Dublin

So, as many, if not all, of you know, it was my 21st birthday last week Friday (March 12th – if your calendars weren’t marked, MARK THEM FOR NEXT YEAR!). I received an AMAZING package which made me miss my family even more, and a card from Mare and Steve that brightened my day, more than they’ll ever know! So if I haven’t said thank you enough… THANK YOU!!!!
Now, for celebration many people my age would just have a normal, fun celebration with a few friends or, in my case, family if I were at home, but you all should know me by now, I went ALL OUT! My friends from Seville were mad that I wasn’t staying to celebrate it with them, so they decided to throw me a “pre-birthday” bash on the Tuesday before my birthday which was AMAZING! Almost EVERYONE from our school came, and to my surprise, said they felt like they “know it would be a good time” since it was a party for me. Don’t know if that is a complement or not, but I had a blast and I know everyone else did too! Except there was one little problem… Professors would jokingly come up to me and ask if it were my birthday week, and I would excitedly reply, “yeah!” and they’d ask, “so you’re the reason why all of my students have been sleeping all week?” Whoops! I guess I know how to have a good time and have everyone else enjoy it in the meantime! However, the more exciting place for you to hear about is DUBLIN!
Like I told my mom, my status said it all, “Off to DUBLIN for the birthday celebration of a lifetime! Get ready lads/lassies… I’m only turning 21 ONCE!!!” Enough said. I was off to Dublin as fast as I could get there. By fast I mean taking a 6 hour bus ride to Madrid in order to get a cheaper flight to Dublin. I left at 11pm on Thursday, alone, and arrived in Madrid at 5:45 Friday morning and was LITERALLY the first group allowed to go onto the Metra because it was so early! The things I do to have fun on my 21st! When I arrived to the airport I had a solid 4 hours or so before I would begin boarding. I was not supposed to have such a long gap between but I had been swapped to the earlier bus instead of the 1am bus due to a group of kids travelling together for school. Either way, I kept myself busy enough and, safe to say, I drank enough coffee to wake up someone in a coma! My flight left at 12:45 (an hour behind schedule) which is EXTREMELY unlikely because I flew through Ryanair who has their own awkward little song play every time they arrive on time (what they’re known for), it is EXTREMELY obnoxious. Any who, I ended up meeting a large group of Spaniards who were dressed up in some weird getup that they tried to convince me was “traditional Irish gear.” Talked with them the whole flight and watched them all down almost a bottle a piece, INSANE! But they said they’ve been doing it for the past 9 years all together (since their “college days”). Either way, it was nice meeting people who could keep me occupied so that I wasn’t jumping out of my seat waiting to land in Dublin.
Finally I landed to find out that my best friend/sister since God knows when, Beth, arrived on time in Dublin so she and her two friends had already headed into the center of town. I hopped on a bus, walked a little ways and sprinted down the street as soon as I saw Beth. We totally had one of those moments… You know, the ones in the movies where there is a large crowd of people that two people are walking through and it parts and two people see each other after a long awaited search? Yup! That is definitely how I’d describe seeing my best friend after 3 months. Hahaha. Although it sounds dramatic, it’s real life PEOPLE! (Mom, please show Tess that last line, aka. Make sure she actually reads this!) I hadn’t eaten since 8pm the day before so we went to our first “pub” and got ourselves a little lunchtime snack and Carlsberg. During this time I received a call from my friend who I came to visit, Dan, who tried getting a hold of me while I was on the flight to tell me that he won’t be back in Dublin until 7pm. Whoa! Back up… back in Dublin? I had NO IDEA where he was! He told me that it had been his spring break for a week and he went to Italy for it, and with the “air strikes” he is being held up in Rome. A little piece of information that I forgot to tell you before this, in Europe, if you all haven’t heard, there are “air strikes” taking place in a ton of countries as we speak. In France, in particular because it’s the only one that I truly understood on the Spanish news, the watchtower shut down because of a strike and refused to help communicate with those planes already in flight and there was a huge problem that erupted and tons of flights were delayed, if not postponed until further notice. This, for Dan, was a problem. He was as apologetic as ever, and to be honest, I could care less! As long as SOMEONE was there with me, I didn’t mind. Yes, it would have been nice to drop off our bags instead of lugging them around, but there’s nothing like doing the “traditional backpacking around Europe.”
We decided to go to the Guinness Factory and do a guided tour before it closed, since Dan had already been there. We went, we saw, we conquered! It was so cool! Not only did you get to see how it was made, but you got to taste the different ingredients used to make it! Not to mention the free Guinness that you get to “taste test” and then get yet another FREE Guinness to enjoy at their “sky” bar overlooking Dublin. One of Dan’s friends then called telling us that we should meet up with him because he lives really close to Dan and we can drop off our bags as we wait for Dan’s arrival. So, we quickly ate dinner, and then went to meet one of Dan’s friends at their college. Waited a few hours, and felt HORRIBLE intruding on this new friend’s territory. However, he had a friend visiting so when they left to go out, we waited for Dan since we didn’t know how/when we’d be able to get our bags if we left too. When Dan got there, we all threw our stuff in his apartment quickly, and went out to finish my birthday celebration. Although it was VERY short lived, they all said we’d make up for it the next day.
Saturday came and went as quick as ever! We went all over town and explored and then went to the Jameson Factory and I got to be the “group taste tester” since it was my birthday. I can honestly say that I would have rather NOT been chosen for that, Jameson isn’t my thing. But, it was fun and I got a “graduation” certificate since my taste buds had “matured” enough to graduate to the big boys’ league of drinking. After, we stopped back home to get ready for the night and were off to our pub crawl. We met TONS of people and had an absolute blast that night! Everyone we met knew it was my birthday, I don’t know how? It could have been the LARGE AND IN CHARGE green leprechaun hat I was wearing all night and Bethany screaming “hey! It’s her birthday and she’s Irish!” It also had to help when I introduced myself as Lauren McTEEIIRnan as if I were WAY more Irish than I actually am. Either way it was amazing!
Woke up the next day and had to leave around 12:00 in order to make my flight on time. However, yet again, my flight was delayed so I missed my connecting bus and had to wait 6 HOURS in the bus station in Madrid. WOOF! I got home at 4:30 in the morning to go to class at 11:45 the next afternoon. I was insanely exhausted to say the least! But, all in all, it was an amazing weekend and I got to meet up with two of my best friends, what more could I have asked for? Other than my sister Ash being there, actually my whole family would have been nice, but that just means we’ll have to celebrate when I get back home now! Can’t wait! :)
As for this weekend… I am going to Lisbon, Portugal. The weather in our area is about 75-80 degrees every day, and it is hard for me to want to leave! Future trips, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Italy, Greece. Whoa baby! I am going to have some good blogs!

Love and miss you all! Let me know if you want to hear about anything else!

Laur

Quote of the Week: Pub crawl. ¿Usted se gateó a los bars? (“you crawled to the bars?”)
I guess this is one of the MANY things that can’t be directly translated from English to Spanish. Hahaha.