Dublin, Dublin

Another title explanation: my roomie, Laura, swears that she knows a song that goes "Dublin, Dublin, let me in, you don't care about the shape I'm in..." or something along those lines. If this rings a bell to you, please let me know, we've been googling it for months. It maybe London, London, actually, but either way. 

And a few things I forgot about Madrid:

First, I saw these two awesome restaurants - so I felt very well represented - my two homes!

These restaurants are the only reason that Spanish people would even know the names of these states.

Second, Justin Bieber continued to stalk me.

I understand, Justin, you just want there to be one less lonely girl - but it would be illegal

First he was in Paris when I was, then in Berlin, then in Madrid. Honestly. I was afraid he would also be in Dublin, but fortunately he had made his way through there a week or so before. I think I've finally escaped. Now if I could just escape Rihanna...

But back to Dublin. We arrived in the evening on Thursday and took a bus into town, and (eventually) found our hostel. It was right off Camden Street, which has tons of restaurants and pubs and whatnot. I don't remember anything about where we went to eat - as far as I can remember we didn't actually end up doing anything that night. One of the staff at the hostel advised us to go out, because we wouldn't be able to sleep with the sound of the pub-goers anyway, and she was right. Oh vell. The next morning we went on a free tour of Dublin and saw lots of cool stuff. 

Lady Liberty - differences = sword raised, she's not blind, scales are slightly off balance

The top was added later by the English (I think) to make the castle look more medieval. Ha.

Lego Dublin!

Most haunted place in Dublin - a madam (brothel owner) was burned here after being accused of being a witch by her baby-daddy (the chief of police)

Dublinia!

There's always a pigeon on this guy's head

Beautiful and giant park

Extremely delicious (mine's on the right, it's called a coffee slice)

Bahahahaha

 After going on the tour we got lunch in a diner and stopped by the hostel again. Then we went out to find some dessert and do some shopping, which ended up being kind of a bust, because everywhere we looked was too expensive or closed. But the snacking went well. We ate our desserts (above) in a park at Trinity College, which closed while we were inside because of the massive ball they were having that night. Sadly, we were not able to sneak in. U2 has played it before, if that gives you any idea how huge this thing is.

That night we went and ate at a restaurant outside of a movie theater and partially celebrated Laura's birthday, which was actually the next day. Then we pub-hopped a little. The first place we went was a pub with traditional Irish music being played by two guys, and it was amazing! It was really a lot of fun, and the whole bar was into it. The next place we went was another place with live music, but this time more like rock, and the place was packed! We kept scooching closer and getting jostled around a lot, but it was a lot of fun. I can't remember if we went to one more after that, but I ended up splintering off from the group and going back to the hostel, à cause de being sick. Then I played some connect-four with the guy working the night shift at the hostel. It was pretty hilarious.

Saturday morning they fed us pancakes at the hostel! It was sooo nice to have pancakes again. Crêpes, although delicious, are just not the same. From there we checked out and hopped on a train to Howth, on the coast of Ireland. It was incredibly beautiful and perfect weather for a hike. Words, nor pictures, can describe how great it was. But don't you worry, I have pictures. And words, I suppose.

Howth

Variations in focus

Different hikes to take

Climbing around

I'm over here!

This is my normal smile

Seagulls nesting

Beautiful

Yeller

After our hike we had to head back to the train station and then leave Ireland. On our walk back we ran into a man wrapping up some freshly-picked wildflowers and he chatted with us. He asked where we were all from, and knew something about each city. When I said I was from Nebraska he said, "Oh, Omaha. Never heard of it." He was a silly man. He told us where we could find the flowers he had picked (they were really pretty), but sadly, we did not have the time. We did stop to get some ice cream, however, which was delicious. We then went back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and hopped on a bus to the airport for more RyanAir time. This time our fight was with French high schoolers instead of Spanish. Even more annoying.

We got to Nice kind of late and, mostly because of an evil (I may be exaggerating) parking lot worker we missed the last 1 euro bus. When we did get close to the vielle ville (old city, around 11pm), where our hostel was, we were all happy to see that restaurants were still open. We went to our hostel (terrible, terrible place) to drop off the luggage, and then had some pizza at a nearby place. Followed, of course, by Fennochio gelato. Then we found a really cool bar with more live music to further celebrate Laura's 20th birthday. A random French guy started chatting her up, too. The next day was more gelato and our train back to Cannes - finally home!

Real Madrid

I hope you understand my very punny title. But, I'm going to explain it, just to make sure that I get my fair kudos from you for being witty. Or not. I guess you can decide that. Anyway, Real Madrid is the soccer team in Madrid - Real meaning Royal in Spanish. This blog,  however, is not about soccer, but about what Madrid is really like. For the Madrileños. Or as close as I could come to being one, given that I'm an American who speaks no Spanish...

From Berlin, we arrived in Spain at around 11 a.m., if I'm remembering correctly. We weren't meeting Kelly at her apartment, where we all were staying, until 2 p.m., and we desperately wanted food. So, after finally figuring out where the metro was (it went all the way to the airport! But we had to walk through most of the airport to get to it) we hopped on and got off at Sol - the area that we had heard was the young, popular area to hang out with a bunch of restaurants and bars and whatnot. So, we plopped down at a random restaurant, not really thinking about how it takes a good two hours to eat in Spain, and how by the time we got there it was already 12:45 or so. So, because I am inept at using my phone card and couldn't make a collect call to her, I ended up wolfing down my lunch and running off to meet her outside the La Latina metro station. The girls followed a little later. So, see if you can think this through properly, because I hadn't. Kelly lives in a one-bedroom apartment by herself, and there were four of us visiting Madrid. See the problem? Poor Kelly (A MILLION thank yous to Kelly, because she took us places, introduced us to people, and let us sleep with her) had invited us to basically take up half of her apartment and even share her bed(s) (futons) with us. But without her we would have been so lost as to what to do - she really made the trip amazing. And free housing is always a bonus. (It's too bad that I was also sick as a dog at this point, and probably spent the nights coughing and waking everyone up.)

We pretty much just chilled the rest of the day, because we were all exhausted from getting up at 4:30 and flying and carrying luggage. So Kelly took us out that night to have some tapas and meet one of her friends on a rooftop café, where we ended up actually sitting inside and having the only vegetarian thing that exists in Spain (minus in the veggie restaurants). This thing is known as a tortilla, but not the Mexican kind that we're used to in the U.S. A tortilla in Spain is an omelet with potatoes in it. Quite tasty, though. And that was our Monday, because after that we just went to bed. It was heavenly.

Warning: henceforth this all may be completely jumbled.

Tuesday morning we went to the Real (again, Royal, I was confused by this at first) Botanical gardens after deciding that the line for the Prado was too long and after discovering the Reina Sofia is closed Tuesdays. It was incredibly beautiful. And there were cute little Spanish children. And you know how I (non-creepily) love children.

Another warning: photos of flowers make up the majority of the photos I have of Madrid. Apologies.

Madrid!

Some flowers in the Botanical Garden!

A close-up of said flowers!

Another close-up of a different flower!

A strange looking flower!

CHILDREN! (note cute backpacks)

Real (Royal) Botanical Gardens!

Cool statue!

Big trees!

Something growing on a tree!

As you can see, I learned a lot from the gardens. Afterward, we went back to Kelly's where she made us a delicious lunch! It was an Indian dish, cooked with a cheese very similar to paneer and it was excellent. Laura helped! We left her all alone in the apartment for a bit while the rest of us ran down to the store.

So, I'm trying to keep my story straight, and it's getting difficult, because a great deal of what we did in Madrid was hang out at cafés. Which day, which café? I'm unsure. Here are some more pictures.

Sipping on a roof-top café

More sipping

Entrance to the café - it was a very old building now converted into a library

Stairs

So, if I recall correctly, after that café (in the photos), where we met Kelly's language exchange partner, we were walking around and ran into some people that work at her school with her. So we sat down and chatted with them for a while. Then they went to see a play, and we went to another café to meet another one of her Spanish friends. Who also brought a friend. The night was a delightful mix of English and Spanish, with occasional French (and even Italian?) thrown in. Then we went to the place next door to have some dinner at around 11 p.m. or so, which consisted, for me, of a tortilla sandwich with some "spicy" sauce on it (Europeans don't understand spicy, except that one time in Paris I had incredibly spicy arrabiata sauce), and some fries. Delish. And cheap. And then we went to a bar to meet up with the people that had gone to the play several hours earlier. It was some really fantastic café-hopping, if I do say so myself.

Wednesday we went to the Reina Sofia, arguably the most difficult museum to get around. Except maybe the Louvre. The two sides are completely separate, so you have to go up a different elevator to get to different exhibitions on the same floor. Perplexing. However, there were some Joan Mirós and some Picasso, including Guernica. There was also a really interesting photo exhibit about the Worker Photography Movement from 1926-1939. The artists were from all over Europe, but I think mainly German and Russian. Some of the images were really heart-breaking - similar to looking at images from the Great Depression in the United States à la Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, etc., etc.

Oh mon dieu! But how could I forget to mention what we did Wednesday morning?! We had chocolate con churros. YUMMMMMM. Forever yum. Infinity yum. Here's the low down on chocolate con churros for those who have never had the pleasure of eating it - it's hot chocolate, and I'm not talking Swiss Miss, thin, drinkable hot chocolate. I'm talking about the Italian-style stuff or Chocolat-style stuff, if you will remember back to my post about Florence. The difference is that this isn't really even the kind of hot chocolate you'd want to attempt to drink, because it isn't super sweet. You dip the churros (not sugared/cinnamoned, like in the US) into the hot chocolate. Then devour. So, we we're brought out four hot chocolates and a giant plate of freshly fried churros. My hands were super greasy. I got chocolate all over my legs not once, but twice. And a bird pooped on my head. But it was so worth it.

Deliciosity

Terrible photo - but you must go here if you go to Madrid (Chocolateria San Gines)

Garden in the Reina Sofia

After the Reina Sofia we wandered around and ended up in a giant park, just lazing around and eating ice cream until going to find food. We had a late lunch (late for Spain, even, because it was at about 4 p.m. or 5) and then went to check out a market that we had noticed the night before. After buying some choice items, and lounging around by a pond and statue of Cervantès, we headed back to meet up with Kelly and finished our day by going to a vegetarian restaurant. I had some delicious ratatouille and couscous. Then we went to a bar, and I think that was actually it for the evening.

Thursday was our final day in Madrid, and I think we we're all sad to see it go. We got up and went to Sol for the last time, and met up with one of Emily's friends, Danielle, who's studying in Madrid. I had some pancakes for the first time in forever! After our mid-morning breakfast/lunch, we went to an ENORMOUS store, where they had pretty much anything you could ever want, and did a little bit of shopping. Then we needed to get back to Kelly's to retrieve our luggage and make our way to the airport, all hoping that we could make it through RyanAir's carry-on bag standards (spoiler: we did! both times!)

Alas, Madrid, we miss you, your atmosphere, your cafés, your friendliness... and your tortilla. Send some to Cannes, s'il te plaît. Grathiath.