I´m alive and full of free Ben and Jerry´s

Let me just say I am not sorry for the lack of updates. I will not be whipped by the internet.

But on the other hand, I have been so ridiculously on the go for the last month or so, with trip after trip, and paper after paper due in my classes. But I have finally reached a point where I can breath, and pause from planning more travels for at least an hour or so.

I don’t even know where to begin. I guess with spring break. My vacation from this semester long vacation was April 3rd-13th. I spent the first seven days with my parents, who came to visit for a little bit. I was basically tour-guide-Hannah for that week, guiding them around Salamanca, Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid. Funny story about Barcelona. We took the night train, to save our valuable day time, but what we didn’t know was that the sleeper beds are only 6 feet long. And my dad is about 6 foot 2. So that was less that comfortable.

Once in Barcelona, we stayed in this great little rental apartment that was decked out like an Ikea showroom. I took my parents to see my favorite sites in Barcelona, including la Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell. The fact that I had been almost everywhere that we visited made everything go so smoothly, and it was a pretty easy trip. From Barcelona, we spent one night in Valencia, while it rained the entire time unfortunately, and then one night in Madrid.

Some of the many reasons it is great for parents to visit on spring break:
I ate more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch every day.
Wine at every meal.
I only spent 5 euro for those seven days (unheard of).
Oh yeah, and I guess I missed them and it was good to get some lovin.

After my parents left from Madrid, I flew into Dublin for the remaining four days of break! I caught an immediate bus from Dublin to Galway, a four hour ride to the west coast of the country. There, I met up with two of my friends in our hostel and spent the rest of spring break in Ireland with them. It only rained that night, and we were so blessed with sunny blue skies for the rest of the weekend (also unheard of). We were in a 6 person dorm at the hostel, and one of the girls was from Arlington, and went to Park View High School, my rival school. Small world, seriously.

We spent Saturday in an area outside of Galway, called the Burren, where we took a bus tour. We stopped at a small family farm where we took a guided hike through some of the mountains and learned a lot about the history of the region and got to see some beautiful scenery. After enjoying apple pie and coffee by the fireside in their farm house, we got back on the bus and went to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are trying to become the 8th wonder of the world. Sounds to me like they better start trying a lot harder, because I had never even heard of them before, although they were definitely breathtaking.

We got back to Galway after our day tour of the Burren and caught the next bus to Dublin. We really lucked out in Dublin, because our hostel screwed up our reservation, so they bumped us up to one of their apartments. Which meant we didn’t have to worry about sleeping with strangers (which I try to avoid as a general rule in life), AND we got to cook. AND for the first time since the beginning of January, I got to sleep in a full sized bed in a room all to myself. What a gift.

In Dublin, we kept things pretty relaxed—we toured Trinity College, saw the Book of Kells, toured the Guinness Storehouse, and attempted to go to Christ’s Church Cathedral on Easter. I made history by having my first Guinness while in Ireland, and boy am I a changed woman. Definitely my favorite beer by a long shot—something about it not being carbonated, and the thick, chocolaty, bold flavor. So touring the Guinness Storehouse was obviously my favorite part. We learned all about the different ingredients in Guinness, how they brew it, the history, how to properly pour a pint from a tap, and of course, how to drink a pint. We got to practice that plenty.

Ireland was such a great taste of the U.S. just because everybody spoke English, people dressed casual like I’m used to, and they were friendly beyond belief. As different from Spain as possible, where I’m use to everyone being dressed up all the time and me getting glared at for wearing chacos. And people actually smiled in Ireland! I forgot that people know how to smile! Spain really is great, but it’s severely lacking in the friendliness category.

Since I’ve been back in Spain, I had three papers due, a presentation, an oral exam, and a three-day trip to Cantabria, a northern region of Spain. Cantabria was absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite excursion. I know I have probably said that about all of them, but this was our last one, and it was the best. In one day´s time we spent the morning hiking through snow covered mountains in Picos de Europa, and in the evening, we were walking through the sandy beaches of Santander. SO bizarre. In Picos de Europa, we stayed in a parador, which is typically a historical castle or building of some sort, that has been converted into a hotel. This parador didn’t seem to resemble anything historic, but it was great regardless. It was situated at the base of some of the largest mountains I have ever been to. To finally be out of the city, and in an area where the only thing to do was hike was absolutely refreshing. While some other students from my group walked seven kilometers to get to the closest pueblo to buy beer from vending machines, I spent the afternoon in the peaks hiking with a small group of friends. We finally got to a point where we found what looked like a dried up riverbed going straight down the mountain, but it was filled with snow. And we basically went “skiing” down the riverbed in our shoes. The snow was almost solid enough to slide the whole way down without much effort, and once we got to the bottom, we realized the snow was so dry that our clothes and shoes barely got wet.

The following morning, our group took a cable car all the way to the top of the mountain. We spent a few hours soaking in the view, taking tons of pictures, and getting in a snowball fight with a bunch of drunk Spaniards. That was then followed by a 2 hour ride on the bus, and then an afternoon walking along the beach. Spain has it all.

And in 10 days I leave this great little country for a little place I like to call Italia. Let the month of nomadism begin!