25-5-2012

Against my better judgement and personal responsibility, I decided to yell out YOLO and take a trip traveling around while cutting my potential study time down by a week. Worth it? I’d say so!

Started off with 4 nights and 3 whole days in Ireland with my friends Emily and Allison. Actually we barely made our good ol’ Ryanair flight out of Eindhoven, it was a miracle we got to Dublin lol. First and second day we just roamed around Dublin City mainly focusing on the Temple Bar district which is the local tourist trap. But we didn’t care if it was a tourist trap, it was still a nice area. Its funny cause every pub or bar is an Irish pub so you can imagine the nice wooden walls, high stools, and pints of beer everywhere. Live music is really popular too. With most places I know that play live music only a few times a week, its pretty much every night here.

On the second day we did a free tour of Dublin, visited St. James Gate Brewery (Guinness), and participated in a pub crawl. I didn’t really get drunk because Guinness is a meal in a beer. Heavy stuff, you can only really drink 1 or 2 and feel full. But it tastes great over there in Dublin! Enjoyed Irish cuisine which I really liked, all beef and potatoes with a pint of Guinness!

Day three, we decided to head out to the fishing village of Howth about half an hour away by train from Dublin. It was beautiful seeing the horizon of water colliding with the sky to form a bluish white gradient. In the distance you could see the Eye of Ireland, a deserted island off the coast. Apparently there was supposed to be seals in the area too. Which we didn’t see!!! To my high disappointed. Though I claim I saw one following a boat around and then diving down. Seals <3 Then we climbed up to a great view, on top of a green hill covered in yellow flowers, of a coast with a lighthouse in the distance. Very relaxing!

Day four, we participated in a bus tour to the country side of Ireland called Galway to see cows, sheep, grass, rocks, and the Cliffs of Mohr. Cliffs of Mohr was were Dumbledore and Harry Potter stood in Movie 6. The country side was beautiful and I highly suggest anybody going to Ireland to do a tour of one cause you can’t feel the real Ireland if you just stay in Dublin.

* cows: “ohhhayyyy”

Sweden! Spent 3 nights and 2 whole days in Stockholm. The furthest north I’ve even been! Which ended up being the warmest place I’ve been in for a while. Spent one day walking around in a dress cause it was that nice! Though landing in Sweden, it reminded me alot of the wilderness Jersey and northern New York area. Lots of pine trees and stuff! The city was surprisingly very modern too!

Sweden. Home of H&M and Ikea. Totally spent a good amount of time shopping lol cause they have a good shopping center. Other than that, Swedish meatballs and taking pretty pictures. Day one, we took a free walking tour of the city. Interesting to say the least, Stockholm is apparently built on top of compacted garbage. Then at night we attempted to go out to a cafe that Lady Gaga went to but we got there late and they wouldn’t let us in. Ended up splurging on McDonalds and going back to the room to watch this horrible ABC Family movie because we downloaded the wrong movie.

I’ll tell you some things about Swedish culture. They are ON THE DOT ON TIME. Which is soo rare in any other culture I ever experienced so far. They love to dance which is an opposite comparison to the Dutch that don’t dance. They are super fashionable. For somebody that’s been to Paris, I think on average, everybody in Stockholm dressed nicer.

Day two, we shopped in H&M and then took a ferry to the archipelago islands outside of Stockholm. Stockholm is very naturey for the fact that if you move in any direction from the city for 30min, you end up in nature. The island was taken by Angry Birds who were all angry at us. We don’t got your eggs bro! But the ultimate impression I got from Sweden was the angry gooses, their national animal the meese, IKEA, H&M, and that sun rises at 3:15 AM.

After an exhausting 7 days of living off one roll-y suitcase and pretty much running out of clothing by day 6, going over budget countless times, always running and rushing to make flights and connections, artsy attempts at pictures, meeting new people, eating local foods, getting overly excited for free WiFi, I’m back “home” in Amsterdam! :)