For my entire life I have always been interested in Ireland and have wanted to visit there. My background is 75% Irish which is where the initial interest came from. I wanted to make it over there last time I was studying abroad but was unable to make it there. This time around I knew I wanted to go and I wanted to do it right. I was able to spend an entire week in Ireland bopping around to different cities from the North to the South. I did most of Ireland by myself which definitely had its ups and downs about it as traveling alone does. It was really cool to be somewhere that I had such a connection to and interest in by myself so that I could really pay attention to the way I was feeling and how I was absorbing the new places I was experiencing. I started out in Northern Ireland in Belfast, made my way down to Cork, and then ended the Irish travels in the infamous Dublin. The only place I did not get to go and will have to make it to in the future is Gallway.
I was nervous about going to Belfast because I was going to be alone and the last time I traveled alone on this trip, nothing turned out the way I had planned it. I remember waking up one morning in London after we had gone out the night before and had to check my e-mail to make sure I hadn't dreamed taht I booked my flight and hostel in Belfast. I was delighted to see that although I had had several drinks in me I booked my Belfast trip accurately and happened to pick one of the best hostels in the UK. I stayed at a hostel called Vagabonds and it had a similar homey and welcoming feeling to that at Jetpak Alternative in Berlin and to Carpe Noctem in Budapest. I was so thrilled to be staying at a place like this because it was easy to meet people by myself. Originally I had not planned to go to Belfast, but along the way I talked to several people who had been to Ireland already and talked about how great Belfast is and how there is loads of history packed into this city. I'm so glad that I decided to go. During my first night in Belfast, I discovered that I actually love Guinness. I previously believed that I don't like dark beers, let alone Guinness but I went to a pub recommended by the hostel for dinner and decided, When in Ireland...I better have a Guinness. I basically did not stop drinking Guinness from that night until I left Ireland. The next day I did a highly recommended Black taxi tour of Belfast. It's called the Black Taxi tour because during the "troubles" in Northern Ireland that spanned (officially) from 1969-1994 in West Belfast in the Catholic side of town they were not allowed to use busses, so Catholics that drove cabs would use their black taxi cabs as busses for the Catholic people in this neighborhood. It was so interesting learning about all of the conflict that has plagued this part of Ireland and the sacrifice and violence that the people have been coping with for so long. It was baffling to me to still see a "peace wall" up in a modern city. Over and over again, I would have conversations with Irish people talking about the conflict and they would all say in the end they have no idea what all of the fighting is for. Religion defines the people that live in Northern Ireland and the people living there can tell your religion just from looking at you. It was very interesting driving around in West Belfast because I could feel the turmoil that the city had endured. After the taxi tour I walked up to the Belfast castle which was a tiny little thing, but beautiful and from the gardens the view of Belfast was gorgeous. In the gardens there are several cat sculptures and statues because at the Belfast castle they believe it is the cat of good fortune and whoever visits the gardens will have good fortune as long as a cat remains in the gardens. I enjoyed a snack at the tavern inside the castle and had the most delicious Irish coffee I've ever tasted. I swear Ireland has the BEST signature beverages.
The next day I decided to go on a day trip tour up the Northern coast and to Giant's Causeway. The drive along the Northern coast was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I have never seen green look so good. It is SO green everywhere on the countryside in Ireland. It is true though that it rains all of the time. But it is strange because it doesn't rain all day it just rains for parts of the day. They truly have four seasons in one day in Ireland. During my day trip I saw - snow, rain, and sunshine. On this tour we rode a bus and our first stop was at the famous rope bridge called Carrick-a-Rede that is connecting two large cliffs. The views were stunning of the surrounding cliffs here and I could see Scotland from across the water as well. However, it was FREEZING cold, snowing, and windy on the walk down to the bridge. I had my face buried in my scarf. Before we actually got to Giant's Causeway we got to visit the oldest Whiskey distillery - Bushmills. Once we finally got to Giant's Causeway, somehow the clouds parted and it was sunny and beautiful outside. Giant's Causeway is a collection of basaltic rock columns on the water that was created from a historical volcanic eruption in this area of Ireland. The columns form what looks like steps and are shaped in column/rock like hills. It was an amazing sight to see. The most amazing part about seeing this was hiking up the "steps" and watching the waves crash against the front of the rock columns at my feet. Looking out into the endless sea and back at the columns and columns of rocks formations, I just laughed to myself at how gorgeous a sight it was and at how much in awe I was that I was there at this historical wonder in Northern Ireland.
After Belfast, I made my way all the way down to Cork that is on the Southern Coast of Ireland. The small town of Cork was bustling with Christmas spirit and Irish cheer. I took a day trip in Cork as well and got to kiss the Blarney stone at Blarney Castle. It is said that if you kiss the Blarney stone you get the gift of the gab for 7 years, so hopefully I acquired this gift. I had to hike to the top of the castle and at the top was a little old Irish man who holds you while you lay on your back and stretch your head down and kiss the blarney stone. Besides kissing the stone, I walked around the gardens which were glowing green, stunning, and pristine. There was a poison garden as well that contained poison plants that they used in the Harry Potter books. During this day trip we were taken to two very small coastal towns in Southern Ireland called Cobh and Kinsal. Both were very quaint and had little houses that were brightly colored all stacked one next to the other. I was happy to be able to see some small towns in Ireland because I had heard the charm of the Irish towns is lost a little bit in the bigger main cities that I was primarily visiting and it still is very much alive in all of the tiny towns.
Dublin was the last stop in Ireland and it was a blast. Dublin is a really cool city and there are people partying at all times of the day seven days a week. We went on a pub crawl our first night there and went to the pub that is in PS - I love you. I love the feel of pubs. There is more often than not, live traditional Irish music being played, everyone is laughing with their close friends and the lighting is dim and cozy. I also got to play beer pong again at one of the pubs and, of course, won! The next day we wandered around the city and it was so windy I thought I was going to be blown away but we trekked through and went to the famous old prison there called, Kilmainham. It was amazing seeing an ancient prison like you see in movies. It was also very interesting to learn about the history of the prison and how so many crucial Irish revolutionist leaders were imprisoned and some executed in the prison. It was cool to see famous names on plaques above the cells. It was also eerie looking inside at the dark cold cells and at the original graffiti that the prisoners wrote or drew themselves. On our last day we went to the Guinness brewery and the highlight of the tour was the Gravity bar at the very top. It is a beautiful 360 view of the city of Dublin with just glass windows all around. We ended up sitting with two British ladies who were celebrating one of their 60th birthdays. One of them lives in London and the other lives in Santa Barbara and said they have been best friends for years and have traveled together several times. Laura tapped me and said that is going to be like us in years to come :)
It was very sad hugging Laura goodbye on Wednesday night. It is crazy how close we have become and how much we both have shared and now know about each other. The length and amount of time that we spent together is more than I have done with anyone else. After I walked away from her it was really hard to fight back tears. As I walked away from her so many thoughts clouded my mind and I felt like I wasn't walking in my body, everything stood still because the realization of the fact that this life changing trip was over sunk in. So much was put into the planning and preparation for this trip and we have seen so much together. Sitting here now it feels like it was a dream, yet at the same time I can't imagine my life without having gone on this trip. It was one of those things that despite all of the things that went wrong on the trip, from before I left, throughout the entire trip, and then now as I'm reflecting back, I knew that I was doing the right thing. I knew that I was meant to travel instead of anything else in the world at that point in time. Each place we went to felt right and I felt like I was supposed to be there. It was a foreign feeling to me because normally there are always doubts about decisions and about our paths in life. I have no regrets about this trip and so while I miss being in Europe already so much, I also feel content. I know that it is time for the next chapter and I am excited to see what is ahead. As well, I have already thought through where my next trip is going to be to....and the one after that :)
I'm going to keep up this blog although of course it will drastically change because I am not longer traveling in foreign countries. However, there were things that I have wanted to reflect on about my trip that I wasn't really able to do given my limited internet and computer access. If you're interested then you can check back and read if you'd like and it will be at this same address! I hope that whoever out there has been reading this has enjoyed it and I appreciate that you have read about my rambling thoughts.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Art and expression at its finest
Berlin and Paris are probably two of the most alike and opposite cities at the same time. After several short trips we took two longer trips to Berlin for five days and then to Paris for five days. I have been to both of these cities before and enjoyed them both as much if not more than I did the first time. Both of these cities are full of history and celebrate art, beauty, and expression of thought. Berlin is known for its crazy and spontaneous activity happening everywhere at all times. We were going out one night and passed by the U bahn station that was filled with people dancing, drinking, and singing. We were heading back to the hostel that night and passed by the same station that was still partying the night away. In Paris you can walk on the Champs Elysee and find groups of dancers break dancing in unison or go to the steps of Sacre Coeur and listen to the beautiful voices of various performers. In both of these cities you will have incredible and unique experiences and see art and beauty in forms like you never have before.
In Berlin, we were lucky enough to have a similar hostel experience to that of Budapest. We walk into the hostel at 10am after traveling for 15 hours from Bruge on 5 different sketchy trains spending three hours from 1am to 4am in some random city in Germany, and we are greeted with the hilarious and quirky Julian. We had told the hostel that one of us would be arriving the night before around midnight. This did not work out as the train that I was going to catch was full but we were unable to notify the hostel of this. So Julian at 10am tells us how he didn't get to sleep last night because of our tardiness and how he thought I was lost wandering around Berlin somewhere and that we should have contacted them somehow. Let's just say, we weren't off to the greatest start at Jetpak Alternative hostel. After a little sleep and some shopping around we arrived back at the hostel to a room full of all of the guests playing cards and sipping on beers. We were greeted warmly and instantly fit in with the Jetpak crew. We had the most fun hostel room that we have had yet on this trip. It was full of six hilarious Australian boys and then Laura and I. One was a spastic, friendly, Doug loving, architecture pursuing mate from Sydney. His name is Sean and he has the most unique accent and funniest expressions. He would march around our room drunk searching for his sleeping pants and get worked up when "chaos" was occurring in our room. One was like a real life version of Crocodile Dundee who would wear the shortest little rugby shorts and come home from a night out snapping ugly photos of all of us yelling "Oi!". Each one of the roommates was a necessary and great addition to the best Jetpak hostel room. We spent our last day walking around in a group of ten of us to a delicious coffee shop that had the most amazing cheesecake that I have ever tasted. It melted in my mouth. After, we all went to the East Side Gallery which is a long wall full of painting after painting by different artists. It was amazing seeing so much street art in Berlin which is all very thought provoking. Some of the themes of the paintings at this gallery were love, war, religion, sexuality, travel, and many many more. I wish that I was artistically talented in any way because it is so amazing seeing someone express themselves in this way. I couldn't understand every piece of art that I saw and I wanted so badly to talk to the person who created it just to know what was going on in their mind. On our first day in Berlin we went on an Alternative walking tour which took us to a bunch of areas in Berlin that have amazing street art and famous graffiti works. We also went to Tacheles which is a massive and famous artist squat in this massive building and piece of land. We learned that it used to be bustling with tons of people and artists and there used to be a beach bar in the back, a cinema, live music, bars all at this spot. In March or April the city of Berlin decided to take it over and tear it down. There are several artist groups working together to try to save the building and preserve it. I feel so lucky to have seen this building still as an authentic artist squat and to walk around in the building and feel how much the building has been through and how much has happened there. I hope by some miracle they are able to beat the city in their actions to tear it down. On the walking tour we learned about several groups of graffiti artists that place their "logos" all over the city. There is one called 1Up after the Super Mario game. It was funny to see the 1Up all over Berlin after doing this walking tour. I would have never noticed that it was all over the place unless I had done this tour. It was cool to see a city this way instead of doing the basic walking tour to the famous sites. I felt like I really got to experience the character of Berlin through this walking tour.
I learned everything there is to know about the Holocaust time period and the Nazi Germany occupation in Europe in Berlin. There is so much information about this time period in Berlin. It is all over the city and thoroughly depicted in several exhibits and museums all over. We went to the Holocaust memorial that is just rows and rows of blocks of stone and marble that are different heights. This was the second time that I have been to this memorial and it took on a completely different meaning the second time around. It is crazy how much of a difference 5-7 years in age makes. The last time I went to Berlin I was in high school and did not absorb the city in the same way at all. We went to the museum that is at the Holocaust memorial and it is so dense and moving. It first walks through the history of this time period, and then there is a dark room with real letters and poems and excerpts from diaries projected on the floor from the Jews during this time period. Reading the fear and confusion that was running through the minds of all of these people was so horrible. I almost cried reading these letters. Then there is an even darker room that just projects name after name on the wall with dates for the length of their life. Then there is a short excerpt about the life of these people and what they know to have happened to them. I read in that room that it would take six years, seven months, and twenty seven days to read all of the names and brief life stories of all of the known deceased Jews from the Holocaust. Every time we would go to exhibits or museums like this I would leave so angry about how out of hand that time period in history got to be. I'm glad they have so much thorough information about the time period and the happenings of this so that people are aware and so that something like this never happens again.
Overall, Berlin is one of the most unique places that I have been. It is different in its beauty in that I didn't walk around and think that the architecture was amazing and beautiful but it is one of the best places to go to see art everywhere. There are galleries everywhere, there are amazing art exhibits, and tons of museums as well. We also met some of the most fun and hilarious people in Berlin and had such a blast at the hostel. It was difficult to leave Berlin and our goodbye was very sad. But it was also great because we have kept in touch with several of the people that we met. We ended up staying with our friend Sean at his Aunt's apartment in Paris and we are meeting up with two of the other guys in London.
Being back in Paris was such a weird feeling. It truly felt like home. It was so strange walking around and knowing that I had been there several times before for one reason or another. There were so many random places, streets, metro stops that I recognized and I couldn't remember why I had been there before or why I remembered those little details. The beauty of Paris that you see by just walking around and looking at the buildings NEVER gets old for me. Even after traveling to so many amazing cities, I think I would still say that Paris is the most beautiful. It was so fun staying with Sean and his family. His Aunt Isabel was the cutest lady and made us a delicious home cooked meal the first night that we got there. She was trying to get me to speak french with her as much as possible which was really fun getting to use my french again, although I'm pretty rusty. On our first day we went to the Pompidou. It was one of the few museums that I did not go to when I lived that and it is an amazing museum. There is SO much material in this museum. There are several large floors with different time periods and artistic themes. They were also featuring a few artists and we saw the exhibit of one of the featured artists who had painting style similar to Van Gogh. Again in art and paintings it is so interesting seeing the thought process of these people in their unique way. This artist was painting during a time when he had an awful eye injury and the paintings through "those eyes" were so significantly different than his previous ones that you could feel the pain that he was experiencing. On one of the modern art floors I saw a painting that intrigued me because it was just two solid colors on top of each other: red and black. It struck me initially because it actually reminded me of the cover of one of the CDs of a band that my good friends from Mercer Island were in. Then I read about the painting and loved the quote by the artist about this painting, "Color, in all its vibrancy, is the simple expression of a complex thought". The painting took on an entirely different and individual meaning for me after reading this and looking at it for a long period of time. I love how that happens when you look at artwork.
We also went back to Versailles palace on our second day. That palace always shocks me with how much it is drenched in gold. It is such a beautiful palace and has the most elaborate and pristine gardens. We got to celebrate Thanksgiving in Paris and it was the most perfect day. Laura and I went to the Christmas markets and I was like a little kid in a candy store. Paris' Christmas markets are white huts one after the other lined all the way along the Champs Elysee with a Ferris wheel at the very end. There is tons of delicious food and gifts and sparkly Christmas decorations. It was so much fun walking along the Champs Elysee shopping around at the cute little huts. It made me very excited to see my family over the holidays and truly got me in the Christmas spirit. We sipped on mulled wine and crepes and just strolled around and enjoyed the atmosphere. Then we were invited to my friend from high school, John O'meara's Thanksgiving feast that he was hosting at his beautiful apartment in Paris. It was so great to be able to enjoy a delicious traditional Thanksgiving meal with a familiar face. We hung out and caught up all night and got to meet his friends.
Our last day in Paris was my favorite because we did what is the best thing to do while in Paris - walk around. We picked a couple of things we wanted to see and started at the Eiffel Tower and walked through the gardens and took some pictures, then we walked to the Arc de Triomphe and went up to the top and enjoyed the stunning Parisian views. I love the way the streets all shoot out from the Arc de Triomphe and the way the buildings look spiraling out. After that we walked along the Champs Elysee and window shopped since we passed by one high end brand store after the other filled with beautiful belongings that we cannot afford. We walked inward toward the Opera and went into Galleries Lafayette which is decorated so elaborately for the holidays. It was so sad to leave Paris again. However, every time I leave Paris I always know that I will be back someday :)
After Paris we went two hours south to Lyon to visit friends that we met in Budapest. They are studying in Lyon and we decided after we met them to take a weekend trip to visit them! It was such a blast and really cool to see another city in France because we had not planned to travel around in France besides Paris initially. We had a delicious dinner cooked for us by our friend Harrison on our first night in Lyon and enjoyed a fun night out with all of our Lyonnian friends! The night started with Canadian flag temporary tattoos and ended with four of our friends taking a dip in the fountain. It was great to meet up with friends from this trip and it makes me know that they will be friends that I will stay in touch with after this trip ends.
We are now in London and have been here since Monday! The craziest thing is that we are staying with someone that we met over the summer in San Diego while he was traveling around the US and Mexico. He happened to stop our friend Steph while she was running to ask her where to go out in San Diego, which ended up with him and his friends hanging out at my summer house in San Diego. Laura and him have kept in touch and we have been tripping around London with him since we got here. We've spent a lot of time in London just walking around the different neighborhoods. We walked around the first day and saw all of the main sites. Westminster Abby and the Parliment building with Big Ben never cease to amaze me. The architecture of those buildings are so beautiful. We have also met up with two of our other friends from school Jason Cope and Adam Vanni who are both living in London. It has been so great to see familiar faces and to see the kind of life they are living here. We'll be here until Wednesday and then I am going to Belfast and am so so excited to finally get to go to Ireland!! I have been dying to visit Ireland for my entire life. We are going to try to rent a car which could be interesting with the whole driving on the other side of the road and the opposite driver seat.
In Berlin, we were lucky enough to have a similar hostel experience to that of Budapest. We walk into the hostel at 10am after traveling for 15 hours from Bruge on 5 different sketchy trains spending three hours from 1am to 4am in some random city in Germany, and we are greeted with the hilarious and quirky Julian. We had told the hostel that one of us would be arriving the night before around midnight. This did not work out as the train that I was going to catch was full but we were unable to notify the hostel of this. So Julian at 10am tells us how he didn't get to sleep last night because of our tardiness and how he thought I was lost wandering around Berlin somewhere and that we should have contacted them somehow. Let's just say, we weren't off to the greatest start at Jetpak Alternative hostel. After a little sleep and some shopping around we arrived back at the hostel to a room full of all of the guests playing cards and sipping on beers. We were greeted warmly and instantly fit in with the Jetpak crew. We had the most fun hostel room that we have had yet on this trip. It was full of six hilarious Australian boys and then Laura and I. One was a spastic, friendly, Doug loving, architecture pursuing mate from Sydney. His name is Sean and he has the most unique accent and funniest expressions. He would march around our room drunk searching for his sleeping pants and get worked up when "chaos" was occurring in our room. One was like a real life version of Crocodile Dundee who would wear the shortest little rugby shorts and come home from a night out snapping ugly photos of all of us yelling "Oi!". Each one of the roommates was a necessary and great addition to the best Jetpak hostel room. We spent our last day walking around in a group of ten of us to a delicious coffee shop that had the most amazing cheesecake that I have ever tasted. It melted in my mouth. After, we all went to the East Side Gallery which is a long wall full of painting after painting by different artists. It was amazing seeing so much street art in Berlin which is all very thought provoking. Some of the themes of the paintings at this gallery were love, war, religion, sexuality, travel, and many many more. I wish that I was artistically talented in any way because it is so amazing seeing someone express themselves in this way. I couldn't understand every piece of art that I saw and I wanted so badly to talk to the person who created it just to know what was going on in their mind. On our first day in Berlin we went on an Alternative walking tour which took us to a bunch of areas in Berlin that have amazing street art and famous graffiti works. We also went to Tacheles which is a massive and famous artist squat in this massive building and piece of land. We learned that it used to be bustling with tons of people and artists and there used to be a beach bar in the back, a cinema, live music, bars all at this spot. In March or April the city of Berlin decided to take it over and tear it down. There are several artist groups working together to try to save the building and preserve it. I feel so lucky to have seen this building still as an authentic artist squat and to walk around in the building and feel how much the building has been through and how much has happened there. I hope by some miracle they are able to beat the city in their actions to tear it down. On the walking tour we learned about several groups of graffiti artists that place their "logos" all over the city. There is one called 1Up after the Super Mario game. It was funny to see the 1Up all over Berlin after doing this walking tour. I would have never noticed that it was all over the place unless I had done this tour. It was cool to see a city this way instead of doing the basic walking tour to the famous sites. I felt like I really got to experience the character of Berlin through this walking tour.
I learned everything there is to know about the Holocaust time period and the Nazi Germany occupation in Europe in Berlin. There is so much information about this time period in Berlin. It is all over the city and thoroughly depicted in several exhibits and museums all over. We went to the Holocaust memorial that is just rows and rows of blocks of stone and marble that are different heights. This was the second time that I have been to this memorial and it took on a completely different meaning the second time around. It is crazy how much of a difference 5-7 years in age makes. The last time I went to Berlin I was in high school and did not absorb the city in the same way at all. We went to the museum that is at the Holocaust memorial and it is so dense and moving. It first walks through the history of this time period, and then there is a dark room with real letters and poems and excerpts from diaries projected on the floor from the Jews during this time period. Reading the fear and confusion that was running through the minds of all of these people was so horrible. I almost cried reading these letters. Then there is an even darker room that just projects name after name on the wall with dates for the length of their life. Then there is a short excerpt about the life of these people and what they know to have happened to them. I read in that room that it would take six years, seven months, and twenty seven days to read all of the names and brief life stories of all of the known deceased Jews from the Holocaust. Every time we would go to exhibits or museums like this I would leave so angry about how out of hand that time period in history got to be. I'm glad they have so much thorough information about the time period and the happenings of this so that people are aware and so that something like this never happens again.
Overall, Berlin is one of the most unique places that I have been. It is different in its beauty in that I didn't walk around and think that the architecture was amazing and beautiful but it is one of the best places to go to see art everywhere. There are galleries everywhere, there are amazing art exhibits, and tons of museums as well. We also met some of the most fun and hilarious people in Berlin and had such a blast at the hostel. It was difficult to leave Berlin and our goodbye was very sad. But it was also great because we have kept in touch with several of the people that we met. We ended up staying with our friend Sean at his Aunt's apartment in Paris and we are meeting up with two of the other guys in London.
Being back in Paris was such a weird feeling. It truly felt like home. It was so strange walking around and knowing that I had been there several times before for one reason or another. There were so many random places, streets, metro stops that I recognized and I couldn't remember why I had been there before or why I remembered those little details. The beauty of Paris that you see by just walking around and looking at the buildings NEVER gets old for me. Even after traveling to so many amazing cities, I think I would still say that Paris is the most beautiful. It was so fun staying with Sean and his family. His Aunt Isabel was the cutest lady and made us a delicious home cooked meal the first night that we got there. She was trying to get me to speak french with her as much as possible which was really fun getting to use my french again, although I'm pretty rusty. On our first day we went to the Pompidou. It was one of the few museums that I did not go to when I lived that and it is an amazing museum. There is SO much material in this museum. There are several large floors with different time periods and artistic themes. They were also featuring a few artists and we saw the exhibit of one of the featured artists who had painting style similar to Van Gogh. Again in art and paintings it is so interesting seeing the thought process of these people in their unique way. This artist was painting during a time when he had an awful eye injury and the paintings through "those eyes" were so significantly different than his previous ones that you could feel the pain that he was experiencing. On one of the modern art floors I saw a painting that intrigued me because it was just two solid colors on top of each other: red and black. It struck me initially because it actually reminded me of the cover of one of the CDs of a band that my good friends from Mercer Island were in. Then I read about the painting and loved the quote by the artist about this painting, "Color, in all its vibrancy, is the simple expression of a complex thought". The painting took on an entirely different and individual meaning for me after reading this and looking at it for a long period of time. I love how that happens when you look at artwork.
We also went back to Versailles palace on our second day. That palace always shocks me with how much it is drenched in gold. It is such a beautiful palace and has the most elaborate and pristine gardens. We got to celebrate Thanksgiving in Paris and it was the most perfect day. Laura and I went to the Christmas markets and I was like a little kid in a candy store. Paris' Christmas markets are white huts one after the other lined all the way along the Champs Elysee with a Ferris wheel at the very end. There is tons of delicious food and gifts and sparkly Christmas decorations. It was so much fun walking along the Champs Elysee shopping around at the cute little huts. It made me very excited to see my family over the holidays and truly got me in the Christmas spirit. We sipped on mulled wine and crepes and just strolled around and enjoyed the atmosphere. Then we were invited to my friend from high school, John O'meara's Thanksgiving feast that he was hosting at his beautiful apartment in Paris. It was so great to be able to enjoy a delicious traditional Thanksgiving meal with a familiar face. We hung out and caught up all night and got to meet his friends.
Our last day in Paris was my favorite because we did what is the best thing to do while in Paris - walk around. We picked a couple of things we wanted to see and started at the Eiffel Tower and walked through the gardens and took some pictures, then we walked to the Arc de Triomphe and went up to the top and enjoyed the stunning Parisian views. I love the way the streets all shoot out from the Arc de Triomphe and the way the buildings look spiraling out. After that we walked along the Champs Elysee and window shopped since we passed by one high end brand store after the other filled with beautiful belongings that we cannot afford. We walked inward toward the Opera and went into Galleries Lafayette which is decorated so elaborately for the holidays. It was so sad to leave Paris again. However, every time I leave Paris I always know that I will be back someday :)
After Paris we went two hours south to Lyon to visit friends that we met in Budapest. They are studying in Lyon and we decided after we met them to take a weekend trip to visit them! It was such a blast and really cool to see another city in France because we had not planned to travel around in France besides Paris initially. We had a delicious dinner cooked for us by our friend Harrison on our first night in Lyon and enjoyed a fun night out with all of our Lyonnian friends! The night started with Canadian flag temporary tattoos and ended with four of our friends taking a dip in the fountain. It was great to meet up with friends from this trip and it makes me know that they will be friends that I will stay in touch with after this trip ends.
We are now in London and have been here since Monday! The craziest thing is that we are staying with someone that we met over the summer in San Diego while he was traveling around the US and Mexico. He happened to stop our friend Steph while she was running to ask her where to go out in San Diego, which ended up with him and his friends hanging out at my summer house in San Diego. Laura and him have kept in touch and we have been tripping around London with him since we got here. We've spent a lot of time in London just walking around the different neighborhoods. We walked around the first day and saw all of the main sites. Westminster Abby and the Parliment building with Big Ben never cease to amaze me. The architecture of those buildings are so beautiful. We have also met up with two of our other friends from school Jason Cope and Adam Vanni who are both living in London. It has been so great to see familiar faces and to see the kind of life they are living here. We'll be here until Wednesday and then I am going to Belfast and am so so excited to finally get to go to Ireland!! I have been dying to visit Ireland for my entire life. We are going to try to rent a car which could be interesting with the whole driving on the other side of the road and the opposite driver seat.
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