Fall Break Odyssey, part II - Dublin

After yet another early morning flight, we arrived in my favorite city in the world - Dublin. Right away I was reminded of why I love that place. We walk out of the airport to the taxi stand and right away we are greeted by the jolliest taxi driver in the world. He takes our luggage with a big ole smile on his face and welcomes us to Ireland in his happy Irish accent. He chatted with us the entire ride to our hostel, which he miraculously managed to drop us off twenty feet away from despite the fact that the Dublin Marathon had just started and a bunch of roads had been blocked. I remember the taxi drivers being extra nice from the last time I was in Dublin, but this guy was exceptional. And kind of looked like Liev Schreiber - you know, that actor from Salt and X-Men? Bonus.

When we got to our hostel, it was still too early to get into our room, but we wanted to check in anyway so we could drop off our luggage in their storage room. Our friend Morgan was the one who made the reservation, but somehow it hadn't gone through. We didn't have reservations. Crap. Luckily, the guy managed to find four beds for us - thank God - in a six person dorm two nights and a private four person room the last night. If you are ever in Dublin and want to stay in a hostel, stay at the Times Hostel on College Street. The staff were so helpful, even when we were slightly panicking over not having a place to stay for the night, and the location is incredible. Anyway, we drop 50 euros apiece on our rooms, drop off our luggage and head out to try and find some food. At this point our notion of what time it was was so warped that I could barely wrap my head around the fact that it was only like 10 o'clock in the morning. Between waking up at 3 am, switching to another time zone, and adjusting my watch for daylight savings, my body was just confused. So basically it felt like it should have been at least mid-afternoon. In addition to the marathon going on, it was also a bank holiday, which meant that a lot of pubs and restaurants were also closed, but we found one place that had the Irish breakfast I've been dreaming about since I was last in Ireland four years ago. Poached eggs, bacon, toast. Done.

After that, we wandered around a little more and that is when the theme of our time in Dublin presented itself: magic. Seriously. As my sense of direction has improved dramatically since being abroad (believe it.), I was put in charge of the map. So I'm looking at it, trying to figure out what fun things there are to see in the area, and I see that Dublin Castle should be somewhere nearby - probably only a few blocks away. As we're looking at the map, this very nice Irish girl - who is clearly in a hurry - walks by and asks if we need directions. We decline because we think we have a good idea of where we're going. Turns out the Dublin Castle was literally 20 feet away. We wanted to see it. Bam. It appears. Just a few hours later, we're sitting in another restaurant so one of the other girls can eat lunch and I say offhandedly, "I really want to find this place called the Porterhouse; it's supposed to be amazing." Morgan replies, "You mean that place right there?" And points out the window. Holy shit. It's right across the street. This sort of thing happened multiple times. I'm telling you - Ireland is a magical and wondrous place, where beer and castles appear out of nowhere. I want to move there.

Now that I've introduced the Porterhouse, here follows an account of three of the greatest pubs in existence. The Porterhouse, The Brazen Head Inn, and The Temple Bar.

The Porterhouse:

• Dublin's first pub brewery.
• Located in Temple Bar. 
• It's like a five stories tall.
• Hard to find a table around dinnertime. They don't take your name down. You have to pounce as soon as one opens up. Competitive Liz may have emerged. We got a table. Nobody got hurt.
• Two words: Oyster. Stout. Yeah, I got adventurous. Yeah, it was amazing. Best beer of my life? Quite possibly.
• Additional three words: Oxtail. Pot. Pie. 
• There were potatoes aplenty. And cabbage. 
• I could have stayed in the Porterhouse for the entire trip and been happy. Drink, eat, talk, drink more, eat more, you know. 

The Brazen Head Inn:

• Officially Ireland's oldest pub. Founded 1198.
• The building that houses it now is really young, though. Built in 1668.
• Hangout for badasses like Wolfe Tone, Oliver Bond, and Robert Emmet.
• Michael Collins and other leaders of the War of Independence gathered there too. 
• For beer, they have all the winners - Guinness, Harp, Smithwick's. 
• I had traditional Irish stew for dinner. Lamb, chunks of potatoes and vegetables. 

The Temple Bar:

• Located (obviously) in Temple Bar.
• Classic pub with several bars within it. 
• Super friendly people. 
• Their food menu is awesome - oysters, Irish cheese plates, etc. 
• They have a hundred different sandwiches on their menu. I ordered the Irish Christmas Sandwich - turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce. Easily the best sandwich of my life. Easily.
• Best part of the Temple Bar - I was finally reunited with my beloved Bulmer's. Got myself a pint because I'm actually legal in Ireland this time around. And it felt so good. 

So that's the roundup of my favorite pubs ever ever ever. Other highlights of Dublin included the National Leprechaun Museum, the Guinness Storehouse (really, really cool. You get to see how it's made AND get a free pint at the end. There is really nothing better than Guinness straight from the tap at the place where it's made.), and Saint Patrick's Cathedral, which is absolutely gorgeous. I also went pubbing with my friend Renee from Rice and she introduced me to the most delicious shot on the face of the planet - the baby Guinness. It's just Kaluha in a shot glass with Bailey's poured on top so that it looks like a tiny Guinness. Try it at home. Please.

Pictures!

At the Gravity Bar in the Guinness Storehouse.

Fall Break Odyssey, part I - Barcelona.

Fall break kicked off bright and early last Friday with our 7:30 am flight (the latest flight of the entire trip, by the way) from Rome to Barcelona. Right off the bat I learned a lesson. Flying the cheapest airline out of the cheap airport at the cheapest time is not always a good idea. To get to Rome Ciampino airport, located on the very fringes of civilization, one must take a taxi. Riding in Roman taxis is exhilarating, but they cost lotsa money. The other fun aspect of flying cheap airlines is how strictly the enforce carry-on sizes. My bag for the entire nine day journey had to fit within RyanAir's tiny allotted dimensions, which meant I was re-wearing all of my clothes at least once. Minor drawbacks both, but I felt they needed to be mentioned. 

Anyway, BARCELONA. I didn't get the chance to travel here when I was in Spain a few years ago, so I was glad to have the opportunity to visit a new city/region. The best part was actually speaking the language of the country I was in for once. Granted their official language is Catalán, which is weird as hell and nothing like Spanish, but most people there speak Spanish as well, so I was fine. It was reassuring how easily I fell back into speaking it, and my friend Julie (who is Mexican) and I had a great time prattling back and forth to each other in Spanish. We stayed in a nice hostel in a quieter neighborhood outside the city center but with super easy access to their underground system. The five of us were in an eight bed dorm with three other (less than classy) American girls and unfortunately had to use co-ed hall bathroom. It was a little inconvenient, but at least everything was clean. 

The first day was cloudy and rainy, so we took the opportunity to just relax at our hostel and have a long lunch (9 euros for three courses!) before we finally dragged our lazy butts out to the city center at night. We cruised down Las Ramblas, which is a famous shopping and dining street in Barcelona and had a gelato while observing some really great human statues. We also discovered St. Joseph Market, which is a huge open-air market where vendors sell beautiful fruits and vegetables, nuts, chocolates, fish, meat, fresh juices, and anything else you could want. Pretty sure I was drooling all over my camera as I was snapping pictures of everything, especially the fruits. They were absolutely perfect. I wanted to eat all of them at once.

The cathedral in Barcelona is cool, as is Las Ramblas, and the St. Joseph Market, but by far the highlight of my three days in Barcelona was the afternoon and evening I spent with Ashley, one of my good friends from high school (and elementary school) who I hadn't seen since we graduated. We met up at 11 am, walked to a café where we talked for two and a half hours, then walked around the city and talked some more. We went down to the sea and did some browsing at a little market there, people watched, and just walked. We then wandered around until we found the Gothic Quarter, which I really liked. I've decided I prefer Gothic architecture to the Baroque style you see all over Rome. It's a lot more detailed and less pretentious in my opinion. In the evening, Ashley took me to this awesome tavern near Plaza Catalunya that had the biggest, most delicious (and strongest) sangria I've ever had. There we proceeded to talk for yet another three hours over our huge glasses and patates braves and garlic bread. I love how easy it is to talk to true friends, regardless of how long you've been apart. And the best part is that I convinced Ashley to come visit me in Rome over Thanksgiving weekend. Yay company! 

The other little (by which I mean enormous) highlight of Barcelona was my pilgrimage to the FC Barcelona futbol stadium, where Julie, our friend Morgan and I did the Camp Nou Experience. Our tickets got us into the club's museum, which was beautiful and state of the art. It really gives you an idea of the insane amount of money this organization has. There were hundreds of trophies, jerseys and spikes from the first years of the club's existence, interactive smartboards that let you watch a certain goal from a certain year or read about one a certain player. The place really had everything. In spite of myself, I did rush through the museum just so I could get out into the stadium. We walked through the visitor locker rooms, the media area, and down the tunnel until we were on the ground level, right next to the Barcelona dugout. Very cool experience, even if the security guard didn't let me touch the grass. Jerk.

Journeyproud.

Today is going to be crazy. It kind of already has been. I got up extra early this morning, had a cappuccino downstairs (our coffee guy now knows we like cinnamon in our cappuccinos, so we don't even have to ask anymore. win.), and walked to school. It took me a full half hour to check in for all my flights for fall break. Apparently RyanAir's check-in process isn't exactly streamlined. By the time 8:50 rolled around it was time to head to class, but after 10 minutes of sitting there we find out from the weird kid (who somehow has the prof's phone number) that class is canceled. So after another hour of somewhat frenzied planning and booking and reserving, I'm now sitting on the roof terrace of AUR and sort of studying for my Italian midterm this afternoon. My history class was canceled for today too, but I actually had prior warning from that professor. On the bright side, I'm excited for fall break. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Barcelona, then Dublin, then London. I'm meeting up with old friends in all three cities, so I'm really excited. There was a slight crisis last night during which I tried to check in for my Barcelona flight only to find out that somehow my payment hadn't gone through and I didn't have a reservation at all. So $200 later, I now have the flight I thought I had in the first place and the day was saved.

Anyways, I won't be posting much (if at all) this next week, but I'll keep a journal while I'm traveling so I won't forget anything and will have TONS to blog about when I get back next Sunday. Let the adventures begin.

Currywurst.

One last glimpse of Berlin. No words necessary.

Ich bin ein Berliner.

East Side Gallery.

   I'm tired. Berlin was really cool, but damn if it didn't wear me out. We were only there for two days since Alex and I both have really busy weeks coming up -- I'm just two midterms and one art class away from fall break. Although after this weekend, the prospect of 10 days of travel (Barcelona, Dublin and London) seems rather daunting. Oh first world problems. So yes - Berlin was cool. I'm not sure what I was expecting it to be like, but it definitely wasn't like any other city I've seen so far. Come to think of it, we booked this trip so last minute and last week was so crazy that I don't even think I had time to form any expectations. I just sort of found myself in Berlin at 1 a.m. Friday morning.

 Our hotel was an awesome bargain - only 68 euros apiece for three nights. It was in a quiet neighborhood, very close to a main metro stop. But I swear the moment we stepped into our room we went straight back to 1975. Specifically, a yacht from 1975. Picture blue carpeting, dark wood panelling around the beds, a dark wooden ceiling in the tiny (although private - such a luxury) bathroom and a super old school TV, radio, and bedside lamp. The overall effect was unmistakable, if at first a little sketchy.
The hallway on our floor didn't have lights for some reason, so it was hard not to think of all the horror movies that start with a dark hotel corridor, but after the first night it was more funny than frightening. Thank God for iPhone flashlight apps, though. Overall the place was nice enough for two poor college students, even if we did keep our socks on at all times. But there were clean sheets and the beds were pretty comfy, so I was satisfied. It's not like we spent any real time there anyway. We spent most of the trip in museums, walking to museums, or taking the underground to museum. There are a lot of really great things about Berlin, but their public transportation system is the best of all. Having an underground system that was easy for (urban-challenged) people like me to understand AND ran on time made the trip so much better. We were only there for two days, so we didn't have time to be lost or confused like we constantly are in Rome. Additionally, Berliners seem to have a much better sense of appropriate personal space than Romans. That was nice.
                                   
Our Berlin weekend was dominated by museums. The city has a million of them, so we only made it to a tiny percentage - the Pergamon Museum, the Neues National Gallery (which was sadly under construction), the Jewish Museum, and the East Side Gallery (which is really just a stretch of wall, but it counts). The Pergamon Museum was really cool because there was a temporary installation that was this huge panorama of what the ancient metropolis looked like. Their permanent exhibition has thousands of artifacts and statues and a huge altar that they've reconstructed inside the museum, so you can see it, walk on it, sit on it and feel like an ancient Pergamonian. Sort of. It was also nice because the ticket lady gave Alex and me the student discount even though one of us (not me) forgot our student ID. 

The Jewish Museum was really good too, even though we only had about two hours to see it. It was especially interesting for me after taking a Jewish history class at Rice last spring, so I could actually make connections and learn something instead of just walking around and looking at stuff like I usually do in museums. The one downfall of the Jewish Museum is its architecture. Really cool to look at from the outside, but there were a lot of zig zags and turns and the exits weren't clearly labeled, so it was like trying to get out of a maze. 
Saturday morning we took the metro out to the East Side Gallery, my second favorite part of the whole trip. The "gallery" is a stretch of the Berlin wall that's just under a mile long that's been painted by all these different artists. It was so nice to just stroll along the wall on a cold morning, drinking coffee and looking at some really cool art. We ate our blueberry muffins at a pleasant spot along the river and Alex even got her passport stamped a little shop (since they never stamp your passport at airports anymore). 
My favorite part of the trip was finally meeting Gudrun, my Aunt Pam's friend who I've been hearing about my whole life. She lives up to the hype. She and her family had us over for "kaffeeklatsch," which including coffee, cakes, and conversation. It was so pleasant to sit in their adorable house in a quiet part of East Berlin (that looked like it could have been West U in Houston) and just talk. Gudrun and her husband Hansjorg both speak English really well, and their children (who are only 8 and 11) are also well on their way to being fluent already. The thing that struck me most was a lot of the similarities between Gudrun and Pam, which made me like her that much more. Her intelligence, her huge garden, and the books that were scattered all over her house all reminded me of my aunt. We ended the evening by taking a walk to a little castle nearby, and it was nice to walk outside without the chaos that you get in Rome. 
Alex and I went straight to bed after Gudrun drove us back to our hotel, but the combination of caffeine and stress over getting to the airport alone the next morning kept me up all night. I may have gotten 30 minutes of sleep. Maybe. So by the time 4 a.m. rolled around, I was just ready to get up and go. We checked out, called two separate cabs and were on our way. I still feel really stupid for not realizing we book flights out of different airports. The best part was that Alex's flight was 50 dollars cheaper and HER flight left on time. Mine was delayed an hour and a half for pretty much no reason. So by the time I got back to the apartment it was noon. Such is the life of a jet-setting study abroad student I guess. I did wake up on the plane long enough to snap a picture of the alps, though. That was a cheerful little moment.

More from the East Side Gallery:

these are a few of my favorite things

I haven't had a bad tomato since I've been in Italy. They are always perfect.

And they make perfect pizzas like this one.

Dark chocolate and mint gelato in old Trastevere at night. 

Water fountains all over the city that run with cold water from one of the surrounding mountains.

The view from the terrace at AUR where I eat lunch every day.

Art that actually speaks to people like me who don't understand art.

snuffles talks soccer.

Somehow, despite excessive amounts of Vitamin C and positive thinking, I've managed to get sick. I'm a little stressed out about Berlin (by the way, I'm going to Berlin tomorrow) and school, and I'm just plain tired, so motivation to blog has been hard to come by these past two days. I have a philosophy midterm tomorrow which should be interesting. And I realized this morning that Alex and I booked different flights coming back to Rome from Berlin early Sunday morning. They both leave at 7:15am, just at different airports. Oh boy.

[Sidebar]: Apparently my body thinks it's funny to get sick the day AFTER I make a delicious pot of hot chicken soup. What the hell, man.











In older news, the Roma vs Lazio game was insane. Stadio Olimpico was packed, and the entire experience was unlike any sporting event you will ever attend in the United States. First of all, history major Liz was going crazy over all the fascist statues and symbols around the outside of the stadium - pretty much talking Alex's ear off until I realized she really didn't give a crap. Also, the stadium was big, but not as big as I had expected, so we had a surprisingly good view of the pitch. The ultra - and even the regular fans - definitely lived up to their reputations. They were lighting things on fire, setting off smoke bombs, and throwing things at the field when the game took a turn for the worse. (Fun fact: in Italy, whistling is the preferred method of expressing disapproval. I was so confused at first as to why the Roma fans were whistling for Lazio, but then I figured out whistling is like booing. Weird.) I really wish I spoke more Italian so I could understand/join in with their songs and chants. Although I did find myself gesturing like an Italian by the end of the first half and yelling Italian profanities at the ref. What can I say? It's fun.

We also had an interesting halftime experience when the bald Italian man sitting in front of us (and his son and daughters and eventually everyone else in our little section) took an interest in the American girls and started trying to play matchmaker between Alex and what we believed to be a Hungarian boy. Between our limited Italian and everyone else's limited English, the only words we deciphered were "atomic bomb" and "top-shelf chocolate." Although in hindsight that really doesn't make much sense.

We didn't stay to the end of the game, since getting caught in a mob of angry Roma fans - one that was about to clash with a bunch of celebrating Lazio fans - didn't seem like the best idea for us. On the bright side, we got to ride on uncrowded metro lines, had time to stop for gelato during our hike down Via del Corso, and were in bed by midnight. Baby's first Serie A match = Success.