Forgive me if my blog posts are choppy and not as polished or informative as they usually are. I'm trying to get all of this in, but it's hard to remember everything that I want to. I'm taking away from my nap time to do this, btw, so you best appreciate.
So after we explored Dublin. we decided to go out. But since we had been washing our hair with the body wash I had brought (we couldn't find travel sized bottles of anything in Italy) we bought some shampoo and conditioner and wanted to shower. Upon returning to our hostel, we befriended our roommates, Anna and Aida, who were from Austria. We all had a good time and got to know each other (their English was quite good, especially since Anna wants to teach it) and we all decided to go out together. So we got ready and went to Temple Bar.
Incidentally, Temple Bar is not actually a bar. It's a large group of bars that are all insanely crowded. Some of them were even over 21 only. I didn't know that that existed in Ireland. Anyway, I got ID'd at approximately every place we went, and I didn't have my passport on me. I'm not sure if I was just unlucky or I look young, since the checks seemed pretty random and just happened to fall on me. Mostly they let me in no problem after scolding me for not having my ID (but I'll be damned if I'm bringing my passport out to crowded Irish bars when I plan on drinking...), especially when Mary and I informed them that we were studying in Italy. One guy (after saying that he thought americans had 3284378429 forms of ID) said, "Oh yeah. The Italians don't care about anything." In matters concerning bars, sir, you are correct.
Temple Bar was too crowded for us, so we ended up at a quieter bar overlooking the river. We met this cool Irish guy named Garret who perpetually made fun of Mary for being from New York City and telling her she looked like and American (he said that before I said anything he had thought I was an Italian) while Mary and I tried Guinness. I do not like Guinness, but Mary enjoyed it. So we sat and chilled with him while he told us odd Irish expressions (like "pickin' the moneys out of it, which means being nitpicky) and his adventures around the world. It was fun and we got back quite late again.
After definitely not getting enough sleep, we rose and shined early enough to catch our 9 AM tour bus around Wicklow National Park. It's known as "The Garden of Ireland." Wild Wicklow Tours was probably my favorite thing about Ireland. We were informed that many movies were filmed here and saw where the set was. Movies include: "P.S. I Love You" "Braveheart""Excalibur""King Arthur" - a stretch of Hadrian's Wall was built for this movie. "Lassie" "Michael Collins" - the Wicklows are standing in for Cork."Reign of Fire" and "Zardoz" Please note that I copy-pasted that list since I only remembered like 2 of those.
The pictures I have can't do the place justice, and since it's still winter everything was cold and dead. I may or may not have (and I mean I definitely did) poured Jameson Whiskey on Mary's foot. Here's how my thought process goes with whiskey: I do not like whiskey. I am offered free Irish whiskey. I think it might taste better than other whiskey. It does not. I remember why I do not like whiskey. I turn to pour it out and fling it onto Mary's foot (she was not wearing appropriate shoes... jussayin) and we have a good laugh about that.
We had a good lunch (I had a hulking bowl of beef stew that could feed my entire family) and I tried Guinness again with Black Current in it. Here is my thought process on Guinness: I do not like Guinness. I am offered Guinness. I think it might taste better with berry flavor. It does not. I remember why I do not like Guinness. This time it does not end up on Mary.
Next we went to Glendalough, the Valley of the Two Lakes. There's a cool graveyard that's going to be full soon, with a cool tower and one of the biggest Celtic Crosses (still not recognized by the Pope due to it's Pagan acceptance) ever. It was so pretty to walk through the bogs (safely of course. Allegedly bog holes suck you in faster than quicksand)even though it was quite chilly. We got funny postcards and some ice cream (not gelato for once) with flake (???) even though it was raining. Then we got back on the bus and headed home.
Ireland was treating us well so far. I had never had much interest in going there, but seeing Dublin made me really want to see Galway, Cork, Belfast, the Blarney Castle, the Moher Cliffs, and basically everything else Ireland has to offer. I'm pretty sure I saw our writing teacher, Naoimh (which is pronounced Neeve) in Dublin since she was in Ireland at the same time as us. I can't be sure though and that's an awkward question to ask your Irish teacher who for some reason teaches in Italy. Idk.
Next we met up with Faith, Mary's friend from high school. We less-than-legally were staying in her dorm with her so that we didn't have to pay for a hostel for 2 more nights. It was super fun to just chill and for them to catch up while I listened to their crazy high school stories.
The next day we went walking around Dublin some more, we headed over to the Guinness Factory. Now, everyone says "Dublin is a really small city! You can walk anywhere!" Yes, you CAN walk anywhere, but your legs will be screaming at you by the end of the day. Everything looks much closer on the map.
The Guinness Factory is off the main roads in what would normally strike any American as a sketchy alleyway. Fortunately, living in Italy, I no longer have qualms about walking down deserted, small, slightly sketchy streets. The factory itself is freaking huge - 7 levels all telling you about the process behind one of the most famous and complicated beers in the history of ever. There's a tasting on like level 2 (which I again tried... 3rd time is not the charm and I still don't like Guinness) and they show you how they make the special barrels for the beer and how it's transported. Some of the commercials for Guinness were awesome and hilarious. Mary and I will constantly be singing "Guinness is Good for You!" and "My Goodness! My Guinness!" and picturing an assortment of adorable animals and such.
On the sixth level they give an elaborate description of how a Guinness is to be poured. There is a station where you can pour a pint, but you have to drink it on that level. Again, I do not like Guinness (but seeing it is pretty cool) so Mary did the pouring and I recorded it. I stupidly had my camera sideways for half of it, so the video is also sideways (in my defense, I was going to take a picture first... but if a picture is worth 1000 words, how much would a 2 minute video be worth? That's right, more.) for part of it. It's on my facebook so everyone can see it I think.
Next we went to the top, where if you didn't pour your own pint you get a free one here, and pot a great overview of Dublin. Of course, my camera died here, so I have no pictures of the rest of the day... WHEN WE WENT TO THE ZOO!
Dublin Zoo was a deceptively short looking walk on the map. Again, you CAN walk everywhere but... Yeah we were dead. We only had a little over an hour in the zoo, but it was really cool. Except they only have like one of every animal. Except flamingos. There were lots of them.
The African Safari was closing earlier than the park, so we tried to head there first. Unfortunately you couldn't make a full loop, so we only saw half. Awesomely enough, we saw the Arctic Wolves (not in the African section, just to clarify...) and the African Hunting Dogs feeding. I've never seen those animals eat, and it's not as lighthearted as watching the penguins get fed. It was cool though.
After exploring the zoo until closing time, we headed back to Faith's in what I can only describe as THE LONGEST WALK EVERRRRRR. At least it was flat. So we made dinner with her and then met some of her friends to hang out. Her roommates and the friends we met were all French trying to learn English. They were all really fun and said things in funny accents and referred to Faith as "Face," which I still laugh about when I remember. I learned a cool magic trick from them. I found myself wishing that my study abroad experience was like hers, but she said that the language barrier is so frustrating that it often gets her down. I'm glad I'm loving my experience in Perugia, and I hope faith has an excellent time in Dublin for the rest of her stay.
With two good nights of sleep (umm we pushed two love seats together and slept there awkwardly) we were in our last day of the Ireland part of our trip. We saw the architecture of Trinity College earlier in the week, so we decided to see some more before heading off to London. After a good ol' Irish breakfast (COMPLETE WITH ACTUAL TOAST AND BUTTER OMG SO EXCITING) we stopped at Dublin Castle.
Dublin Castle is like... half castle, half modern buildings. It was cool to look at from the outside, but everything costs money to get into. For the same reason we did not go into Trinity College to see The Book Of Kells, and did not go into St. Patrick's Cathedral, we did not go into the "castle." But we went into the gift shop! Irish stuff is cool.
After a final goodbye to Dublin's main area, we headed to the airport. We got there way early since we had cut it a little close for comfort at Ciampino, but our fears were unfounded. I guess Tuesday at 4 is not a popular time to fly.
We wandered around the airport, bought chocolates for Tina's flat to say "thanks for not making us spend money on a hostel in London" and Mary stuffed even more Irish gifts into her obscenely large backpack. Then we hopped onto out plane and nearly cried when we had to leave Ireland. We got some cool pictures of it out of the window though. Dublin, you're breaking my heart.
The sadness of leaving Ireland went away during the hour flight as we got to London and I got closer to seeing Tina! They apologized to us for the flight being 5 minutes late (we had received no such apology in Dublin for being much later...) and we didn't even have to get our passports stamped. After some confusion and a lot of phone calls to Tina, we figured out where we were meeting up.
We took a train and then "the tube" as they refer to it to get to Tina's flat. It was warm and cozy and I liked it a lot. It was their midterm week so they were all busy studying and packing for break. After a lovely little chat with Mom, we all relaxed. Mary and I mooched their internet to watch Glee before heading to bed.
Wednesday, we did a blitzkrieg of the monuments. Big Ben. London Eye, Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Globe Theatre, Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace. At the Tower of London we didn't go in for the cost reasons, so we got some fish and chips.
Um. The birds in London are quite bold, so they'll come right up to you if they want something. One of them was cute so I fed it a little of a fry. I know, bad idea. But Mary had a disastrously worse idea.
"I want to see if he'll eat out of my hand." Holds out ENTIRE FRENCH FRY. Little bird takes it from hand and drops it on ground. Seagull swoops in and picks it up, but drops it. Another one catches it in its feet. "Wow they catch them!" Mary begins to throw fries at seagulls to watch them catch them. More birds gather, then Mary runs away because NOW SHE REALIZES THAT SHE'S SCARED OF BIRDS. Birds attack our food. Tons of people come over to watch and take pictures as we run away and the birds destroy our food. Fortunately some small child (you know how kids are... they have to chase the birds!) came and frightened them away so we could clear the garbage. Soon after we saw a sign that said "do not feed birds." Too late, sign.
So after we saw the monuments we visited Tina at her job. The stationary shop is adorable, and really close to Trafalgar Square, which Mary and I explored while Tina was finishing. After she got done, we went to this huuuuge souvenir store that had William and Kate's faces on everything and everything had the flag on it somehow. It was really cool.
DUUUUUUUUUUUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN. Next we saw Phantom in excellent seats that were significantly cheaper that what I would have payed for the same thing in the states. Her Majesty's Theater is right by where Tina works, which is dangerous for her. John Owen-Jones was my favorite Phantom (I mean I've only seen 3 in the 4 times I've seen the show) and Sofia Escobar was amazing and my favorite Christine. Will Barrett was a great Raoul, but it was after the show that he won my heart. Now please enjoy this part of the story shamelessly stolen from Tina's blog:
Will Barratt (Raoul) came out first again and was super sweet. He signed my notebook cause we didn't buy another programme. He is hilarious. He asked me how to spell my name. Here's a rundown:
Will: What's your name?
Me: Francesca
Will: Is that spelled the normal way? F-R-A-N...?
Me: C-E-S-C-A. Yeah. Um, is there an abnormal way of spelling it?
Will: You wouldn't believe the crazy spellings I get. Someone will be like, oh yeah, my name is Chris! And I'll be like oh, ok, C-H... And they will say, actually its K-Y-R-H-S (and then he rolls his eyes and laughs). So whereabouts are you from?
Mary:New York City
Will: *No reaction*
Me: *gestures to me* We're from Buffalo.
Will: Buffalo!? Buffalo, NY? I did a concert there once. That was like ten years ago... Yeah, I've been there! I have done concerts in weird places... Roanoke, Birmingham...
yeah. He was super excited.
Next Sofia came out and was hogged by French people for a while. I can't blame them, she's awesome. Then she came over to us, smiled at me and said "I remember you!" To me and Tina. To which I replied "Actually, you probably remember her. Cause we are twins."
Mary and I thought Tina was going to drop dead from excitement at being remembered by a POTO star. I was pretty pleased, and am now planning my next Phantom trip. I swear once you see it once you're hooked. This was probably one of my favorite things about London.
The next day we went to King's Cross station to see platform 9 3/4 but the whole station is like under construction. Oh well. Mary and I explored the streets of various areas in London, went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, then went to Chinatown. I got a meat bun that was delicious. And Mary got Bubble Tea, which she's been craving.
We met up again with Tina and explored Trafalgar more during daylight. Then we got some dinner (at Pizza Hut... I got a good dose of American food during this trip) and headed over to the Adelphi Theatre. We were braving the drama and our own notions about the show to see Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom. Now, the Phantom needs no sequel, but since there was one and I have my doubts that it will make it to America or that it would run long enough for me to see it, I treated Tina to it. Trust me, she was curious. We were afraid that it would actually be a good show and that we would have been hating on it for no reason.
Our fears were unfounded. Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess were awesome as the Phantom and Christine, but there isn't enough of a plotline for their voices to carry. It's contrived, there are way too many special effects and gimmicks that are distracting, and despite reeeeeeeeeeeally trying to like it, we couldn't. The balcony was quite empty, so we got to move down like 7 rows, upgrading our cheapest seats to awesome ones. It didn't make it much better. The kid who played Gustave was adorable, but it couldn't save the show.
We went to the stage door after, but they were having a cast party thing since about every major person except the Phantom is leaving the show. I wonder why... not.
After this we turned in so we could be ready and rested for our return to Italy. At this point, I was longing for Perugia. We had one more stop to make - Pisa.
We got to Stanstead Airport but it was a close call since we couldn’t find our bus and had to catch a later one. No big deal. We got to Pisa really late at night, but our flight was actually early on this one. We wandered and had some mediocre pizza for dinner, but Sarah, Tina, Mary, and I just wanted something to eat. The hostel was kind of nice, it had a big sign, but my bed didn't have a pillow. I was okay with that though.
Pisa is cool. We decided to be really touristy and climb the Leaning Tower. It was kind of a rush to get to the tower and get to the train station, so Tina's friends (who had arrived earlier than us and had already climbed said tower) had to bring our stuff to the train station.
The Tower was really weird to walk up. Since it's leaning, so are the stairs. Its unsettling and unnerving to walk up, not to mention tiring. I thought the view was all right but I’ve seen amazing views of Italy before. Tina and Sarah, however, had not. The stairs were slippery and it was hard to walk down while others were walking up.
We quickly made our way back to the train station and were on our way back to Perugia. I wasn't tired, and for a while everyone stayed up to admire the Tuscan countryside. Everyone fell asleep and it was a peaceful ride to Perugia. We got a little tripped up when we had to change trains in Florence, but we got it.
Now it was my turn to be awesome. Perugia would probably be hard to navigate and find cool things if you didn't know about them. Fortunately, Tina and her friend had me, an expert, to show them around. They also had the twins who could translate Italian to them and English to the Italians, so it was awesome. I finally felt like my Italian was useful!
I took them to my favorite restaurants, finally got them good pizza, and we all ate inordinate amounts of gelato. I partook in everything since I had been out of Italy for a week. I'm in for a rough ride when I go home if I gorged this much after only a week. Geez.
I loved showing off Perugia and they all loved it. It made me realize that I definitely made the right decision (in Dublin Mary and I wondered if we should have gone there... same in London...) to come to this city in the hills of Italy. At one point I believe someone said "Now I see why the reindeer cannot climb the hills of Italy." Got that right. Need a Dominic the Donkey.
Spring Break was great! I've probably left a lot of details out, but too much happened for one blog post. Now we're on the fast track to the end of the semester apparently.
This weekend my Food class is going to Florence to go to a restaurant that recreates Roman dishes. I'm excited. Then I come back to Perugia only to leave again for Milan!
Hopefully a lot of fun stuff happens, but not enough so that I ever have to write this long of a blog again. Geez.
I hope this covers everything! Hope it wasn't too long or boring!
Ciao for now!
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