, but I think it may have been an off day because it was 11:35 and nothing was happening, so we left), Trafalgar Square, past the House of Parliament, across the Thames, up the other side of the Thames past the London Eye, up to the Globe Theatre, across the Millenium Bridge, to St. Paul’s, then to Charing Cross Road (where we had dinner/sat for a long long time in the wonderful warmth of the diner), then back to Victoria Station and back to the airport. Where we spent another night sleeping. At least this time we managed to grab a few benches and so weren’t nearly as cold as the previous time when we slept on the floor. Still, definitely not the most comfortable place to sleep.

I mapped out our walk on Google Maps:

Our walk around London, starting and finishing at Victoria Station.

Overall, London was okay. Compared to Madrid it was kind of eh. It was so touristy – Madrid was a mix of some tourists and more locals, but London seemed to be only tourists. Maybe that was just because it was a Sunday and we were only in the really touristy areas? We were also really cold and really exhausted. I guess I’m glad to have seen a lot of London because now I have an idea of where I want to go back to when I get the chance (which will be, at the latest, in June). We didn’t go into any of the museums or anything because we really didn’t want to shell out any money, and I think getting to go inside these places would make visiting London much more interesting.

In front of Buckingham Palace, with all the crowds of people.

The London Eye through the trees of St. James Park.

Trafalgar Square

Me in front of Big Ben

The London Eye from across the Thames.

The Houses of Parliament viewed from across the Thames.

Red phone booth!

The Royal Courts of Justice

Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, at night.

JJ curled up in her sleeping bag on the benches of the London-Stansted airport.

Leah, not as excited as JJ about sleeping in the airport (she didn’t have a cozy & warm sleeping bag to curl up in).

Madrid – feliz cumpleaños!

Day 3 in Madrid – our final day there – was my 20th birthday! (February 13th – yes, I am very, very behind in updating this blog). It was an absolutely fantastic day.

It started out, however, with all three of us completely craving fresh vegetables. So, we walked to the Market of San Miguel (el Mercado de San Miguel), which is an iron-and-glass building with market stalls inside constructed in the early 20th century and located off Puerta del Sol. It is a bit more upscale that the English Market here in Cork, but they had some fantastic things. The fruit and vegetables were AMAZING, although the way it worked was that you weren’t allowed to touch them – you told the workers what you wanted and how many, and they got them for you. Which was very interesting/fun to do in Spanish!

Fruit stand en el Mercado de San Miguel

With our food shopping done, we headed back to the hostel, and then from there off to the East of the city, which we had not yet explored (except for first night when we went wondering, but we didn’t do a ton of exploring then).

The main thing that we saw, and the place we spent most of our time, was el Parque del Buen Retiro. Imagine Central Park in NYC, except, well, with more fountains and sculpted gardens and things, in Spain, in February, with unbelievable sun. It was so, so glorious. We spent at least 2 hours just walking around everywhere. There were lots of people there – many tourists, but also lots and lots of locals. It is a very popular place for people to go to on a nice Saturday.

Plaza del Parterre en el Parque del Buen Retiro

Looking out from la Plaza del Parterre towards el Casón del Buen Retiro.

Me in front of el Monumento a Alfonso XII and the lake/pond.

Cat on el Monumento a Alfonso. He was really enjoying sunning himself on this mermaid statue. He didn't really want to cooperate for pictures though, so this is the best one I have.

Me in front of the fountain in la Plaza de Nicaragua en el Parque del Buen Retiro. Look! There are flowers! (They actually looked like some kind of cabbage or something - it was pretty cool)

After wandering around the park for a while, the three of us decided to split up – I wanted to see some of the museums, and Leah and JJ were very happy sitting in the sun, and they also wanted to go shoe shopping. So I headed off on a whirl-wind tour of the National Archaeological Museum – which was pretty cool, even though they only had a very limited number of things on exhibit because of renovations – and then the Prado Museum. I had planned on going to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía as well, but I spent so much time at the Prado that I didn’t have time!

The Prado was absolutely fantastic. I’m not usually a huge fan of art museums, but wow, I could have spent at least a few more hours in there (I think I spent probably 2-3 hours). I rented one of the audio tour guides, which was really neat and very much worth it. I think what I liked so much about the Prado was hearing about all the history of the paintings and what they showed/represented. My favorite was probably Las Meninas by Velázquez, because of the way the painting reflects so much history and political manipulation and court life. My second favorite was probably Goya’s painting of La Familia de Carlos IV – again because of the history that went along with it, and the way that Goya made each of the figures so unique and represented all the intricacies of court life and power struggles in it.

El Museo del Prado, with the Church of San Jerónimo in the background.

What I found pretty neat at both museums was my ability to understand Spanish. The audio guide I got was in English, but not all of the paintings had information in the audio guide, and not all the plaques at the Prado had English (same with the archaeology museum). Generally, I could understand almost all of the information on the plaques in Spanish – it took me a little bit longer to read than if it were in English, but I could understand it quite well.

In any case, after the Prado I headed back to the hostel to meet Leah and JJ. Some of the people I had met before were planning on going out to watch the parade for Carnival – Leah and JJ decided to stay behind and take a nap/start on dinner, but I figured that as much as my feet hurt (and wow, did they hurt at that point – you forget how much standing you do at museums!), it would be really cool to see a parade through Madrid.

Five of us went to the parade: me, a guy from Cleveland, Ohio, a girl from Brazil, a girl from Montreal, Canada, and a guy from Japan. The parade went along la Gran Vía, and we found ourselves a spot behind some barricades across the street from the Telefónica Building. We got there a little bit before the parade was supposed to start, so I decided to make a mad dash off to a bakery/pastelería in order to buy a birthday cake. I went back down to the Puerta del Sol, through swarms and swarms and swarms of people, and to a bakery nearby that I remembered. Everywhere it was so crowded, including inside the bakery. I kind of just pushed myself through to the display case, pointed at a cake that looked good, paid, and pushed my way out again. Then I hung on to the cake as I watched the parade, and somehow managed to keep it from being smooshed!

The parade was fun, but unfortunately probably 15 minutes after the beginning of it went passed us, all the people around us broke the barricades and went into the street, so we couldn’t see anymore! And by that time we were all freezing cold and really tired and rather hungry (it was probably 8 or so) that we decided to head back to the hostel.

Dancers on stilts with giant poofy pink skirts in the Carnival parade.

Leah and JJ were amazing and bought me flowers and a new pair of gloves (I had gotten a giant hole in one of the fingers of mine during the day, and I my one index finger had been freezing) and put them on my bed to surprise me when I got back.

The flowers that Leah and JJ got for me as a birthday surprise and put on my bed.

We made (well, mostly they did all the work) amazing dinner from the things we had purchased at the Mercado de San Miguel earlier in the day: giant fresh salad, steamed veggies, and fresh handmade ravioli sauteed with garlic and tomatoes and cheese. YUM. Probably the best meal I had had since leaving the US. We ate with new friends in the hostel common room, and they got most of the common room to sing happy birthday to me (which was rather embarrassing, although it was very nice of them). And we ate cake, which was very good even if I still have no idea what exactly was in it (definitely chocolate, maybe some coconut?).

Lee (from Cleveland, OH - one of the people we met at the hostel), me, and Leah in the hostel kitchen on my birthday evening.

My birthday dinner! Yummmm. Fresh salad, fresh steamed veggies, fresh-made ravioli with garlic and cheese, and a bit of sangría.

The hostel common area on Saturday night (around 10 pm or so) - everyone eating dinner and hanging out.

My birthday cake!

I had an absolutely spectacular birthday, and a wonderful, wonderful time in Madrid. I was really sad to leave, and I  was especially sad to leave behind the awesome people I met at the hostel, particularly knowing I will probably never see any of them again. On the one hand, I had such an amazing time that I just want to go back, but I feel like I can’t go back because it wouldn’t be the same at all – so now I just can’t wait to go on more adventures! Hopefully there will be lots of those to come.

Madrid – mucho más

To be honest, last week I was probably the most homesick I’ve been in a long time. Not that I am not having an incredible time here, but I wish very much that I could be there for friends. I am very thankfully for Skype and it’s ability to call cell phones, and I am also grateful to my internet connection for (so far, at least, and hopefully this will continue *knock on wood*) not causing me too many problems with Skype recently. But it’s still not the same as being there and having actually face to face conversations. Also, I miss my cat.

In any case, I have been told that I am “incredibly tardy” with my blog post and that I “owe” a post. I think I should remind certain people that they never updated their blogs once while they were away traveling Europe, and that they therefore do not have much credibility/authority in telling me I am late on my blog updates.

However, before it gets too far away and I forget everything and have even more events-gone-by to discuss I really do need to finish blogging about Madrid. There is so much constantly happening here, and I feel like as much as I try to keep on top of things with blogging and all, it’s all happening so fast that I’ll never catch up!

So, without further ado, Madrid – day 2 (day 3 should come shortly).

Day 2:

Friday was our first real, complete day in Madrid. We did a lot – especially a lot of walking. I mentioned in the previous post that Madrid has a really good metro. Yeah. We never used it after that first time getting to the hostel from the airport.

Before we left for Madrid I found the Lonely Planet Madrid City Guide in a used bookstore here in Cork. If you ever plan on going to Madrid, I would definitely recommend this guidebook. What I really liked about it was that it provided walking tours for all the areas of the city. We spent most of Friday doing one of these walks, and it was really neat because we saw some of the areas of the city that aren’t at all touristy.

Our hostel was right off the Plaza de Tirso de Molina. From their it was about a 10-15 minute walk to Puerta del Sol (kind of the center/main hub of the city), though I don’t think I ever did this walk the same way twice. We had two other plazas between us and Sol, and at each one there were multiple streets to chose from. I learned my way by the landmarks: the Häagen-Dazs, the cafe with the really good (and cheap!) hot chocolate, the place where the bird pooped on Leah, the movie theatre, the house with the gardens, the store with the pretty green dress in the window.

The Puerta del Sol - looking at the metro station and down Carrera de San Jerónimo.

In any case, our walk on Friday: We went from our hostel/Tirso de Molina to Puerta del Sol. From there, we made our way to the Gran Villa and took the street called Calle Fuencarral, which is one of the major shopping streets. We took it up quite a ways, and went to la Plaza de Olavide.

La Plaza de Olavide was surprisingly wonderful, It is definitely not a tourist destination. We came upon it suddenly, around a rather cramped street that curved so we couldn’t see what was in front of us. But then we emerged from the street to this open area – buildings no longer blocking the sky. And oh wow! The sun! The plaza had a fountain and gardens and a playground and benches. There were old men sitting and women with strollers and people walking dogs. Just a place for the locals to go, in a very residential area. It was glorious. The only thing I didn’t like – and this was all over the city – was the graffitti.

La Plaza de Olavide

Leah and JJ basking in the sun in La Plaza de Olavide.

From la Plaza de Olavide we walked through a lot of really nice residential areas towards la Plaza de Moncloa. I think we were getting up into where the university(ies?) is. There were also some other very big and important/official looking buildings. No idea what they were. There was a metro station and a big archway/roundabout with some views, and this big (rather ugly) metal tower called el Faro de Moncloa, which is an observation tower that is unfortunately closed – it would have had unbelievable views.

La Plaza de Moncloa, with el Faro de Moncloa in the distance (the tall, ugly, metalic building).

From there we walked up to el Faro de Moncloa and then down through el Parque de la Bombilla and then through el Parque del Oeste to el Templo de Debod. This is an Egyptian temple from the 2nd century BCE. It was donated by Egypt to Madrid in 1968 and was transported and rebuilt in the early 1970s. It’s pretty cool from the outside, but inside it was even more interesting (especially because entrance was free…) – we really didn’t know what to expect, but inside they had it set up so that you could explore all of the different rooms – upstairs and down – and you could even see some of the crawl spaces and small chambers.

El Templo de Debod

The gardens around el Templo also gave a pretty cool view of the Royal Palace – el Palacio Real – which was our next destination. Unfortunately, we got there about 5 minutes after it closed to visitors, but we did get to see it from the outside, which was pretty spectacular by itself.

El Palacio Real from the royal gardens

El Palacio Real

By the time we left el Palacio we were really, really exhausted. So on our way back we stopped off at el Chocolateria San Gines. Madrid is known for its chocolate con churros, and la Chocolateria San Gines is perhaps the most famous place for this dish in all of Madrid. You could definitely tell why…

Chocolate con churros. yummm.

The chocolate is a less sweet, much thicker version of hot chocolate – you can actually order it seperately and just drink it, but everything’s better with fried food, of course – and you sprinkle powdered sugar on the churros (kind of a long and skinny version of a doughnut, but not sweet) and dip them in the chocolate. Absolutely the perfect afternoon snack.

We returned to the hostel around 6pm, and all 3 of us were so exhausted that we fell asleep. Did I mention that that whole walk we did around the city was about 7.5 miles long? I mapped it with google maps:

Google map of our walk around Madrid on Day 2. We started and finished at the Southern-most marker - the pink one. La Puerta del Sol is represented by the sun icon.

I woke up around 8:45 pm. The hostel ran different events on different nights, and that night they were doing a Tapas Tour. I tried to wake up Leah and JJ, but they both decided to roll over and go back to sleep rather than go out (I was rather tempted to do the same thing, but finally dragged myself out of bed because I really didn’t want to miss any part of the trip – even if I was exhausted – and because I had really liked meeting people the night before).

The Tapas Tour ended up being incredibly awesome. It was me, a guy from New Zealand, a girl from France and a girl from Germany who were both studying at a university near Barcelona, and a group of 5 Belgians who were all doing a course (i.e. major) in Spanish and English. We went to 3 different places and got one tapas each. Afterward, the Belgians and I were still a bit hungry, so we went back to the 2nd place, which specialized in paella. We managed to get a seat and order (all in Spanish!) and then hung out and had a whole conversation that went in and out of Spanish and English. It was very fun, and pretty cool to know that my Spanish isn’t all gone.

After that, I headed back to the hostel – by that point it was about 11:30, and just about completely crashed into my bed.

And thus, Day 2 ended.