Back and Forth, Back and Forth

I wrote this last week.  Just got the internet to cooperate to where I could get it posted.  It's definitely easier to write them ahead of time in Word, and copy/paste, especially with such fickle internet.  Here you go:

Hello all!  Sorry I haven’t written in about….forever.

Since my last post I have been really busy.  Hence the no posting thing.  I’ll try to remember as much as possible.  Bear with me here.

1)   I went to Ireland.  Another life goal off the checklist.  Flying into Belfast, everything was green and full of sheep.  Really pretty countryside all over.   After landing, found Sam and we went and got me coffee and a brownie.  Then the long trek to her place and then right back out for food and things.  My second day there we went to Dublin and had a lot of fun.  On the list for Dublin:

                                               i.     Ghost Bus Tour (really fun, I highly recommend it)

                                              ii.     Open Top Bus Tour (hop-on hop-off so you can go wherever you want)

                                            iii.     Dublin Zoo (very pretty, I recommend going on a day the children don’t have off school)

                                            iv.     Guinness Factory (self-guided tour, very interesting)

We had a lot of fun and saw as much as possible in one day.  The Zoo was a ton of fun, except for getting shoved out of the way by little children all day, but there were a lot of animals to see, and I had an absolutely wonderful time.  It took us a good few hours to see it all.  We then went on the rest of the bus tour, since we hoped off at the zoo, and went to the Guinness factory.  For once I found that sort of thing interesting.  I think I’m beginning to understand why adults like to read all the things they have everywhere.  It’s actually becoming interesting!!

Back in Belfast we went to the Ulster Museum, I saw where the Titanic (!!!) was built , and got thrown into the culture even more.  Ulster fries are to be avoided if you have high cholesterol (but so delicious), and watching rugby at a pub can be crazy (you have to get there at least 2 hours early to get seats), especially when it’s “the big game”.  In this case, Ireland vs Scotland. Intense. 

2)   Some friends and I went to Gibraltar this past weekend.  Very fun, but lots of walking.  I’m pretty sure we were standing up for 12 hours, with only a few sitting breaks in there.  We got attacked my monkies/apes/whatever (breed of monkey, but has no tail, so I have no idea on this one), climbed uphill a lot, and got to see some pretty interesting historical stuff.  Once again, I felt like my parents.  We went through the Siege Tunnels, went through Mt. Michael’s Cave, and got to see Africa.  That was pretty cool.  We could even see some buildings in what we think is Tanger, Morocco.  We got a lot of good photos and got sunburned too.  It was really really hot, especially when it’s a steep climb in the sun.  Very warm.  But totally worth it. 

In general news, school is going well.  There are different tenses if you want to say that someone said something hypothetical yesterday it’s one tense than if they said it today.  Very confusing. 

Ronda is beginning to warm up a tad.  Now I only need one jacket in the sunlight rather than two, and you can even begin to feel the warmth from the sun.  It’s making it easier to get out and about, but harder to go to school.

Well, next stop is Nerja for a weekend, then Morocco is being talked about (not sure on that one) and then Italy.  Should be fun.  Expensive but fun. More stamps in the passport.  WHICH the guy at the Gibraltar border was kind enough to give us.  They don’t normally give them, but he did after we asked him. 

Love and Miss you all terribly,

Erin

PS-DO NOT FORGET A PASSPORT IF YOU GO TO GIBRALTAR!  You can’t get in without it.  Just FYI.

So do you just click your heels together?

Well, I must say, the Irish are more on top of their Dorothy jokes than anyone else so far.  But they were also some of the nicest people I have met yet while abroad.  The Spanish are friendly, but the Irish go above and beyond it feels like.  Except during a rugby match, then it's every person for themselves.

I spent the 23rd-28th of February in Belfast, North Ireland with my friend Sam Greif.  We had a lot of fun, and did a whole lot of walking.  On the 23rd we spent the rest of the day I was there getting me settled into her room, after finding coffee and a brownie of course, and then we met some friends for homemade dinner and went to The Bot, a local pub.  There we all had free pints, courtesy of the girls who had won the pub quiz a few days earlier and had 16 pints to get rid of.  I think they still have some tickets left.

The 24th we hit up Dublin pretty early in the morning and caught a very late bus back to Belfast.  We had to stop at the border on the way down to Dublin and show passports, as we were crossing into Ireland, and we all know how these two countries don't get along, but everything went well.  We did the bus tour in Dublin which was a hop-on-hop-off so we could visit anywhere we wanted and jump back on the bus when we were finished and go somewhere else.  First, we visited the Dublin Zoo, which was really cool.  They had a student price too, which was good.  Then we went to the Guinness Factory, which also had a student price, but after me not having my student ID card (but having my student visa, which he wouldn't accept) I paid the adult price.  But all in all it was a cool tour and we got "free" pints at the top of the brewery, in the Gravity Bar.

This is the view from the Gravity Bar, a panorama of Dublin.  Pretty cool, you could see 360 degrees around, and this is only part of it.

Later that night we went and did the Ghost Bust Tour.  It seemed really scary at first, but as the tour went on, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot and heard a lot of good stories about Dublin and it's former inhabitants.  We got to go into St. Kevin's Church, which is closed to the public and we got a lesson in body-snactching and learned about the early anatomists in Dublin.  Pretty cool stuff.

I did the Belfast Bus Tour and got to see where the Titanic was built, but I didn't get to see where it sailed from, as the slip-way was closed due to a bunch of construction.  I had forgotten the Titanic was built in Belfast, so it was pretty cool when I found out all of this.

All in all, the trip to Ireland was very relaxing and very well needed.  I had a lot of fun and now that I am back in Spain, I am a lot more relaxed and ready for my test tomorrow.  Let's hope it goes well!!

Thanks for all the support I've gotten from everyone.  I really appreciate it!

Miss you all and love you all,
Erin