i just NUTella-ed my pants [eurotrip]

[above is a photo of me looking very sad in our gross ass sketchy hostel in paris]

hoooo boi do i have a lot to catch up on. i havent blogged since germany! it was f-ing freezing! but anywho, it was an early flight sunday morning into paris. the french dont mess around with their trains; it costs like E10 to ride like 11 blocks and the doors slam shut! swear i almost lost a finger or two. our hostel was possibly the worst hostel i've ever stayed in, and as soon as im done blogging im going to write the most horrible review ever about it. it was the cheapest we could find in paris; it was 20 euro a night as opposed to like 30 or 35 for the other ones. we definitely put price over quality, and it definitely was thee worst decision ever. we had to leave the hostel every day from 11am to 3:30 pm, so they could "clean", which consisted of them re-folding our blanket and picking up the piece of garbage we had. the showers were disgusting, the sheets had shit all over them, the guys would fall asleep at the front counter so anyone could walk in the door and come up to our rooms, these guys knocked on our door every night because they didnt believe we weren't one of their friends; they seemed to think we were lying about not hiding his friend. the 'free breakfast' consisted of a vending machine croissant and a 1/4 of a latte.

total. bullshit. there may have been banana and nutella crepes involved to make up for it. jake and ang only got nutella ones, so i kept making the joke that mine had 'superior potassium'. jake was like, this is so good; i think i just NUTelled my pants. we laughed. so hard.

it wasnt all bad tho, we got to see the Eiffel tower and go up in it at night. if i wasnt such a chicken shit about heights, im sure it would have been beautiful, but instead i was freaking out and getting nauseous the whole time and wasnt happy until we were safe on the ground again. the paris skyline at night is a sight that i will never forget. we thought the tower would be a lot closer to our hostel; turns out it was about 2 1/2 miles away. we walked there and back twice. we walked to the arc de triomphe and almost died before we figured out that you go underground to get to it, NOT run across the street through 21794328942 lanes of cars in a roundabout. the next day we went shopping. i may or may not have bought these amazing Parisian boots that were on sale for E15. theyre GORGEOUS. we went to the louvre and notre dame also.  I WAS AT THE LOURVE. for an art minor, it was incredible. they had renoirs, degas's, michelangelos, and, of course, the mona lisa. jake was a little annoyed at the fact that we walked all the way through the huge ass museum to see something about the size of a sheet of paper, but she was amazing. Notre dame was the most beautiful church ive ever seen [and i can say that because i havent seen the vatican yet. thats next weekend :P] it was incredible. overall, we walked about a total of 10 miles or so in paris. we were EXHAUSTED. our flight on wednesday was another ass-crack-of-dawn flight, and we had to find a way to get to the shuttle that takes us to the other airport thats 2 hours out of the city. we looked it up on my phone, and it turns out my iphone hates us and sent us entirely in the wrong directions. AND we couldnt get a cab. apparently, no cabs will pick anyone up until 8am or some shit. we finally JUMPED in front of this cab and he took us to the bus, which we got the LAST THREE SEATS on the last bus that would be on time for our flight. it almost didnt happen. it was a ryanair flight; so our bags had to be repacked and almost didnt come with us, then the flight was one of the scariest flights of my life. but it landed safely in barcelona. 

barcelona = amazing

it was a sunny  65 degrees the entire time we were there. we found out where our hostel was, and even though we accidently made the reservation for 3 days BEFORE we got there, they still had vacancy and we went up to our rooms. we get inside, and we see that there are 4 'empty' beds. we also found this cup on top of  the lockers [all four of which were used] that said, in spanish, "i have no job, i need help so i can...." then the bottom of the paper was ripped off. WE HAD HOMELESS ROOMMATES. we freaked out, and we couldnt put our stuff in the lockers because they used them all with their hobo-shit. we went and complained to the lady, who was actually very understanding, and she let us keep our stuff in her office. PHEW. they were two italian men, not bad looking at all, that went to bed at like 5 am and slept till 2pm. in barcelona, we thought about maybe possibly going to see something touristy, but instead we found our way to the beach. we did the same thing the second day, and all day the third day. we went shopping in between there, i bought kelly, angelina, and myself a present. my present to myself was this gorgeous leather jacket that looks fabulous on me [it was 45E.] and a super cute navy dress that cost 7E. i wore them both with my new brown boots from paris. i mustve either looked good or the men arent used to seeing women's skin in february, because i got whistled at and catcalled ALL DAY LONG. i just kept quiet until this one guy said something about me really loudly next to me, and i screamed "I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU" in spanish. yeah, he shut up. they thought i couldnt understand them. we definitely stood out tho, we were in dresses and t-shirts and everyone else was all bundled up like it was cold. it was 15 C! i got sunburned! the last day we decided to sit on the beach ALL DAY. we went to this restaurant and had sangria. then another pitcher of sangria. then jake had the brilliant idea of buying a bottle of rum for angela and myself to split. keep in mind this is like, 430 pm. we drank the entire bottle, and by 8pm the sun was setting. we saw these girls going topless swimming and thought it would be a great idea. keep in mind nudity is SO legal in barcelona, even if youre not on a 'nude' beach. so, drunk as we were, the two girls stripped down to our undies and ran into the ice cold Mediterranean sea. and when i say ice cold, i mean like you cant breathe its so cold. it was painful how cold it was. we decided to go big or go home and we took our underwear off too. yes, we skinny dipped in barcelona. i was also too drunk to spell my name. apparently we got burger king, jake helped me back into my clothes, i sang dora the explorer the entire time...not in that order, obvi. i dont remember that. i remember drunkenly telling jake to go check our flight time just to be sure. GOOD FUCKIN THING HE DID, we thought our flight was at 10 pm and it was actually at 10am. we would have been beyond screwed. so, with all three of us still drunk, we got a cab to the airport and jumped on an early flight again. overall the trip was INCREDIBLE, and im sure im forgetting ALOT of awesome things about it, but as it comes back to me ill blog some more about it. as of now i have some homework i should be doing; i just made dinner, [pasta, basil, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, garlic, and WAY too much olive oil] gorged myself, and now im going to go snuggle with bunny since my room has no power until my roommates are back. its good to back in dublin, i have rome next weekend, st patricks day the following weekend, galway after that, then scotland in april! i love traveling the world!

gutentag from berlinden!

herro. GAH IM IN BERLIN RIGHT NOW!!!! this place is awesome. our hostel is really nice, and they have a computer for me to sit on. :D tomorrow we're going to see the berlin wall and a couple museums. we really wanted to go to auschwitz; turns out its 9 hours away from here.  (side note: I HATE THIS KEYBOARD. the y and the z switched places, and the symbols are all fucked up. so if i sound like a  reh-tard, its not my fault. BLAME THE GERMANS-theyre used to it by now). aaaanywho, jakes next to me looking up walking tours and shit. burn off all the food WE'RE NOT EATING. we bought peanut butter and jelly (at least what looks like jelly and might be peanut better) a loaf of bread, some of what we assumed was ham, some oranges, and some cheese. theres no fridge in our hostel, which is weird, so we had to eat the perishable food tonight. that should last us 3 days. ha! lets hope so!

today we just kind of wandered around the city, we saw a church and this monestary that has a name but i cant remember/even attempt to pronounce it. we went into a bunch of shops, and i ended up buying my germany scarf, which is a GORGEOUS dark purple and black. it was €3. i also bought a 60 cent german sausage and a latte. i thought it would be fun to order a latte in german, or at least attempt it, but the lady spoke english and ruined my fun. we got lost earlier today on the bus, on thee sweetest older lady tried to talk to us. we could pretty much figure out what she was saying to us; we understood about half. lol. she helped us out and let us follow her to show us which bus to get on. turns out she pointed us in totally the wrong direction, but we figured it out. I love love LOVE getting lost here. i really dont mind it. its kinda fun when you have the whole day to wander around without a time schedule.OH YA homework i said id be doing-. PSH. we leave here on sunday to go to paris. we're a little nervous for paris. apparently people arent nice. jake's international roommate will be back home in paris when we're there, so we're definitely gonna hit him up so he can show us the real paris without us getting killed in the process. angela knows a little bit of french, so we can at least minimally communicate with the world. I CANT WAIT TO SEE THE LOURVE! (spelling?) its gonna be amazing. barcelona is apparently warm. ITS F-ING COLD HERE. we got off the train and ang said "its like wisconsin" HA! shes so not lying tho. its that cold. kind of like wisco in like november, before its so cold you avoid the outdoors at all costs. it gets SO COLD at night. everything has the funniest names too. the coffee shop we went to was called "Balzac" and this restaurant in the mall was called "Crobag" im having a hard time NOT making fun of it. figure the locals wont appreciate it much. 

im going to bed suuuper early tonight as our flight left at 7 this morning so we were up at 430 to be ready. our flight was only like 2 hours, but i slept most of the time. i have this thing were i sleep on moving vehicles of any kind. it got the point where i put my tray down and put my face on it. goodbye all! i'll def put pics up on fb and ill def blog about paris and barcelona!

<3 <3 <3 <3

valentine's day and reading week prep

hello all. today is tuesday. it was officially my second slacker day of the week. i skipped class, my masters level class, which is usually a big no-no. they'll survive without the only american in the group. im sure the Indian kept them occupied. seriously tho, theres like 20 french, me, and this kid from india. OH YA minority native english speakers. i also am not going to my volunteer hours like i had planned to. oops. i let the guy know i wont be back till march first because i'll be BACKPACKING EUROPE for a few days :P. its so nice to be able to come and go like that. i think i might tell him that if theres anything i can do from home to just let me know. today will consist of homework, laundry, and checking-in and printing off boarding passes. possibly with a doctors appt. thrown in there :/ def not fun. there'll be a shower in there too at some point. im getting kind of sick of spending money, i spent almost 30 euro yesterday on "home remedies" if you will, i'll be spending 10 or so on laundry and 5 or so on buying a printing pass. yaaaaaay for being poor. but, back to a fun topic.

yesterday was valentines day! i had class with the most beautiful professor ive ever seen, (yes audra, even more sexy than marc hammer) and got out at 4. dinner was at 6 across town. i want it to be known that i was completely ready AND looked pretty within 15 minutes time, complete with red lipstain and tying jakes tie. YEAH. be jealous. we went to el bahia? im not sure how to say it. i'll put a picture of it on here. its the only moroccan restaurant in dublin, perhaps the only good one in ireland. lol! i thought it was awesome so be eating Moroccan in ireland. when we walked in, the guy "washed our hands" the morrocan way. we got an appetizer, entree, dessert, and morrocan coffee for 60 euro total. it was SO GOOOOD! i had what ended up being a cinnamon and macadamia nut pot pie basically, and jake had shark fish. his was awesome. mine was really good too, just the cinnamon got overpowering and i didnt eat the whole thing. everything he orders is always better, even though i know more about food than he does AND i think i have better taste :p. either way, we got cheesecake and ice cream with diced fresh fruit for dessert. it was amazing. jake looked so good too. i love it when we get all dressed up. i even wore my marilyn heels! we actually took a cab on the way there, because our res. was for 6 and we were about a half hour walk away. turns out going to dinner at 6 pm is like going to dinner at 4pm in the states; its super early. no one was there until about 730, then it was PACKED. we walked back ( i brought flats) and borrowed a movie from my lovely friend phoebe. it was a toss up between sex and city and mean girls. for jakes sake, i picked mean girls. lol. we ended up going to bed at like 2, which adds to why i skipped my 10 am today. i rolled over this morning and said, "jake, i dont want to go to class" and he rolled over, threw his big warm arms around me, and said, "dont go then" AAAAAAAAAND that was enough convincing for me. 
i have to do some laundry so i have clothes to wear over reading week. im planning on bringing a few t-shirt and a few scarves to make it look like different outfits in all my pictures. ha! im so excited. i also have to print off all my boarding passes for ryanair and aer lingus. jakes freaked out about ryanair, probably for good reason. we just have to get our ducks in a row. well thats all, i should probably take a shower at some point today. maybe eat something. <3!

done with week 5!

week 5 is done as of an hour ago! i just back from doing a little shopping. dont tell my budget that i bought two ADORABLE dress and a pair of aviators. something to wear if its warm in barcelona! i just got back from my volunteer thing; im actually more like an intern, like i do all the kind of bitch/office work, but i can kind of come and go as i please which is SO NICE. its actually very difficult to be on a schedule here. but i've actually done productive things in the few hours ive spent there. i end up going 6-10 hours a week, so sort of like a part time internship. on tuesday i made a flyer on publisher, and i secretly uploaded it to googledocs so i could have it for a portfolio. its nothing special, just a super quick document, but its something! today i made a fb page for the Special Olympics "Cycle" (just what they call a bike tour) through Nice, France. the link is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Velocite/171098972935703?v=wall. i felt all productive. go "like" it! i still have to edit alot of it, thats just what i did in an hour and a half. i also edited some of their ebay page. TOLD YOU PEOPLE THIS SHIT WOULD COME IN HANDY. lol! its called "social networking skills" haaa. but anywho i also bought socks, for some reason my are gone. every. single. pair. are gone. ive been wearing jakes socks for the last couple days. clean ones every day, dont worry. 

jakes making din din right now, BURGERS with lettuce, tomato, mushroom, onion, avocado, and bacon. BACON. NOMNOM. and you know healthy me, im going to steam some veggies to eat on the side.

 im getting so excited for our eurotrip. turns out, barcelona is trying to become their own like, sovereign nation sort of thing, and they no longer speak spanish. i mean the locals do, and if they know you're a foreigner theyll address you in spanish, but bus announcements andthe like will all be in catana or katana or some shit. THAT WAS THE ONLY LANGUAGE I KNEW. we might be in trouble. also, since barcelona is the pickpocket capital of the world, we have to be SUPER careful. i must admit, im a little scared. so much is going down in world news; its really difficult to not get caught up and depressed because of it. the lack of sunlight doesnt help.

There was sunlight today however! (THANK GOD). i got to walk in it when i went for about an hour walk with phoebe (underwood) to find the stupidestly (i know thats not a word) placed post office EVER for a tiny package. shes lucky i like her :p. its ok tho, i got me outside and in the sunshine. i've been in such a great mood lately. that is, while i keep my mind off how much i miss home and my beautiful BUD girls. i never really thought that i would miss them/school/BUD/burke/lina&kelly this much. and my family. who knew i actually secretly liked those people. PSH. :P

i actually really miss working too. i miss that security of an income. its kind of scary knowing that i have a limited amount of funds and if its gone, its gone and im screwed. i really wish i could go out and party with everyone here, but i just cant afford it. *le sigh*

im probably going to be posting about the volunteer thing alot; its kind of my way of keeping a log of it all for when it comes time for resume updating. heres some quick pics, theres def a TON more on fb.

i love you all!

catching up on the past few weeks...

ok so. i keep forgetting to blog about what happens; i guess its a good thing that im actually keeping myself busy, but its also not a good thing because i'll end up forgetting alot! the past couple weeks have been crazy. this past weekend i went to kilkenny and cork with angela and jake. ben and the bromance chickened out on us at the last minute (nothing new :p), but our little group was better anyway. we had our first hostel experience! its wasnt that bad at all. it was in sort of a huge house instead of like a normal building, the lady was really young and super nice, and everything was fine. we got our own private room; that was really nice. it still felt like something out of a slasher movie tho. by the time we got to kilkenny it was too late to do anything, and we knew we were going to kilkenny castle in the morning, so we got some  really great dinner (mistake, $$$$) went back to our room, beat the shit out of the floor due to the most intense game of slapjack ever, and then went out. we found this little place called Ryan's Pub (ha) and they had live music. it was a bunch of middle aged irish men who played 50's swing dance music. they were awesome! the best part was when they played batman. the bartender was a balding older guy with an offensive shirt and a beer belly. i asked about the t-shirts they had that said "ryans pub, kilkenny, ireland" on them to see if i could get one for my daddy. money is SUPER tight, but i thoguht i could splurge for him. i asked the bartender, he said they were E15, then E10, then when i tried to pay him he said "for you, nothing. keep it" it was so nice! that made my whole night.
the next day we went to Cork. the hostel we wanted to stay out was totally full, so we had to go down the street. turns out we had AWESOME roommates named sophie and ruth. sophie was from london, ruth was from galway. they were so much fun! we had a blast talking to them, and jake kept them entertained with his stories of why he's a badass (:p) they were great. we went to Blarney Castle that day. i dont know who's dumbass idea it was to hang upside down off the side of a building to kiss a stupid rock, but it was TERRIFYING. i got all the way up there (like 10 stories up a building thats hundreds of years old) sat down on the mat, grabbed onto the guy that was there to hold all of us flipped a little bit, AND FREAKED OUT. i could not do it. my knees and hands were shaking, i couldnt breathe and i almost cried. i. am. so. afraid. of heights. i got up, ran down the hundreds of stairs, got all the way down the ground, and said "no goddamnit. i came here from the f-ing united states to do shit like this, im kissing that fucking rock." so jake, angela, and i marched back up there and i did it. i kept my eyes closed the entire time, but i did it. (for those of you worried about the fact that people piss on it, first of all it was raining for 3 days prior, second of all there's a guy there from when it opens till when it closes so i highly doubt he'd let anyone piss on it, and third of all urine is sterile. ha)
the next day we went to Cohb. the city is like a giant port, we got to see the dock that the last passengers of the titanic got on at. the city is probably a hell of a lot better when the wind doesnt almost knock you off the sidewalk and the rain isnt drenching you. needless to say, it was a wet, cold, and somewhat short trip. we got on a train back to Cork and a Bus back to Dublin. the first driver was such AN ASSHOLE. ugh, seriously, he must've hated his life for him to be such a dick. our second guy was nicer; we had to jump on a connecting bus becaues the direct was completely packed. we got home about 8:30, then ate din din and got ready to watch THE SUPERBOWL. (gaaaaaaaaaaaah) we walked all the way to our favorite place only to find out that they were completely full and werent going to let anyone else in all night. I WAS PISSSSSED. but we found another pub and watched one of the most stressful games of my life. jake explained the concept of football to a couple locals. this one guy was telling us how football players have it easy because they wear padding, and rugby players are the real tough ones. we tried to explain that in rugby, the 6'10" 400Lb guy running at you is only trying to get the ball out of your hands, and in american football HE'S TRYING TO KILL YOU. thats why we need the tiny bit of plasic that serves as padding. either way, THE PACKERS WON THE FUCKING SUPERBOWL, and i stayed up until 4 in the morning to watch it. of course they go when im not in green bay. of course. its alright tho.
in the next couple weeks, i'll be going to class, then going on our big reading week trip. we had to narrow it down to berlin, paris, and barcelona. :( we're also going to scotland, italy, and trying to plan either prague or greece, depending on the cash flow (or lack of). the sun is finally out! the packers won the superbowl! im back in my own bed! i guess the only thing left to do is go for a walk wif my bunny ^_^