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.
Budapest was a little....off. I don't know, I just got super weird vibes during my whole visit there. Which made me super sad because it was one of the cities I was looking forward to the most. First of all when we arrived into our room, we were staying at a super nice hostel called "The Hive Party Hostel." I've stayed in party hostels before. Yeah, they are loud and busy, but they've never bothered me. I usually enjoy them because there are a lot of people to meet. But this one was just....sketchy. First off, when we got to our room and looked out the window onto the little terrace, there was a used condom out there.....so that was lovely. Our room was super nice and cozy (our sleeping areas were shaped like little honeycomb beehives. It was cute!) But turns out, when we were out later that night and Madi, McCall and Annie arrived back before us, they got super badly harassed by some older Italian dudes who were also staying in that room. They were making advances on them, asking for sex, saying super creepy things, and watching porn in front of them. It was super scary for them! So we came back to them being super shaken, telling us that they switched us rooms, and that we now had our own room. Thank heavens! Poor girls. I felt super bad that they had to experience that. Once we had our own room though, we all felt a lot better.
Earlier that day, when we went to the ATM to get money out, I ended up withdrawing......almost $500!! :( I was having a hard time figuring out their money while I was looking at the ATM screen. I thought I was withdrawing like $70, but no. Turns out the comma didn't mean anything, so it was really 2 extra zeros. So I was withdrawing 120,000 HUFS which equals to about $450 or something like that. I felt super uncomfortable walking around with that much money. It wasn't too big of a deal because I knew I could exchange it to Euros when we got back to Vilnius. But it actually came quite in handy, because I just borrowed some of it to some of the other girls and had them pay me back in Euros back in Vilnius, so that worked out well.
We found a super DUPER cool shop called Szputnyk that sold quirky & vintage clothing. They had sections where they sold clothing with really neat designs and stuff and then they had a vintage section. I ended up buying a lacey black vintage tie shirt. It reminds me of the early 1900s. I wanted to buy everything in that store. We had dinner at a lovely little cafe called Zosko's that sold American pancakes. I ended up having a ham, brie & blueberry panini. It was very good! There was a bakery next door to us called "The Sweet" which had really delicious treats. We snagged some treats and a hot drink and headed across the river to check out the Parliament building, which is one of my favorite structures in all of Europe. It is so grand!
The next day was Halloween. We started off the day by heading to the Szechenyi thermal baths. They were lovely, as always. Last time I came, I could barely sit in the hot sauna for more than 10 seconds. But Tim's family friend had a sauna that we would go to back in St. George, and with him being Finnish, he always made the sauna hellishly hot. So I think I got used to it, because this time around I was able to stay in that sauna for a lot longer! I think my favorite part was boiling in there for about 5 minutes and then jumping into the ice cold tub right outside. It was such an amazing, refreshing feeling. We stayed for about 2 hours and then explored the little castle park.
We walked back to the hostel, changed and set out to find food. The thing about Budapest is, they have so many lovely little bakeries and shops and bars, but just plain old restaurants and cafes? They sort of lack that. So it was weird trying to find places to eat. We found this place called "The Hummus Market" which sounded really nice. I think Saffron & Katie really liked it but Rebecca and I did not.....I got pumpkin soup with pita bread and falafel. I had never had falafel but I always heard how great it was. And I've always liked pumpkin soup. Anyway, it was all super weird tasting. I decided that Greek/Middle Eastern food probably doesn't agree with my stomach because I got super sickly after the meal. I did drink 2 sprites, which also could have added to it. But I just sat in my bed back at the hostel with my stomach churning, trying to vomit. Nothing happened though. After I started feeling better, we went back out to cross the bridge again and see the Parliament and the palace and everything again. We got back to the hostel, and Saffron started on our Halloween makeup. I decided I would be a pin-up girl. She did my makeup so beautiful and perfect and I put my hair together and she did everyone else's makeup. The hostel was throwing a dance party and we were super excited!!! We go down to the bar/dance floor area and......Nickelback. They're playing NICKELBACK! And all of this other super crappy early 2000s music. I couldn't even believe it. The only song they played that you could MAYBE dance to was "Proud Mary" by Tina Turner. It was completely horrendous. There were 40 year old men getting so wasted, falling and tripping over everything. It was just an embarrassing mess. We did not stay there for long. We left, and followed the crowds outside to try and find another place to dance. But we had no such luck. I felt bad that Saffron spent hours on our makeup, just to have us have to take it off for nothing :( So Halloween, being one of my favorite holidays, was super duper lame this year....
The next morning we went to the Invisible exhibition. I read about this place on "Spotted by Locals." It is a fairly new exhibit. You pay about $9, and you receive a blind tour guide. They explain to you how the brail system works and show you how to use a brail type writer. That was pretty awesome. I have always wondered how brail works. Then they take you into the exhibit. You go through 6 or 7 different rooms, and everything is pitch black. You only have your other 4 senses to work with and guide you through. They are typical settings like an apartment, a fruit market, a museum, a garden, and a cabin. It was so interesting to feel around the apartment and try to guess what everything was. Our tour guide's name was Thomas, and he was beyond kind. I think the scariest part was trying to cross the busy street. They had sound effects playing that really sounded like a busy street. I almost tripped over the curb. Just all of these little things that you have to pay attention to! I think my favorite part was the museum room. There were like 7 sculptures that we got to feel. It was interesting to guess what the sculptures were. Apparently one of them was the famous Statue of David, and some were of Snow White and her dwarves. Ah! It was just so amazing! I wish everyone could experience it. Thomas was born without sight, so he has literally never seen anything in the world before. He offered us to ask him some questions after the tour, so Katie asked him what his dreams were like, since he can't see. He explained how his dreams are just sort of....feelings I guess. Like he mentioned that he has been trying to stop smoking, so sometimes he will have dreams where he is smoking and he can just feel himself getting the buzz and all of that. It is just completely mind-boggling to me. I loved every minute of it. It was definitely the highlight of my whole vacation!
After the tour, we went to the Fisherman's Bastion and explored around there a bit. Then it was time to head to the airport and go back to Vilnius!
Szechenyi Thermal Baths
Vajdahunyad Castle
My very pretty (but not so delicious) meal at the Hummus Market!
Buda Palace!
THE PARLIAMENT BUILDING in all its grandeur.
Doing the little walk through maze outside of the blind exhibit with my walking stick. Way harder than you'd think.
We didn't have much time in Vienna, unfortunately :( I really love Vienna, and had a lot of fun when I came here 2 years ago. Since the sun goes down at 4:30 now, we just had hardly any day light to see the palaces and all of the pretty sights. We ended up arriving already after dark, so we grabbed some dinner at a mexican shop which was super delicious and had really great guacamole! Then we all showered and just settled into the hostel and had a good night's rest. We had our own room for the 7 of us, and our own bathroom so it was SO great! I slept so dang good in that hostel.
The next morning, we started off by going to the Schonbrunn palace, a ways outside of the city center.
The Schonbrunn palace itself was nice, but I just really loved the grounds in the back! The trees were very yellow and there was a nice hill to climb up with ponds and pretty structures all around. We had a lot of fun just throwing leaves and climbing up the hillside.
After Schonbrunn, we headed back into the center to see the cathedrals and palaces. I also snagged one two Kasekrainer sausages because they are so yummy.
St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Hofburg Palace
The Rathaus (town hall)
Even though we didn't have much time, I had a really great time in Vienna! If you'd like to watch my Vienna video, click here.
