Las Aventuras de Colleen: Globetrotting: Ireland, Amsterdam, and Germany

Last week was "Semana Santa" in Sevilla, which literally translates to Holy Week. While most of the Christian world focuses on Easter Sunday, Sevilla focuses on the week leading up to Easter. It is a huge deal here, and therefore no one has school. We knew this from the get go, and started planning a trip really early on in the semester. The week took four of us to Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany. Prepare yourselves for another long post. This one will probably take the gold, but there are just too many stories and pictures to share!

I'll start out by saying that it is almost eerie how well this trip worked out...especially with so many opportunities for disaster. Luck was certainly on our side, and it ended up being an unforgettable week.

We started our week off in Dublin, Ireland; which is somewhere I've always personally wanted to visit. I was ready for some rolling green hills and Irish pubs...and most of all: to hear English everywhere I went! We hopped off the plane and right onto a double decker bus, which was enough to get my excitement level really high. We found our hostel pretty easily, and were greeted by the cutest accents I've ever heard. Our impersonations of them on the plane really didn't even come close to doing them justice. Irish accents are by far my favorite accents in the world as of now.

Our first stop was the grocery store, as we had decided it would be fun (and cheap) to cook our own food at the hostel as opposed to going out to eat for every meal. This turned out to save us so much money, but it also ended up being really fun. We spent so much time at foreign grocery stores just looking around and picking out what our dinners would be, and I'm pretty sure the food we cooked was better than anything we would have bought (to be modest).

Our first Irish beer: Smithwick's

All of the touristy things were closed by the time we settled in for dinner, so we took our time and our resident chef, Rachel, took over in the kitchen. After we deemed it appropriate going out time (which is much earlier in Ireland than Spain), we headed out to the famous Temple Bar, which is an area of bars in Dublin. On the way, we spotted a bar really close to our hostel that had cheap pints of beer and we headed in to check it out. We ended up being the only people in the bar, and ordered our first Irish beer: Smithwick's. The bartender quickly became our new friend, and we were sad to part ways when we kept on towards Temple Bar. We tried a few different bars before ending up in the actual Temple Bar, which turned out to be a struggle. Although the drinking age in Ireland is 18, the actual Temple Bar has an age limit of 21. The first door man denied us, but luckily his friend around back decided we looked 21. The inside of the bar was PACKED and there was live music and tons of people dancing. It was a really cool bar, but we didn't stay long because we could barely move. We ended up walking around Dublin for awhile before heading back to the hostel.

Trinity College

The next morning we headed out to tour all that Dublin had to offer, equipped with our PB&J sandwiches (peanut butter was the find of the day in the Dublin grocery store). First we headed to Trinity College, which was absolutely beautiful. It almost rivals Chapel Hill, but not quite. The grass in Ireland truly is greener, and the whole campus is covered in grass and trees and flowers. We walked around for a little bit and then headed over to Dublin Castle, which was a disappointment. When I hear castle, I'm automatically thinking Cinderella and giant palaces. The Dublin Castle was more of a large building with a big patio outside. Needless to say, we didn't spend too much time there.

My favorite part of the day came next when we took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse. I had heard that this was a must do in Dublin, and I can now attest that it absolutely is. The whole beer making process was laid out for us in a self-guided tour through this seven floor storehouse. I learned more about making beer than I probably ever needed to know, but it was really interesting. Other floors included old advertisements from Guinness, and even a floor where you could test your "Beer IQ." We learned that the Guinness Book of World Records is the same "Guinness" as the beer, which was news to me. Fun fact: apparently the book was started to solve arguments that arose in bars. The best part of the tour came on the seventh floor, when you ended up in the "gallery room" that overlooks all of Dublin. This is the room where we got our free pint. I surprisingly enjoyed Guinness, and I stole my pint glass as a little reminder of Dublin. A little criminal activity never hurt anyone.

Pouring my beer and the inside of one of the Guinness Factory floors

The four of us at Kilmainham Goal

After the Storehouse we headed to the last big tourist site in Dublin, which is called Kilmainham Gaol. This site is a former prison, but is now a museum. We got a tad (very) lost trying to find the jail, but it was definitely worth it. When we arrived, we were told that all of the tours were full and we couldn't come in. We were heartbroken, because we wouldn't have been able to come back the next day. Luckily Irish people have big hearts, and the tour guide snuck us in after seeing the hurt looks on our faces. The jail was really interesting, and reminded me a lot of Shawshank Redemption. Our tour guide was full of information and we learned a lot of tidbits about Ireland's history. After the jail we headed back to the grocery store and made another family dinner together. We called it an early night after all of the walking we had done.

The next morning we woke up and headed to a town called Howth. I had known that I wanted to take a day trip outside of Dublin to see rural Ireland, and when we were researching places before going, we came across this little town. Howth is a tiny fishing village located right on the water, and it was only about a 30 minute train ride from the heart of Dublin. Howth was just what the doctor had ordered: a small town full of green grass, sail boats, water, and nice people. The fishermen looked like they came straight off of a Gorton's ad (reference point) and the boats and restaurants made me feel like I was at the Outer Banks. There was even a tiny lighthouse! I have always been a sucker for water and nature, and Howth brought all of the green I imagined Ireland to have. We had heard that when you arrive in Howth you should climb to the "summit" and that the view is amazing. So we trekked off up a giant (and I mean GIANT) hill until we finally reached the top, which was basically a cliff. The city looked like a tiny toy town from below, and the view was spectacular. To one side all you can see is ocean, and to the other all you can see are rolling hills. Before we even began our hike, we were joined by a dog who was identical to the one who played Todo in the Wizard of Oz. He was a very friendly dog, but I assumed that he would ditch us once the incline started. Boy was I wrong. Todo sprinted up that thing like it was no problem. Being our tour guide, he got a tad annoyed that we were holding him up, but he would patiently wait up ahead until we caught up to him. After sitting up on the cliff for a little bit, Todo showed us our way back down as it began to rain. We went to seek shelter in a coffee shop, and Todo disappeared from us. For dinner we decided we would eat out, since where better to get fresh seafood than the coast of Ireland, right? We took a woman's suggestion and went to a great little restaurant that had a seafood platter. It was delicious, particularly since we'd all been craving fish. We left Howth and took the train back to our Dublin hostel before calling it an early night so that we could be well rested to catch our flight to Amsterdam. Before we went to bed, we had the good luck of finding a full box of pizza sitting on top of the trash (not touching it, I promise). The only thing better than pizza is free pizza.

Sailboats in Howth

On Tuesday morning we hopped on a plane to Amsterdam. Even though we were flying an Irish airline instead of the infamous RyanAir, we still didn't get a free diet coke. Add that to the list of America's perks. When we arrived in the Amsterdam airport we had to take a train into Amsterdam Central Station. The first night we were split up into two hostels, because one of them filled up as we tried to book it originally. We went to our hostels and dropped our bags (in a broom closet) before heading off to explore. The first thing on our list was to see the Anne Frank house, which I was personally pretty excited about. I remembered loving the Holocaust Museum in DC when I went, and I figured it would be pretty similar. It was almost chilling being inside of the same room that she hid out in for all of those years, and the self guided tour did a great job of giving us details that I had never known before about her situation. After leaving Anne Frank we decided to just walk through the city. I was surprised at how beautiful it was. I really loved how the city was built on canals so there was water every few streets, and all of the buildings looked like doll houses. We found our way over to the Red Light District, because we were all intrigued, and soon came to learn that the street is very different in the day time and the night time. The street in general may as well have been in another world. The women in the window's during the day time were not very attractive at all, and many of them were way older than I expected. After going back at night and seeing much prettier and younger women, we figured that the prettier girls get the better time slots to rent out their spaces. It was obviously odd to me to see prostitutes in a window...but even more odd that some of them were just reading a book casually, or even just sitting there texting.

Dutch shoe!

We stopped by a cute bar on the way back to the hostel to try our first Amsterdam beer. We grabbed an Amstel and chatted with the bartender a bit before heading back to get ready for dinner. One of the girls travelling with us, Rachel, had planned for us to meet up with two German boys who had participated in an exchange program at her high school. They decided to come to Amsterdam at the same time as us, and we met up with them for dinner. They were really nice, and as usual in Europe, their English was great. Germany seems to have a great education system, and it was interesting to talk to someone our own age from a country I knew virtually nothing about; especially when they had been to the United States (Greensboro to be exact). We hung out for awhile after dinner and then headed back to the hostel. Maggie and I stayed at one hostel, while Rachel and Gabi were in the other. I should have known that an interesting night was to come when we had to put our things in a broom closet...but I could not have foreseen what our night would end up like. When we first go to the room things were normal. Maggie was on a top bunk of one set of bunk beds, and I was on the bottom bunk of the set next to her. Our beds were maybe a foot apart, but I didn't have anyone above me. After a few hours, my top bunk mate finally arrived. The first shocking thing about him was his age. The man had to be over 40 years old, and was alone. He seemed nice enough, and awkwardly used the one foot of crawl space to get onto his bed. After about ten minutes of silence, he started doing this awful hacking cough that must have kept the entire city awake. He finally fell asleep, and I was thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to hear that cough anymore when it began...the most animalistic snore I have ever heard. The one perk of bunk beds became evident when I saw his comforter hanging down where I could reach it. Periodically throughout the night I would give his comforter a big tug so that he would wake up and quit snoring for at least a minute. Every time I did this he let out this guttural animal noise that seriously resembled an elephant being taken down with a spear. The next morning, after I thought the horrors were over, I rolled over and opened my eyes to find him dressed only in boxer briefs...and standing right in front of my face.

On top of the I Amsterdam sign!

Maggie and I high tailed it out of that hostel as fast as we possibly could. Luckily we had already booked the next night at Rachel and Gabi's hostel, which ended up at least being void of 40 year old men (although we did have a rat or two coexisting with us). We headed off to meet up with the German boys again before they had to leave, and then we ate lunch before exploring the city a little bit more. There aren't a ton of touristy sites in Amsterdam, but we took a free ferry ride that we thought would be really exciting. It ended up just being a free commuter ferry that literally traveled half a mile to the other side of a channel. It was pretty cold at this point, but we were determined to get to the one touristy site that we all wanted pictures at: the I amsterdam sign. The sign isn't all that famous or well known, but it is just a big cut out of the letters spelling "I amsterdam" and you can crawl all over the letters and take pictures on them. We finally found it and took pictures in the rain before meeting up with some girls from our program in Sevilla who also happened to be in Amsterdam. We got falafel at a great place that our program director suggested and all hung out before heading back to sleep. Luckily the rats proved to be much quieter than my past bunk mate, and the beds were super comfortable.

33 cent beer, in case you didn't believe me

We woke up bright and early to go brave the freezing cold Amsterdam morning and get to the train station for the last leg of our week long journey. We boarded our train and realized that we were all in separate carriages, but I ended up talking to some nice German folks who gave me suggestions for what to do in Heidelberg. We had decided to visit Heidelberg after one of Maggie's friends suggested it, and told us that it was a college town. We weren't really all that familiar with Germany anyway, so it didn't matter too much to me where we went. It ended up being so much better than I could have expected. As soon as we got to our hostel, we were in love. I have never even heard of such a nice hostel. The beds were comfortable, the showers were huge and hot, and the place was spotless. There was a full kitchen with clean and nice cookware, and there was even a little family room that we could eat dinner in. We felt at home right away and headed to the grocery store to figure out our dinner plans. To get to the grocery store we had to walk down the main road, which I learned from a German man on the train is the longest continuous pedestrian road in Europe. The road was full of people and shops and we finally found the grocery store, and fell in love all over again. Not only was everything cheap, but everything was RIDICULOUSLY cheap. A bottle of beer was only 33 cents, and the four of us bought food for two dinners and two lunches and only spent 7 euros each; including beer and wine. I think that I could live in Germany for awhile.

We decided to try our hand at German cooking and made schnitzel from scratch. After asking everyone in the grocery store how it was made, we learned its actually quite a bit like frying chicken. You just use a special "schnitzel" breading in a frying pan, and voila! It was pretty good, and our hostel lady even told us that it looked like real schnitzel, so we were pretty proud. After dinner we headed out to the "Franklin Street" of Heidelberg, which was also suggested to me by my German friend on the train. He told me that all of the college students go there and that it is just a street filled with bars. The street was a lot of fun, and we ended up in a bar that was supposedly known for its "hard rock music." I don't know about everyone else, but I don't really consider "Hit the Road, Jack" to be hard rock...

View of the castle from the Philosopher's Way

The next morning we woke up and went to explore the castle. After climbing up (yet another) very steep hill, we finally got to the top. The castle was partially destroyed by the French (another tidbit from my German train friend) and was left in shambles almost. It was really pretty and looked very medieval. I was happy to see a real Cinderella looking castle after Dublin failed me. We walked around for awhile before heading back down the hill and going to take the "Philosopher's Way." This is a path leading up to another mountain and it is lined with trees and flowers. Apparently a long time ago, professors from the University would take this trail with one another and discuss philosophical things, and thus it came to be known as the Philosopher's Way. The top of the trail gave a great view of the entire city and of the castle. We headed home and cooked dinner before packing our things up for a veryyyy early morning.

The next morning, despite our best efforts to wake up, get ready, make a bagged lunch, and eat breakfast all in time to catch our bus to the train station...we still missed it by one minute. Fortunately in these situations I usually have an eerie sense of calm, because it always seems to work itself out. This time was no different, it just involved a little bit of criminal activity along the way. We caught the next bus to the train station and tried to figure out how we could alter our itinerary and still get to the airport in time to catch our flight. We had bought a ticket online called a "Happy Weekend" ticket that allows up to 5 people to take regional trains all day Saturday for 40 euros total. This means we each only paid 10 euros each, which was a steal...but the catch was the regional trains part. With these little chuggers, it was going to take us 7 hours to get to the airport in Dusseldorf. After missing our first bus, there was no way to take only regional trains and get there in time. So...we did what any reasonable person would be forced to do...we train hopped.

We found a route that would take all regional trains with the exception of two, which were hi-speed trains. These trains weren't covered in our ticket, but we devised a plan of how best to hop on them without being caught. Luckily we knew the German train system after taking it from Amsterdam. Unluckily, the German train system is much stricter than Italy. On the way from Amsterdam they checked our ticket at least twice, and we knew we would have to be sneaky if we were going to avoid being discovered.

The first train ride was only 30 minutes long, and we were pretty confident that we could evade the workers for that long. We all boarded the train at the last call, and spent our sweet time walking from the front car to the very last one before splitting up. We each sat separately and tried to look nonchalant. When he came around looking for tickets Maggie and I slipped off to separate bathrooms. Rachel pretended to be asleep and he left her alone, and Gabi told him that her friend had her ticket and he left her alone as well. Right after he came around the train stopped and we got off.

We had about 20 minutes before our next train, but this one was an hour long. Although it had been pretty easy to go 30 minutes, we knew that this train would have more stops and therefore more times when they would try to check our tickets. Nervous and feeling a little like James Bond, we boarded the train and did just as before. The first 40 minutes went by without a single sign of a ticket checker, and we were starting to feel confident when we heard him coming our way. While I was pretending to be asleep, I felt a little tap on my shoulder and heard Rachel's voice through my earphones. She came back and warned me that he had woken her up to ask for her ticket, and that he was a no nonsense kind of guy. She had said that her friend had her ticket, and she was coming to find us. I immediately got up and went to the bathroom and told Gabi to use the same story about her friend having her ticket. I hid out in the bathroom for as long as I possibly could, and went back to see that the man had left. Gabi explained to me that he had gone on to the next car but was coming back to find our "friend" who had our tickets. We decided at this point that we would show him the ticket we actually did buy and just play dumb; but in order to do that, we had to find Maggie who had the ticket. I saw him coming and ran off in the other direction, thinking I would just hide in a bathroom again and wait out the 15 minutes we had left. I ended up in the cafe, and found Maggie drinking a coffee. We decided we'd wait out there until the train stopped, and that way he would just never find Gabi and Rachel's "friend" with the tickets. Before we knew it Gabi was in front of us looking frantic. She said that when the man came back he got really angry and told them to find us. He went around every bathroom door banging on it and saying "Maggie? Colleen? Come out!" She said that he even made people come out of the bathroom. Luckily, he found us looking very inconspicuous in the cafe, and we walked back to our seats so Maggie could give him our ticket. After looking at it for what felt like forever, he kind of turned his head and looked at it quizzically. You could tell that he had never seen a ticket like this before, and after scanning it to make sure it was real, he handed it back to us. I guess he didn't read the fine print about no hi-speed trains, because all he said was "next time, make sure to leave your friends their tickets."

We got off the train as fast as we could and settled in to a regional train, happy to be able to enjoy the ride in peace. We finally made it to Dusseldorf and to our airport, where we boarded the plane back home. Arriving in Sevilla was so strange after not seeing the sun for a week. We knew we were going to the land of no sunshine when we picked the countries we did, but it was like a little ray of heaven was just shining on sunny Sevilla when we landed.

I can't believe this trip is already over, or that we only have 2 months left in our semester. This weekend I'm heading to Madrid to celebrate one of my best friend from home's 21st birthday and then to meet up with my Mom who flies into Madrid on Monday! The weekend adventures never end.