Heading to the airport is always surreal to me. I can never imagine myself in the place I’m going. On this trip imagining myself in Paris, or wherever we were going to land, was even more difficult and drawn out. I got there 4 hours early, as the airports suggest for getting through customs and all, so, naturally, I ended up sitting still in the airport for 3 hours after I got through customs. So I sat, made some phone calls, got some stuff done then we finally got on board for the 6 hour Icelandair flight (surprisingly short right?). We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland and really just bummed around the airport for 19 hours. Do you realize how many times stores, restaurants and bars in airports close when you’re there for 19 hours? I hate that I know that they open and close at least 3 times.

Elise, one of the people in our group, luckily knows a guy through some connections. We found our way to his hidden mansion and became worried as we had trouble getting in, and we sat there for half an hour wondering if our entire trip would be this problematic. His concierge (yes he’s a very rich frenchman) let us in his gigantic palace of a place to leave our larger luggage. We ended up desperately finding a hostel and we set out on the town, since we had the entire day to walk around and fight the urge to sleep. We walked around and happened to stumble upon the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore, nestled behind a big tree, just across the river from the Notre Dame. This place was packed, in every sense of the word, with books and people delighted to hear fellow English speakers. The upstairs was riddled with people reading the proprietor’s not-for-sale books amongst the old beds, typewriters, and the old A. Schindler piano. Speaking of the piano, 3 different people came up and delighted us with around 2 hours of music. On the second day we found ourselves a nicer hostel, in a nicer part of town (less pickpocketing). Literally 5 minutes after entering the 2 hundred year old place we opened the windows 2 people rosined up the beau and played for an hour. Fantastic. Other than that we did the regular site seeing of Paris: the Eiffel tower, churches, the Louvre, all we could handle to walk to over the course of a few days. We learned a lot in Paris about finding ourselves some sleeping arrangements, making further travel plans, and about living in a small backpack. One of the things we learned is that its nearly impossible to simply jump on a train (as the EURail pass advertises) whilst in France in the month of August. We also learned that even one set of train rides to Barcelona and back still makes our EURail pass very worthwhile. Thank God. From that whole experience (there’s more to say but its hard to give it justice in words so talk to me in person in a few months) we caught some metros and trains all the way down to Barcelona (we’re getting good at this).

Barcelona was hot. Hotter than Paris, which by this time is saying a lot, because Paris was a lot hotter than it was supposed to be. We spent two days in the middle of town and walked to the famous Segrada Familia and the old Cathderal. Segrada Familia is the Cathedral that was started in the 1800s (I think) and is still being worked on, very beautiful, elaborate, modern cathedral. The second half of the days in Barcelona we moved to a Hostel down 10 feet off the beach. Therefore we spent 2 and a half days squeezed in a tight 7 person room, sitting on the beach talking to goofy Spaniards and sitting at Ryan’s pub talking to Scotts and Irish ironically. A great few days but we were happy to move on from the crazy Indians/Middle Easterns trying to heckle us into buying everything under the sun.

We ended up in Montepellier for the afternoon napping in the park and avoiding the homeless man who wanted us to ALSO kiss is rat while standing in the fountain..

Happily returned to Paris, which oddly felt like we were returning to a home. We went back to our nicer hostel for 2 nights. Spent part of a day gathering our luggage from Elise’s friend, Michelle (man). He was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. 80 years old and looks barely 60. He’s seen it all, went to school in Minnesota, speaks at least 5 languages and loves to talk about it all. We prepared for leaving the next day and found out that Ryan Air booked us for the wrong day. Their booking had us in Ireland more than a day after we had to already be in the cottages. We acted quickly and found a train to Cherbourg, a ferry to Southern Ireland then we’d be hopping trains to Galway.

More regular trains to Northern France then, little did we and our new Canadian friend know, this ferry would be like a low quality cruise ship. We had a large room for seating, where we slept on the floor (bad bad bad), there was a floor of 4 restaurants, a piano bar, and another bar lounge. The piano bar featured a light-hearted Irishman who played the Entertainer (so happy), while the other bar had a man trying to be Michael Jackson, with backup dancers, and a blackjack table. We found stuff to do. As I said earlier, the sleep on the floor was absolutely horrible, I woke up every hour, at least, and stayed up by the time 6 rolled around. That was good though because I got to watch the sun rise over the ocean with no one else on the sun deck.

We happily found ourselves on Irish shores and the people were nothing short of (I never use this word) delightful. Its Minnesota Nice on crack. We caught a train to Dublin, tram to the next station, then a train to Galway. Once in Galway we looked like lost Americans again with the map out and one guy stopped to ask if we needed help finding a hostel and another stopped in his CAR to try and suggest a place as well. At the hostel we did settle on, we found ourselves with the first free internet we’ve ever found anywhere in Europe. So, naturally, we spent 2 to 3 hours trying to get friends and family caught up, while putting pictures in a safe place on the computer.

The next day we found ourselves meeting Geraldine, the spunky cook of the Park lodge. She fed us, what we thought, was everything she could find in the kitchen. Since we beat everyone else to the lodge Geraldine drove us into Spiddal and gave us some “insider” info on the town and dropped us off. We walked the beach and the rocks along the coast and walked back to the Lodge to find the rest of our classmates arrived. Later that night we met some great Irish, beer, Jameson, and Irish music in the 3 pubs in Spiddal.

There, you are all caught up to the best of my ability for now. There are more fun and detailed stories for those who see me in person! Miss you all and hope home hasn’t changed too much by the time December rolls through.