Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Star's face is cause she is in the middle of
Looking for Alaska, Monique's is cause
 we've been traveling a lot. a lot a lot. 

The five of us spent one last night in in mega-bed. Then we had a wonderful breakfast with our splendid hosts Wednesday morning. It was quite sad to leave them (and Italy as a whole as well.) We packed up all our stuff (plus a handful of new scarves) and hit the road around 12:20. We walked briskly, but not full-on-panicked-ly to the metro and then took that to the Turino train station, Porto Nouvo. Having mastered the ticket machine in Rome we quickly purchased our ticket and were able to board at the very closest platform (karma was trying to make up for Rome).

On our first train from Turin to Milan, the Italian girl across the aisle from us was being bugged by two gypsies and it turns out they stole her wallet and all out of her purse which really sucked. But I have to say that the half a dozen guys who jumped up to defend her pretty much made my day, the guys also helped her out when she realized she was robbed. It was really nice to see them help her out. I had a slight run-in with a meany-pants-train-ticket-guy who charged me for having my feet on the seat across from me, just because he could (sticky out tongue face)

Roma Ti Amo

I fell in love with Rome when we came to visit my brother and I knew I'd study abroad there as well. My semester in Rome was incredible. So I am thrilled to pieces to be back to visit the Eternal City. Completely worth the near-total lack of sleep. The lack of sleep was a by-product of this morning/ last night Star, Monique and I had to head to the bus /coach station around 1:30am to catch a bus to Dublin; where we caught a plane to Roma Ciampino Aeroport; where we caught a bus to Termini; where we caught the Metro to a stop right down the street from the condos where Star's-god-parents'-son-and-his-wife live. Right in the back yard of the Vatican! It's so amazing to be able to stay with them here. We found the address alright, then got some help from the nice desk girl at the Candia hotel, then Monique completely outsmarted us all by a long shoot when she realized that our calls weren't working because we were not including the plus sign. Silly European cell numbers. After we dropped off our luggage and were treated to a welcome-to-Rome-cappuccino, we set out to explore and hit some of the highlights. I can barely contain my excitement to be back in Rome again.Combining this extreme level of giddiness with the caffeine of a cappuccino made it quite hard to keep from literally running to show the girls St. Peter's.

 We walked all over the city from the Vatican to St Angelo's Castle to the Victor Emmanuel to the Colosseum to Trasevere for pizza and then Old Bridge for gelato. Then we even got an amazing dinner back at the flat as well. I'm loving soaking up being back in Rome.

I've missed good ol' Belli in Trastevere 

Real pizza!!

Dublin Part 2: Down hill

Jessica had a short lists of things to do while in Ireland which included milking a cow and rolling down a hill. Despite our best efforts we never found her a cow to milk and the only hill we found was more mud than grass so she didn't roll down it.  However, to make up for that our trip decided to go down hill incredibly quickly on her behalf. As illustrated by this gorgeous picture: 

On Sunday, after our great time at the Guinness Storehouse and Jameson Distillery we got back to our hostel and the surprises started. When we went to grab our bags from the luggage room, Jamie's was not there. Her huge bright green bag with two weeks worth of everything - just not there anymore. Which was a shame, because we left it there very much hoping it would wait where we left it. 

This was severely not ok. We spoke sternly to the poor guy behind the desk, who called his manager and apologized a ton, because nothing like that had ever happened while he was working and he wasn't sure what to do besides call his manager and apologize a ton.  He said there was a large group that left that afternoon who might have accidentally taken her bag with them to Cork.  Since Jamie's bright-green-bag was either stolen or inadvertently on its own adventure in County Cork, we figured there wasn't much we could do besides go find some dinner while the poor guy behind the desk tried to get a hold of the group and his manager.

This quote of Jamie's from dinner along with our jokes about
 e-coli apples became significantly less funny as the night wore on

We passed up a couple of very crowded touristy places and a restaurant with an hour and a half wait. Jessica made a passing (but also prophetic) comment that perhaps we shouldn't trust a place which was so empty when the other places were so busy. We should have paid lots and lots more attention to her brilliant insight.  Turns out she was entirely correct. 

Jamie and I both got yummy-seeming soup with our dinners
It looked better than this picture, but looks can be deceiving 

 We had a 6 girl room at the hostel, but luckily no one else was in our room and it was just the three of us. After dinner Jamie and I rapidly went from fine to really-really-not-fine. Not-fine of the throwing-up-and-worst-fever-and-chills-of-my-life variety.  It was not fun. I puked a few time until my fever broke around 3am, but Jamie was sick all night long. Jessie was lucky enough not to get sick, even though she tried our soup. She was super awesome and even brought us juice. And getting said juice for us involved holding hands with the other-guy-who-worked-behind-the-desk-over-night-and-didn't-speak-English-all-that-well.  We very much appreciated her effort.

You should very much appreciate the lack of vomit in this picture,
besides the bunk beds and sick girls it was the defining characteristic of the room  

In the morning Jamie was still in no state to fly, so we canceled her flight and went to get Jessica to the airport.  Which involved running from the hostel to the bus stop.  It was raining (this is Ireland after all) and that resulted in significantly-slick-cobblestone-sidewalks. Which in turn resulted in me going from running to flat on said cobblestone with great speed. Which in turn resulted in a good number of huge bruises on my knees and hip. It was not super fun.

Despite our best efforts and speedy running. And despite the fact that the bus driver most definitely saw us and our running.  Mr.Meany McMeanPants the bus driver motioned at us then drove away anyway.  It was a cut off type I'm-not-going-to-be-nice-and-let-you-board hand motion despite the fact that it was exactly 8:45 when we ran up. And the bus was suppose to leave at 8:45. 

 

So we took a taxi instead and got Jessie to the airport on time.  Then I headed back and we got Jamie a toothbrush and some helpful things like that which were still in her bright-green-and-not-in-Dublin-with-us-bag. It turns out her bag was indeed on its own little trip to Cork, having hitched a ride with Mr. McAbsentminded-group-leader. Her bag was sent back and she got another night for free at the hostel and was able to catch the flight home the next day. I got home and slept a ton more. So it ended happily . . . or at least better ...if not happily. Jamie's opinion of Dublin went back down for sure. While it was certainly an adventure, it wasn't not one I'm eager to repeat at any point soon. Or ever. I'm good with not repeating it ever.

Paris for a Day

Last week I took a quick little WONDERFUL trip to Paris. The main reason was to see Rei, since Paris is about half-a-world-closer than Hiroshima.  And how much of an excuse does one really need to go to a city as great as Paris?

I played the oh-so-fun game of find the best plane tickets, and ended up with flights out of Dublin into Paris on Aer Lingus. It was not much more expensive and was much more convenient than Ryan Air.

CityLink's bus route map

My flight out of Dublin was at 18:10 (I switched my phone to military time so I would stop confusing myself, cause 18 does not in fact mean 8pm - very important). I took the CityLink bus literally across the country from Galway to Dublin-- such a cute tiny little country they have here. Only took about 3 hours from coast to coast and there was some very-Irish-looking-country-side to see.

Once I got to the Dublin Airport I went through their very-speedy-and-not-overly-serious-security. At my gate I got to watch the breaking news on the TV about a Mr. Goodwin who had just been stripped of his knighthood - scandalous!

It's a short flight, we got up in the air and had a great view of all the lights in Dublin at night, then the dark of the Irish Sea, then the night lights of London, then dark of the English Channel then pretty soon you could see the glow of the City of Lights. I stayed at The Oops Hostel again. When Jamie and I were in Paris after our semester in Rome we stayed at a couple different places, some of which were significantly sketchy, but Oops was really nice. The rooms are really nice, plus they have free internet and breakfast!

Rei and Masami 

Wednesday morning I took the green-ish-blue-ish-Metro-Line-6 and met up with Rei and her husband. It was really super-dupery-duper-wonderful to see Rei and to met her husband again. We got lunch at the Deux  Magots which is for 1920s Paris, what the Eagle and Child was for the Inklings -- Hemingway, Sartre, Picasso, and pretty much all of their crazy and talented friends were regular costumers. We enjoyed some amazing food and chatted about our regulars from work and such. Rei got to switch between English with me, Japanese to translate for her hubby, and French with the bow-tie-clad-fancy-French-waiters.

We then headed off to find Notre Dome, stopping into St. Germain's on the way. Walking along the Seine was incredibly cold with nearly-non-stop-freezing-wind, it was beautiful though and feeling your fingers and toes is overrated. Galway has generally been sweat-shirt-cold during the day, so the real winter cold of Paris where it snowed the night before was quite chilly. We looked though some shops and enjoyed Paris and catching up-- along with some Crepes ^_^

My dear Aubry got me a super awesome travel book, one of the sections entertained me with its fitting title:

This book already knows my adventures so well

Before I left I jotted down my confirmation numbers and metro routes and all, I wrote a little list of 

4 out of 8 ain't bad right? Just means it's a real adventure

things to do while in Paris. As I wrote said list I thought, "Well there's no reason I would deviate form this itinerary." Haha my brain is so cute sometimes.

It's all good though, cause the important things went really smoothly and the rest is the adventure of traveling. I had a book to finish and one to start on my Kindle, but then my darling Kinny decided to freeze up on me-- so that postponed a couple of the things I'd jotted down, not a big deal at all. I did: stay at Oops, eat crepes, make my wish, and see Rei so I got half of my list :)

The other things on my list were to go to the top of Notre Dome. However the entrance for the tower had this sign saying it was temporarily closed "Due to the climate". Then I walked over the bridge and found the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, however it was also temporarily closed that week because the owner had just passed away at age 98 after having run his bookstore since 1948.

Awesome bookstore which hosted just as many famous authors as Deux
Magots as well as passing writers who worked and stayed as well.
"Be not inhospitable to strangers
Lest they be angels in disguise"

Although I still haven't gone up the towers yet, we ended up getting to Notre Dome right before Mass began, which was really neat to see -- can't beat the smell of incense while you explore a cathedral. Unplanned details can be the best part of adventures.

After I parted ways with Rei and headed back to my hostel, I decided it was too early to go to sleep, but too late to wander the city by myself. So I went one of the multiple "Cinemas" on the Blvd Goblins near Oops. Though it was funny to watch an American movie with French subtitles, the theater was really nice and the tickets were cheaper than back home, which was nice.

In the morning I managed to get my train ticket to Charles De Gaulle airport despite the fact I don't speak French beyond "Merci", "Paris", and "oui" and the fact that French people say "CharlesDeGaulleAeroport" really really fast and not at all like we would pronounce it. I was pretty proud of my smile-and-apologize-and-speak-english-while-they-speak-french-communication skills. The rest of the traveling went well and was topped off with Irish pot pie and Japanese cookies on the bus ride back across country home to Galway.