Dublin was so lovely. First of all, I love all of the red pubs all around. It is exactly what I pictured to see in Ireland! Our first day, we arrived around 12:30 PM, so once again we only had a few hours of daylight. We checked out the main tourist streets in Dublin which were chalk full of awesome shops and restaurants. We had burritos at a place called 'Little Ass Burritos' which was probably the cheapest place to eat in Dublin at 7 euros per burrito. Not too bad. The burritos were stuffed up huge and delicious. We then found an incredible book store! It was 4 stories tall and so magical inside, especially being near Christmas time. I could have spent hours and hours in there. I found a Mad Max comic book for Tim, which I gave him for Christmas! It was perfect :) The streets grew dark and the Christmas lights came on! We didn't spend too much time out that night. We ended up going to one of these traditional red pubs for pizza, so that was a fun experience.
The next morning we got up bright and early before the sun to head to Howth, the island peninsula where you can find the cliffside walks.
We hopped on the DART train at Connelly Station and took that for about 40 minutes. the ride was breathtaking. It was a cloudy day, so that made it even better!
Howth was made up of ports, sail boats, fish & chips and colorful houses! I felt like I was in a mini-version of San Francisco which, of course, made my heart scream with joy! Think of the most quaint little Irish seaside village that you can imagine, and that is Howth.
We walked along the road and made our way up the hill to the trail. Then we were treated to this...
How is this real?
I feel like Gandalf should be rising up over those stone steps any minute....or perhaps.....Luke Skywalker? ;)
My favourite human!!! <3
We walked along these cliffs for quite some time. If I had it my way, I would have ditched all the other sights to spend every second of my day on those cliffs. Oh, and you better believe we practiced our heel clicking!
When we got back into Dublin, we wanted to see the Trinity library. What we didn't know is that you had to pay 10 Euros to see it. So lame....it's a library in a college? But the college campus was pretty posh and I'm sure anyone would feel like a boss attending there.
St. Patrick's Cathedral! I loved this place. The grounds were beyond green and I love the stone cathedral.
The Dublin castle!
We made one last stop at Little Ass Burrito and then we bought some souvenirs. I bought a really nice hoodie, a magnet for my mom and a pair of Birkenstocks for a fraction of the U.S. price! I was so excited about those :)
Unfortunately, our time in Dublin was scarce and we had to catch our last flight home. I absolutely must go back to Ireland, and explore the whole country some day!
Ahhhh..Barcelona. So wonderful.
We arrived to a very hot 70 degree Barcelona. That was so nice after being in 40 degree Vilnius! Unfortunately, it was getting dark now around 3:30 in the afternoon, so we didn't have much daylight. We arrived in Barcelona around 1 in the afternoon. We checked into our hostel and got ready to head out for the evening. Our hostel was nice, but the rooms were quite clausterphobic and the showers were wretched. The water only stayed on for about 10 seconds and it was either blazing hot or frigid! We headed right out to the La Boqueria market where we heard you can buy juices for 1 euro! We were stoked!
My pretty friend and her juices! WEEEE!!
After the market, we tried desperately to find somewhere to eat. We were very tight on cash and Barcelona was expensive. We tried to eat at Wok to Walk, which is our favorite noodle restaurant in Vilnius, but the queue was around the corner and down the street. No way! We tried another little pizza place but they were closed. We finally settled on some random restaurant on the corner. I had some sausage and eggs and salad. It was fine. Nothing special though. Then we went to a vegan restaurant for Saffron to eat something, and it was pretty cute.
We started to head back to the hostel and we found a litle fiesta down in this courtyard by the university. There were dancers and a band and there were kids playing basketball and throwing baseballs. And the funniest dog!!!! It was a little French Bulldog. It's owner was tossing the ball for him and I was getting such a kick out of watching him run with his squatty little legs!
We made out way back to the hostel and decided to check out what was going on downstairs in the common area. People were playing ping pong so Saffron and Rebecca joined in with them. I'll just say, there were a lot of injuries!! ;) hahahaha. Just kidding. But Saffron does have a very strong arm because she is a volleyball player! It was quite entertaining! Then we watched Jurassic World on the big screen. It was a nice evening. The bed in our hostel was super hard, though. Some drunk, loud girls came in around 3 AM and were so inconsiderate. They turned the lights on, were shuffling around in their stuff and were making NO efford to be quiet. I can't stand that. They even had individual lights by their beds, but didn't bother to use them. Grrrr.
Our second day in Barcelona was super fun! We had breakfast at the hostel, which included bacon! Definitely not crispy, but nonetheless, it was bacon. We mapped out a walking route for our day. It ended up being about a 10 mile walk. But we started early so we thought we could fit it all in!
We started first at the Montjuic Palace!
It was really lovely!
We found an orange tree but we were told that the oranges were bad! :( :(
Then we made our way to the beach. Oh my goodness, Mediterranean beaches are the winner. The sand is perfect because it doesn't get stuck everywhere because it's made of little baby pebbles and the water is clear as crystal! No seaweed, no nasty. Just perfect.
I had a really delicious, to-die-for cheeseburger while I was there.
I know I say this a lot, but this one may actually take first prize. It was a magical experience. Garlic-y beef, gruyere cheese, arugula, honey mustard, and a perfectly done egg on top. I must re-create this!
I wanted to stay at the beach forever. We laid there in the sun and it was so serene. Until we were interrupted by Ed, Edd & Eddie. Ugh. These stupid french men came up and started talking to Saffron and wanting photos with her. Which is fine! But they would not leave us alone! It was funny at first. They were trying so hard to speak English, but it was terrible. Then they mustered up enough words to ask us to come back to their hotel room and all of this other crap. It was just super obnoxious and I wanted them to leave but they DIDN'T! So then we had to leave, which made me super angry because I wanted to lay there longer. :( But we did have a lot more to see, so it was probably a good thing that we left. We started to make our way toward the Sagrada Familia cathedral and Park Guell.
We found lots of pretty things along the way, like the Arc De Triomf!
And this unknown cathedral. So pretty, though!
The Sagrada Familia. It doesn't look like much from photos. But this is one of those places that is entirely impossible to capture in a photo and make it look nice. It's super interesting, because it looks almost like it is made out of mud! But the architecture up close is super detailed and intricate.
At this point, I was about to keel over. My feet grew quite a bit during my semester, so at this point, my converse were quite small for me. But I ended up bringing them on this vacation anyway because they are so versatile. But that was a huge mistake. My feet were in so much pain, I just wanted to cry. The blisters on the sides and back of my feet were horrendous. I had to part ways with my group as they headed to see Park Guell (one of the most popular sights in Barcelona.) I was sad that I couldn't see it. I hopped on the subway to head back to the hostel, but decided that since the subway runs so close to the beach, that I'd make one more pit stop there before I headed back to the hostel. It was nice to just be alone on the beach for a little while and relax.
That night was a bit stressful because I didn't know how to contact my group! We made a plan that they would meet me back at the hostel when they were finished with the park and we would go to the market again to get some juices. I waited and waited at the hostel. Tried texting them (mind you, we can only text on wi-fi, so I was banking on them to be able to connect somewhere.) Long story short, there was a huge miscommunication error and they ended up going straight to the market and waiting for me but I was completely unaware (still waiting for them to show up at the hostel) and it was just really awful and stressful. Absolutely no one was to blame (except for the sketchy wi-fi in Barcelona.) But it was just super dreadful. They ended up bringing me 3 juices (bless their hearts) and we tried to go find somewhere to eat again. Since it was already pretty late I didn't think we would have much luck. I honestly can't even remember what I ate that night, but we went to another Vegan restaurant for Saffron that was super Posh but dang expensive. We all kind of turned in early that night because it was an exhausting day, to say the least.
