Week 9- 3 Countries in 7 Days

I don't know how detailed I can be since I wasn't really paying attention to the names of the places that we were going to, but I'm gonna try. We woke up at 5 am on Saturday morning to catch a flight to Dublin from the smallest airport that I've ever been to. I had a ton of water in my backpack and security didn't catch it so that made me feel a little uneasy. But we made it to Dublin okay and headed out to explore the city.

The garden at St. Patrick's Cathedral

Dublin

The Cliffs of Moher

The Brazen Head; Ireland's Oldest Pub

The accents were cool. There were a lot of seagulls. Why were there so many seagulls? It really threw me off. We went to St. Patrick's Cathedral and the garden outside was amazing. For lunch, we ate fish and chips at a famous fish and chip place. I've eaten the same fish and chips as Jackie Chan and Justin Timberlake's parents so that'll be a cool ice breaker one day. That night we went to the oldest pub in Dublin called the Brazen Head. It was super packed so we had to wait a while to be seating, but it was so worth it. We had to wake up super early again the next day to go see the Cliffs of Moher. We had a really long bus ride to the cliffs and for some reason I chose that day to try to rehydrate myself. I chugged a large water bottle at a gas station thinking that I'd have time to go before we left but we left and I had to go twenty minutes later and it was a very sucky bus ride. But the cliffs were so pretty when we got there. I was surprised to learn that a lot of movies had scenes filmed at that location so I'll have to watch those movies one of these days. We went to three other places that day, but I don't know their names and didn't really pay attention so I probably won't talk about them. I did buy toothpaste at one of the stops, however. That night we went to the bar where they filmed a scene in P.S. I Love You. I didn't stay long since we had to be up super early again the next day for out flight to Lisbon.

I couldn't get my tining right

Lisbon
We got to Lisbon super early and had a hard time finding our hostel because the first floor of it was a souvenir shop. The hostel was pretty cool though since they still had free breakfast when we got there so we got to eat a little before we went to get lunch. Our first stop was a beach. I had no idea Lisbon had a beach. There were also a bunch of seagulls but it made more sense for them to be there than in Dublin. After the beach we went to a castle on top of a mountain. We had to walk a lot uphill, but the view was worth it. It kind of reminded me of all of the houses in Game of Thrones. After dinner we went to a tower and it was pretty cool. The sun was setting just as we got there so it added a lot of dramatic effect to the background. We walked around some more and then had some sangria by the water. The following day, Rachel, Clare and I woke up early to visit a famous pilgramage site called Fatima. It was the site where the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared to three children on separate occasions. It was also where the sun was said to have danced in the sky in front of thousands of people. I went to sleep early that night because yet again we had to be up early the next day to catch a flight to Barcelona.

Fatima and the castle

Barcelona
At this point in the trip, a lot of people were sick and most of us were very tired. Some of us had to get medicine, so we went by the pharmacy and while we were there we also got swim suits from a store in the mall. I was expecting to use my Spanish a lot, but for some reason they spoke Catalan most of the time. It was a pretty ugly language and I didn't understand why they used it over Spanish, so we ended up just speaking English most of the time. The only time I used my Spanish was to talk to a doctor on the street about one of my friends that was throwing up. I slept for 16 hours on the first day in Barcelona. I don't know if I was really that tired or what, but I would wake up occasionally and see that nobody was awake so I would go back to sleep. My body ached throughout the following day and we ended up doing a lot. We started out by going to the Sagrada Familia. This was by far the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen. It was so nature-y and green and I can't wait to see it when it's finally finished. We even got to see one of the sculptures being made. Later that day we went to Park Guell and it was also super amazing and everything was cool and I got in trouble for sitting by a lizard. There were street performers playing the Game of Thrones theme song and it could not have gotten any more perfect. Later that day, we finally got to sunbathe on the beach and it was the greatest thing ever. The water was too cold to go inside and I can't swim anyways so it was all good.

I didn't eat out at all in Barcelona. Since we had an Airbnb, we just bought groceries and I ate cereal the majority of the time because I love cereal so much and I could live off of it. We also made tacos one of the nights and it took us an hour to cook the meat because Clare didn't think it was safe to eat lol. They were alright. Montserrat was the bomb. There was also a dancing fountain. We played volleyball on the beach. We heard an all boys choir sing in the mountains.

Tldr; I had fun.