Dublin

So Dublin was absolutely spectacular. After Amsterdam, Dublin is my next favorite place I've been. I haven't gone to too many places, but I feel like I'm getting a taste of a lot. My trip is winding down (I fly home in 16 days), and I'll have been everywhere I wanted to go for my first trip to Europe except for Italy and Germany. Next time I suppose.

As for Dublin, we had a fantastic time. It was a lot of fun. The city is beautiful, the people speak English and are KIND, and it has a culture more like the one I'm used to. Not that that means anything, but the French lifestyle and culture is starting to really wear on me.

We did a lot of walking. We toured the Guinness brewery, saw Dublin's Castle, walked through the medieval quarter of Dublin, and thoroughly immersed ourselves in the pub culture. We drank beers, and sang, and danced, and I even managed to get into two fights. But they deserved it ;)

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, but here they are!

[Our Hostel]


[Around Dublin]






[Dublin Castle]




[Guinness!]




[Moi]

Barcelona Videos

Here are a few videos I took while in Barcelona. The first is a compilation of a few of the musical street performances I saw and heard. I especially like the elderly man that's dancing in the third clip. The Flamingo Show we saw was neat too. It was only 4€ and thirty minutes long, but definitely worth it.



This next one is of the sea while we relaxed next to it. Right after I filmed this, a man came up behind us and tried to steal Lauren's purse while it was right next to her. He had to reach down below his feet about a foot and a half because of a sandy ledge we were next to. He must not have gotten a good grip on it because of how low he had to lean. It dropped from his hand we think, but it was really ballsy of him.

Barcelona

So last weekend Lauren and I went to Barcelona, Spain. It was absolutely lovely. During the day we walked a lot. To the beach, through markets, through the narrow little streets. We saw Parc Guell with many Gaudi sculptures and mosaics. It was really neat to see. We drank sangria at the park, and we ate traditional Spanish dishes. The nightlife was lackluster, but we weren't looking for anything crazy. On our last night in Barcelona we even saw a flamingo show.

Our hostel was very clean and friendly. Kind of like a home away form home. The main area we spent our time was la Rambla. Along there was a lot of shopping and restaurants. There was a small market on Sunday too. There was also an incredible number of creative street performers. I really liked seeing the different things people would do for money.

Anyways, here's some pictures.

[Gaudi Park sculptures, mosaics, and Sangria]





[Around Barcelona]







[Cathedral]


[A little fried fish we found in our fries : / ]


[Mediterranean Sea!!!]




[Street performers]



[Flamingo show!]


Going to Dublin in a week!

Louvre

Things are still going well. I've been keeping pretty busy with classes and running around Paris. Yesterday, My "French Conversation" class met near the Eiffel Tower to do a mini walking tour led by one of my professors and his daughter. During which we went to a contemporary art museum.

Today my class went to the Louvre, which is apparently a must see while in Paris. I held out until now because I didn't want to pay. The Louvre is huge and I didn't see everything, but it was pretty cool.

[My professor Will and his daughter Maddie. Probably the cutest and most well behaved toddler I've ever seen]


[George Washington Statue]


[My favorite piece at the Contemporary art museum]


[The Louvre. You can see the Eiffel tower behind the Pyramid in the second picture]



[Venus de Milo (Aphrodite)]


[Me and Mona]

Blois

Between Amsterdam and now, I've been to Versailles, Blois, and Musee d'Orsay. Versailles is a chateau not far from Paris, and Blois is a small town two hours south of Paris where I stayed with my host family for the weekend at their countryside vacation home. There is a chateau not far from their home in Blois as well, which we visited, as well as three others in the countryside that we did a driving tour of.

Musee d'Orsay was a fieldtrip we went on yesterday. Lots of fine art. I saw some Picasso, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Cezanne and Degas. There was a ton of art, and I didn't have time for it all, but it was neat what I did see.

[Versailles]






[Host family's home in the countryside]


[Chateau de Blois]



[Chateau de Chambord]


[Host Family - Gille, Lucile and their son Etienne]


From the Musee d'Orsay:

[Picasso/Manet exhibition. Manet painted Luncheon on the Grass and Picasso painted several interpretations of that same painting]




[Monet]


[Van Gogh and myself]