Flashback Friday

I am leaving today for my weekend trip to the Ring of Kerry.  To make up for the lack of posts this weekend I thought I would share with you the craziest experience of my time abroad so far; Matt's flight home.

To start from the beginning, my flight home in December was at 4:15pm.  At the time there were only two flight options to choose from, 11:30am or 4:15pm.

Fast forward a month Matt and I travelled back to Ireland, Spain, and then back to Ireland.  His flight was on Tuesday, January 13th from Dublin.  We were already in Dublin, and they recommend that you get to an international flight three hours before departure so he did not have to be at the airport until around 1.

I woke up early that morning and saw Seton off at 7am because she was taking the earlier flight, and then went back to the hotel room to catch a few more hours of sleep before Matt's departure.  I wanted to let him sleep as long as possible because I told him he was not allowed to sleep on the flight so that he could fight the reverse jet lag.  I finally woke him up at 11:30am and we gathered all of our belongings and checked out of the hotel.

We had some time to spare so we went downstairs to the hotel's restaurant so we could grab something to eat before he left.  This is a crucial piece of information to the story; because we were in the hotel we both had wifi on our phones.  If we had not, I do not want to think about what would have happened.

Shortly after ordering our meals Matt receives a text from my mom telling Matt that she will see him in Boston at 4pm.  After he reads this aloud to me I quickly respond with and exasperated, "Tell mom she has it wrong, your flight leaves Ireland at 4, you arrive in Boston at 6". Immediately she responds with a text saying "No, his flight leaves Ireland at 2, and arrives in Boston at 4".

It is now 12:45pm and we are sitting in Dublin's city centre.

I have never been more panicked in my life.  Apparently, after the first of the year the flight schedule had changed and the 4pm flight now left at 2pm.  Looking back at it now, someone (probably me) should have not only double checked the time of the flight, but maybe checked it at all.

So we run out of the restaurant, luckily our food had not come so we were not dining and dashing, and because the Irish people are so nice when they heard what was going on, and saw the look on my face, they told us not to worry and just to get on our way.

We rush out of the hotel and I rip open the driver's door of the first taxi that I see and ask the man how quickly he can get us to the airport.  He responds, "quickly".  I tell him that we need his answer to be two hours ago, but seeing as that is not possible we settle for as fast as possible.

His answer is the best part of the whole story, he said, "I live for this kind of thing".

Matt and I are then thrust into the world of Jason Bourne. The driver is speeding, swerving, moving through lanes, cars, and barriers.  At one point he even jerks down a back alley and emerges on the other side of the road.  He also found the situation completely amusing continuously asking whose fault the mishap was.  That would be me sir, please stop laughing. *note* The seat belts in the back of the car were broken so it really was as dangerous as it sounds.

He manages to get us there in a record breaking 24 minutes placing our time of arrival at the airport to be 1:15.

We rush to the counter and checked Matt in; there was no line because everyone else had gotten there an appropriate amount of time before the flight.  The man behind the counter told us not to worry, now that Matt was checked in he would make his flight.  Even though this was nice to hear, we were so panicked it did not do much to settle all of the adrenaline that was running through my body.

Matt and I then ran to the first security check where it occurred to me that I had about five seconds to say goodbye to my brother for the next five months. But, no matter how rushed we were, I still made him give me a hug in public because that is what older sisters do. Being the pro that he is, Matt made it through both Irish and American security in about 30 minutes.

I have never been so surprised or relieved as when I got that text from him saying, "At my gate".

At this point I was on the phone with my mom because from our obvious lack of knowledge about the time of his flight she had figured out what was going on. We decided that it would be best not to tell dad this story until Matt had safely landed in America, if ever.

I'm sure there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this story, but the moral is that everything eventually was okay so I didn't look for them.

Rapid Recap

My last post was about the last day the gang and I were in Barcelona.  It was such an incredible trip that I wanted to make sure I spent a long time describing it, however I returned home almost a month ago and there have been a lot of fun things happening in Ireland since then that I want to share as well!

I am going to do a very speedy round-up to try and get caught up to the present day.

Sunday January 11th:

• Fly Back to Ireland
• Check into a hotel in Dublin that the McFarland's were nice enough to get for us for the next few nights
• Have Matt and Seton try Guinness's 

Monday January 12th:

• Explore Dublin
• Stop for tea and scones because when in Ireland....
• Stop for lunch at....The Counter Burger!! This is a big deal because this is my family's favorite burger chain and the one in West Hartford closed down so we haven't been able to go for the past year.  Matt and my eyes lit up when we saw the Counter sign and we immediately walked inside very excited.  
• Go to one last pub with great live music to enjoy the atmosphere and company for one last night before having to say goodbye to my two best friends 

Tuesday January 13th:

• Send Seton off early in the morning for her 11am flight
• Go to grab lunch with Matt before his 4pm flight
• Find out Matt's flight is NOT at 4pm its actually at 2pm
• PANIC 

(more on this ^ story later because it is so funny it needs its own post)

• Get on the bus and head back to Cork 

Wednesday January 14th:

• Test out a few classes
• Sleep in my bed for the first time since returning to Ireland, and love it!! 

Thursday January 15th: 

• Go to classes in the morning
• Drop off computer to be repaired
• Get on the train in the afternoon to go back to Dublin
• *note* the train is an infinitely more enjoyable experience than the bus, so even though I was going right back to Dublin where I had just been for a few days the trip was a lot easier this time around 
• Check into hostel with Caitlin, Anne, and Allegra for the next two nights
• Meet up with the Holy Cross students who are studying abroad in Dublin for the Spring Semester

Friday January 16th:

• Explore Dublin and do some shopping
• Go out to a goodbye dinner with Caitlin for Anne and Allegra

Saturday January 17th:

• Buy a juice smoothie at the train station because Katie has gotten me hooked
• Take the train back to Cork
• Go to bed VERY early and sleep for an eternity 

Monday January 18th-Thursday January 22nd:

• Sarah, Caitlin's friend who studies abroad in Spain, came to visit cork from Sunday through Tuesday
• The last time I had seen her was Oktoberfest, so it had been quite awhile and it was really great to see her
• Monday night Caitlin, Sarah and I tried this hole in the wall Mexican place, Cafe Mexicana, for dinner and it was delicious
• We then went to a pub called An Brog to watch the Patriots game and were joined by Nicole and Julia
• Dinner with advisor Shane on Wednesday to welcome all of us back followed by a terrible play at the theatre 
•  First full week of classes
• That still means only Monday - Thursday

Matt and Seton trying Guiness

Our tea stop was at Bewley's, a famous tea brand that has a restaurant in Dublin

The Doors of Dublin

 They are brightly colored doors that are found on one street in Dublin where all of the doorways are the same and each door has its own color

Counter Burger Menu

Matt and Seton in front of The Temple Bar 

Inside of The Temple Bar 

Seton on the bus to go home

The Juice Bar in the train station

Football at An Brog

Me, back in Cork, enjoying Cork's stout, a Murphy's at one of my favorite bars, The Oliver Plunkett

My burrito at Cafe Mexicana 

 

Sorry for the really long post but I had to get it all out sometime! After all of these exciting visits and trips it was time for me to return to normal life and get back to things I had been putting off, like school, grocery shopping, and the gym! 

Spain Day 3: Barcelona

The trip to Montserrat was wonderful, but it meant that our time in the city of Barcelona was cut short to just Saturday. Since we were leaving early Sunday morning, it was our only day to do
and see all that we wanted to before we left.

Barca street 

First Stop: Picasso Museum

The Picasso museum was great, even as someone who is not a fanatic about museums I really loved it. At the end of the tour Matt and I bought postcards and a small picture for ourselves, and I promptly left them at stop 2 on today's journey so sorry Mom, Dad, Katie and Bean but part of your gift is somewhere floating around Spain...oops! 

Second Stop: Park Guell 

This park was designed by Gaudi and is made up of beautiful mosaic tiles in the midst of the natural landscape of sun and palm trees.

Gaudi's house at the entrance to the park

The grand entryway

Examples of his mosaic work

One section of the park

(*note this spot is where America's Next Top Model filmed one of their season finale catwalks, through these caves!)

Matt and I in the entryway, he was nice enough to oblige my jumping photo

There was a hole in one of the walls and Seton and I fit inside!

The second section of the park, it holds the famous mosaic bench that wraps around this space

Matt and I trying to take a photo in the sunniest spot ever....

Take #1

Take #2

Third time's the charm!

Caitlin, Seton and Me at the top most peak of the park

Stop Three: Sagrada Familia

This is Gaudi's most prominent work in the form of this cathedral. It has never been finished, and this was very evident with the vast amount of construction that was going on.  There was an extremely long line to climb to the top, and in the interest of saving time to do more we opted not to wait. However, this is definitely one of the tallest structures I have ever seen. 

Stop Four: The Beach

Barcelona is right on the water and even though it was January, and not beach weather, we were excited to feel as though it was not the dead of winter. The weather was a lot milder the whole time we were there, staying around mid 50s to low 60s which was essentially tropical to all of us New Englander's where the alternative was temperatures in the teens. 

We made it to the pier around early evening, a beautiful time 

Beachside promenade

 Many beautiful sand structures along the way

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant alongside the beach overlooking the water. We had been walking so much that at this point we were all ready to drop just about anywhere.  This ended up being a good choice because earlier in the day we had made reservations to go to the Ice Bar and it turned out we had stopped for dinner at a place only a few doors down from our next, and final, destination. 

Stop Four: Icebarcelona 

The Ice Bar is something that has become very popular in Europe and since Caitlin and I had not yet been to one, we thought it would be fun to try it out with all of our visitors.  It is a bar in which the whole room, and everything in it is made up entirely of ice. You are given very puffy, eskemo-esque coats and gloves and you enjoy your drinks from ice glasses that rest on an ice bar. 

 IceBarcelona

(if you notice the red numbers they say -06 which is the temperature, in celsius, of the room)

Me, Seton and Caitlin

Our Group: Allegra, Me, Seton, Caitlin, Anne

Matt and Bobby (Anne's boyfriend who joined us for a small part of our trip)

Matt and I "getting warm" 

Matt taking a quick nap on the ice bed

Caitlin and I peaking around the ice corner

We had a lot of fun goofing around taking funny photos and sitting on the ice, but we only lasted just shy of an hour.  We left the room and warmed up outside using their space heaters until we were properly de-thawed.  After this we were all pleasantly exhausted, and could do no more so we called it a night.  Barcelona had treated us well but unfortunately it was time to get ready to come home. 

Never Thought I Would Say This....But I Love Montserrat

On Friday our group got up early and headed off to the train station to make a day trip.  For those of you who know Holy Cross, you know that as freshman we all have to take a seminar called Montserrat.  It is a mandatory year long course in which you have little say in the matter of choosing, and it determines your housing for freshman year as well; needless to say, it is a big part of your life at Holy Cross.

The class is titled Montserrat because this is the site where St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, decided to put away his bad boy behavior and dedicate his life to the church.

To my embarrassment, I had no idea that Montserrat was near Barcelona, let alone accessible, until Caitlin mentioned it briefly on Tuesday night when we were discussing possibilities for our trip.  Upon hearing this, we immediately looked into it because the idea of going to visit Montserrat, after the name had been so prominent in our lives for so long, was appealing to six Crusaders.

The trip ended up being only an hour away by train with easy on and off access points and so it was a no brainer, we were going to Montserrat.

Immediately upon arriving you are walk up to this edge and peer upon one of the most massive mountain ranges I have ever seen.  There is a relatively thin cable that runs from above your head to nearly the tip of that mountain, and then you realize that that is how you are getting up to the top.

Seton and Me in front of Montserrat

The ride in the cable car up the mountain

 The view along the way

Matt and Me at the top

It is astonishing to me that anyone could get up this mountain before the days of technology, but not only did people do it, and frequently, but they built a small village at the top.  There were numerous buildings, and statues, and the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen, called the Santa Maria de Montserrat.

The Statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Facade of the Santa Maria de Montserrat

Inside the Chapel

If you look closely at the dome there is a statue on a higher level. There is a staircase on the side of the church that takes you up to the second story of the Chapel.  From here, you can go behind the dome to a second, smaller chapel, or through the opening to rub the statue and make a wish. 

The statue is in the center above the hanging Jesus

Chapel on the second level

Matt rubbing the statue

This picture was taken when I was standing where Matt was above ^ but facing the chapel instead of the statue

We spent a few hours at the top of Montserrat, exploring both the Cathedral and the small town.  After awhile we had to head back down so that we could catch the last train back to Barcelona.  This was the most unexpected part of our trip, but definitely my favorite. It was breathtakingly beautiful and an added bonus that Montserrat had previously been such a big part of my life.

Upon arriving back in Barcelona we immediately went in search of food.  Caitlin's older sister Carolyn had recommended a restaurant she went to when she had visited that was a great hit with everyone.  It is a restaurant run by chef's in training so you are getting high quality food at low prices.   This is where I decided to try Spain's signature dish, seafood paella.

Seton and I shared this dish

After dinner we headed out to our last destination of the day.  We went to the Dow Jones Bar where all of the drink prices are based off of their popularity.  So as one drink, such as Budweiser, is bought more frequently than the others the price rises, with the same happening in the opposite direction.  It makes choosing and buying a drink seem strategic, especially when you factor in the "crashes" that happen a few times during the night when all of the drink prices fall at the same time until people rush back in and start buying to restart the process. 

Dow Jones Barcelona Drink Price Board

We finally arrived home late that night and very exhausted from a wonderful day.  We hit the pillow and all of us were out in minutes.