Archive for October, 2008
Dublin & Howt, Ireland
October 3, 2008 by nate, under Photography, Travel.
This past weekend, 24th-27th, a few friends and I traveled to Dublin, Ireland. I’m not sure if I was spoiled by a great experience in Barcelona, but Dublin did not live up to my expectations whatsoever, although, I didn’t really know what my expectations where.. I really expected to see a lot of red-headed Irish, but only saw a few. My one friend who traveled with me has bright red hair and he was hoping he would blend in, but he still didn’t.
We took a bus tour around all of Dublin, it was a 24hr ticket, get on, off whenever you please for the day for 13 Euros. It was really great to learn the history behind all the strange looking statues and the old buildings. There’s so much history over here it puts our Jamestown go to shame. We went on a tour of the Guinness Brewery, and honestly.. I was not impressed whatsoever. However, about four days prior, I went on another brewery tour in London, and it was great, we were in the brewery, got to taste, smell the difference between the different ingredients. The Guinness tour was not in the actual brewery, but a mock one. It was completely given by TVs on the wall, and they just basically video taped the inside of the brewery… The one good thing about the Guinness tour was that at the end, you finish on top of the building, it’s a huge sky bar. So we all were given a free pint, and it was great to be able to see Dublin 360 degrees. My pictures didn’t come out well at all due to the glass, so I didn’t include them… and also it wasn’t that good looking of an area. In our hostel in Dublin, we met a bunch of Canadians from Vancouver, who did say ‘eh’ very often.
I really enjoy traveling and just meeting the most random people in different parts of the world. In our room, there was a German named Thomas.. We sat with him at breakfast and he was telling us about a town named Howt. We ended up taking a bus there with him shortly after, it was only 2 euro, and the bus ride was about an hour long. Howt is a village that is on the Irish Sea coast. It was a great experience. I got to see 150ft high cliffs along the sea. It was beautiful, I have many pictures of that. I can’t believe I almost forgot this.. the main reason I believe that I did not enjoy Dublin is because on the first night there, we ate at a Chinese buffet, we were all very hungry and decided it would be the most cost-effective solution. So I stuffed myself more than I believe I ever have on any Thanksgiving.. Unfortunately, I now learned never to trust a Chinese buffet in Ireland.. My three other friends didn’t eat much seafood, but I did.. I picked up some sort of virus, bug, that the next week or so, I’m just almost recovered right now.. I have been very ill. I spent over 30 euros, or about 45 dollars on medicine in Dublin, which none of it really helped whatsoever.. I just had the worst stomach virus I believe I ever had. Lesson learned. If I don’t look happy in any pictures, it’s because I’m trying hard to not grimace in pain.
Dublin & Howt, Ireland Photo Album
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Barcelona, Spain
October 1, 2008 by nate, under Photography, Travel.
So lets see… the 17th-19th I was in Barcelona, Spain.. In the airport in London, I randomly started talking to an Australian girl standing behind me in the queue (line) to board the airplane, and found out that she was also going to Barcelona.. We were flying into a airport about 30 km away, and she was traveling by herself but meeting friends in Barcelona, so we told her we’d go with her on the bus to figure out how to get to Barcelona from the airport.. When we arrived in Spain, she checked online to see which hostel she was staying at, and we found out that we were both in the same hostel, so once in Barcelona, we walked around, none of us speaking spanish, trying to navigate through. I ended up asking a random person if they spoke French, after they didn’t understand my English, and got directions via French.. I’m learning more and more that the seven years I studied French has finally come in handy..
After we arrived at the hostel and checked in, we discovered we were in the same room. I just found it pretty random that a random Australian girl I met in a airport in London, I’d be living in the same hostel, same room, in Spain.. Anyways.. Our room had about 20 people in it the first two nights, and the third night, they had put mattresses on the floor and ended up being about 25 people. I never really talked to an Australian person in my life before this trip and in my room were about 15 aussies. Australian men are crazy.. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if they all wrestled crocodiles. The one aussie mate named Gary, randomly jumped out of a second floor window, because he saw a marching band and wanted to see what was going on. Another interesting thing I learned about Australia, is that they really don’t like Kangaroos. They were saying how they always jump out in front of their cars… Anyways, Barcelona was an amazing trip. The Mediterranean ocean was beautiful, and warm… The environment was just so relaxed and I am definitely going to visit there again in my life if I can. I didn’t really get a chance to take many pictures there, because thieves were very rampant there and I didn’t feel comfortable lugging it around.