Sunday

We got up and had a traditional Irish breakfast courtesy of our hostel! There is nothing more comforting while traveling after living in Spain for a while then waking up to a filling breakfast. We traveled to a town called Bray by train, but we came back after only being there for a little bit because it was cold and rainy and there was nothing to see. After we came back we visited some cathedrals and went to the famous “Carrolls” to do some souvenir shopping! And then we had.. wait for it.. SUBWAY for lunch! I used to hate subway but I had never looked forward to it this much in my life. Afterwards we tried to see the famous book of Kells at Trinity College but it was a fail because we didn’t want to pay too much. We got back to the main part of the city and had burgers! Then we walked around for a while and then bought some drinks to celebrate our final night in Ireland.

Saturday

On Saturday we got up early to take the bus to spend some time experiencing Dublin. We were very sad to leave Paddy but we left him a very nice card and said our goodbyes. Once we finally got there and found our surprisingly nice hostel (Maggie is a beast at finding great hostels) we got ready and then had a delicious lunch of REAL pepperoni pizza (not with the scary Spanish meat) and a donut! I eat so healthy when I travel. Then walked to the one and only Guinness factory!! After we spent a lot of time in the factory, and enjoyed our free pints of Guinness, we had a took through the famous Trinity College. Then we had dinner in a Chinese buffet! It was grand. We got back later and after an internet binge we all passed out for the night.

Continuing the Journey

On Friday we got up and had bran flakes, instant coffee and orange juice with Paddy. Then we set off to have our own personal tour of the Irish countryside by car! We also visited a beautiful castle but could only take pictures from the outside. After driving for a long time enjoying the views and stopping to take pictures (and getting pretty motion sick)

We arrived at a place that Paddy had been talking up all day for their soup and bread. I had the clam chowder and some really good bread. Afterwards we were driving around and Paddy realized this friend John's farm was right around the corner! haha He was so excited that we see John's farm, that we drove through the off roads and Paddy kept lifting up and unlocking the gates for us to get through. We then got some fresh water from John's well and couldn't believe that John was 77 because he looked about 55 and works on the farm everyday. We talked to some of the random farmers there which was pretty hilarious, and then got back in Paddy's car.

Then Paddy took us to one of his favorite restaurants which was delicious. Apparantly there was a Irish movie star there who stars in a Irish soap opera (not like we would have known) so that was interesting. Once we got home Paddy insisted we have some wine with him but we were so exhausted we went to bed early. I have really learned how to appreciate going to bed early since I have been traveling so much.

Thursday, April 28th... The beginning of the journey to Ireland!

Maggie and I got up at 5:15am and had breakfast at our house and then met our friend Jenna at the hotel sign (our common meeting point) It was a strug to get there in the dark with all of our stuff but we finally made it there, and we were lucky enough to see a taxi right by us so we didn't have to call one. We took the taxi to the Granada bus station and ate again before the 7am bus to Malaga. We always either have to go to Malaga (2 hours by bus) or Madrid (5 hours by bus) to travel out of the country because sadly, Granada is not an international airport. We got to Malaga early before our 12pm flight, so what to do, but eat again! So we had starbucks at the airport and I had a fail like always ordering an iced coffee with milk since it's never on the menu and I always end up speaking spanglish.

We finally arrived in IRELAND! As we walked off the plane Jenna yelled, "Smell that Irish air!" and we all cracked up. Then we were so excited because we saw american-like food at the airport and we chowed down on chicken chunks and potato wedges... It was grand! they even had snapple, I almost died from happiness. Afterwards we got on a 3 hour bus to travel from Dublin to Galway.

Thus begins the Strug:

Here's some background information: We were all planning to stay with Jenna's mother's friend's friend who is a retired fillipino pastor and had access to a castle. Two things we soon found out... he's not Filipino and lives in a regular house.

We waited around in the bus station and after 30 minutes of not being able to find the pastor, Jenna was panicking and calling her mom, when the lady at the information booth (who had been helping us use the telephone) came over and said, is one of you Jenna? A man over there is holding a sign that said Jenna. So we ran over to the man (who wasn't Filipino and definitely wasn't late we just weren't looking for someone like him) and realized it was PADDY! our full irish tourguide and host for the next couple of days, who lives in a rented house haha but it was still just as nice as a castle because we felt at home.

So we packed our stuff in Paddy's car and he put the donuts Jenna had bought them in the trunk with our stuff (and they ended up staying there all weekend, we think he just forgot) and I crammed myself in the back seat which hadn't been cleaned out and I had to avoid sitting on screws. It made for a very entertaining ride home. We dropped our stuff back at Paddy's house (he insisted that he lift everything, he was such a sweetheart!) and he dropped us off on the beach where we walked around for a while and then ate dinner at a random place where I had jalapeño poppers and a corona for dinner haha. Of course that made for another interesting experience since we got a waiter who's first day was that day. Jenna was very unhappy because the sign said they served breakfast all day, but apparently it meant until 5pm.

We tried to call Paddy to come and pick us up, but since we weren't in Spain our phones wouldn't work, so Jenna being the great extrovert that she is, just asked a random guy walking along to use his phone and we got ahold of Paddy! Meanwhile some creepy young girl who appeared to be on drugs was staring at us and asking for a lighter. Gotta love the strug life!

Paddy picked us up and then insisted that we have some wine with him so we did and listened to his old stories before we went to bed in beds that had heated sheets! It was wonderful.

Bullfight April 10, 2011

I had no idea what to expect when I was on my way to a bullfight. I knew I was naive going into it, especially since I thought only one bull got killed. My friends and I were excited to find our seats and wait for the bullfight to start. We thought we paid for seats in the shade, but sitting in the direct 80 degree sun sure provided for a nice tan! Luckily Maggie brought sunscreen. Once the bullfight started and the band played, I was excited and anticipating how this was going to go, since Maggie told me actually 6 bulls get killed and it lasts about 3 hours.

When the bull was released and started running around and being distracted by the "Capote" (cape) I realized that the bull gets stabbed multiple times by small bladed type swords that stay in their body through the whole thing. After the first bull was stabbed many times, and then stabbed for the final blow to make him lay down, the crowd was cheering loudly, and my eyes started to water, realizing bullfighting was not for me, and that this was going to be a LONG 3 hours.

All I had known about bullfighting before was from a segment on 60 minutes. I remember thinking I always wanted to go and experience that part of Spanish culture. I was surprised to see that there were so many young children at the fight, but then I realized that if you were brought up with this gruesome custom, you wouldn't think anything of taking your small child to witness it.

The bullfighters that stab the bull in the end to bring him down, are the most respected. But I thought that the ones who stab the bull first many times to weaken him have the harder job. It seemed to me that all the respected bull fighters have to do is stab it once with a giant sword, and they don't even kill it. To win, they just have to make it lay down after stabbing it. So if it doesn't lay down after a while, they just keep stabbing it until it does. When I was thinking about how disgusted I was with this, I felt hypocritical because I eat meat. Even though it's not the same. Oh, speaking of eating meat... after the first couple bulls are killed you start to smell food.... which would be the bulls that were just killed cooking to be sold after the fight. This experience put me one step closer to becoming a vegetarian.

It found it interesting that as the first bull was being tortured and killed, I was about ready to cry, but as more came and went, I found myself becoming desensitized to it; but still disgusted, as my group left before the last giant bull came out to fight.

The last one that we watched was as difficult to watch as the others, but was also awesome. Because as it was stabbed in the head for the final blow, it got back up... My friend Jenna and I cheered and wanted the bull to tackle the fighter. (yes I know that's gruesome, but after the first fight we were cheering for the bulls) He took about 2 more blows to the head before he wasn't able to get back up again.

The cheapest and worst thing I found about bullfighting is that, the bullfighter doesn't even kill the bull. After he stabs him with the sword and the bull lays down, the crowd cheers and waves their pañuelos in approval, another guy comes up and stabs it in the neck a couple times until they are sure it's dead. I could only watch that part twice. Then they cut the ears off and throw them into the crowd, and if the crowd really likes the bullfighter, they cut the tail off and the bullfighter holds a hot bloody tail and waves it around and receives the crowd's applause.

So after reading this you probably don't want to hear any more about bullfighting, but I took a lot of videos for people who want to see it "first hand" So, the videos are taking way too long to load, so if you want to see them, you'll have to visit me when I get home!

Saturday April 2nd. The best day in Mallorca!

After eating breakfast we headed on the extremely crowded bus to spend the day beach hopping in Palma! We started out at one beach laying out until we got hungry and went to.... you guessed it... SUBWAY!! We were loving life. After subway we were going to go shopping, and then we all realized we didn't care about shopping and went to another beach! It was an amazing surprise to spend the rest of the day on this gorgeous clear water beach. We played cards, frolicked in the water, and laid out. We had so much fun. Afterwards we continued the amazing day having dinner at Hard Rock Cafe! I actually didn't have a burger this time (because I had one the last weekend at another Hard Rock haha) We all got drinks and got nachos as an appetizer, it was so great.

Then we had to head back to our hotel :( We weren't able to sleep in because our flight left early in the morning. We were all sad to leave because it was such a great weekend!

Friday April 1st

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to the tour of Palma, the major part of Mallorca. It was nice to see because our hotel was far away from everything except the beach and there were only 15 people who went to Mallorca so the tour wasn't bad. On the tour was got to take a tour of a castle, cathedral, the town square, and we were able to purchase some Mallorca pearls as gifts! It was really cool but the weather was cool and cloudy so I wasn't fond of that. Once we came back we laid on the beach again and ate lunch. We were very excited that we found out on the tour that there was a subway in Palma! I never liked subway too much before but I was so excited to see that something was there that resembled American food.

Later on, we got bored of laying on the beach so what did we do.... RENTED A FOUR PERSON BIKE! Maggie, David, Gloria, and I toured the beautiful island via 4 person bike. It was wonderful and hilarious at the same time. I think I was laughing for 10 minutes straight once we took the bike on the beach.

After we had to take the bike back, we went to the cuban place again! We ate some delicious pizza and had some cocktails. We took some more pictures and then played cards and hung out on the beach for the rest of the night. Life is great in Mallorca!