Forty Shades of Green

 Irish luck rubbed off on me in March when Jourdan and I got tickets to the UEFA Europa League finals in Dublin. This prompted a four-day excursion to the land of Guinness, pots o’gold, Lucky Charms and more shades of green than I knew existed.

The Burren

The trip began with a 4:30am train to Venice to catch our flight; needless to say I did not sleep that night. We arrived at the Dublin airport completely dazed and in a sleepless stupor. Our first moments in a new city always begin the same, we stand in front of the aiport/train/bus station looking like lost puppies trying to find our way. Unlike all of our pervious trips, a kind older gentleman came up to us and, in his fabulous Irish accent, asked, “Can I help you girls?” What? Did someone just offer us help? This is when I knew I would like Ireland. In this way Ireland reminds me of the South, welcoming and ready to take care of visitors.

The next day we took a day trip over to the West coast to see the number one tourist attraction in Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher. Part of our tour was a visit to a farm in The Burren, comes from the Gaelic word for “stony place.” The Burren is an area with limestone “mountains,” more like big hills, which millions of years ago were under the ocean. After this we headed for the Cliffs. When we arrived you could barely see ten feet in front of you because of how heavy the fog was, but lucky for us the fog lifted for about fifteen minutes letting us see the breath taking view. I can only imagine what they would look like on a clear day.

Cliffs of Moher

Wednesday was devoted to the football match, Porto vs. Braga, both Portuguese teams. We were supporting Porto and bought scarves for the game. Little did I realize that all of the “real” Porto fans would assume that we were also Portuguese… this made for a few interesting comments and unreturned team sentiments. The match was fun and Porto pulled out a 1-0 win. But the most memorable part of the day occurred before the match at a pub in an area called Temple Bar. In case you are not aware, the Queen of England made a historic, peace-seeking trip to Ireland the same time I was there. As I sat by the window of the pub enjoying some fish and chips and a Magner’s, I kept noticing that the Garda (Irish police) were closing the street. They closed and reopened the street several times, I assumed this was just protocol while the Queen-mobile was in transit. But the last time they closed the street was different, Garda lined up all along the sidewalk; something was happening. I made eye contact with a man on the street and mouthed, “Is she coming?” Just as he nodded the police brigade drove by followed by a black Range Rover and the Queen in all her hat-tastic Queeness! I’m sure I resembled a 12-year-old schoolgirl as I waved enthusiastically to the Queen through the window; clearly she was waving to me and not the other 50 people around. Well, that’s one more excessively famous person I can check off my list: Pope, check. Queen, check. Paul McCartney, still waiting…

The trip came to an end with a quick trip to Northern Ireland to visit some friends of Jourdan’s. We didn’t waste money on a place to stay Thursady night seeing as our flight was at 6:15am. One piece of advice, if you ever have to spend the night in an airport find the Starbucks, their chairs are quite comfy. Ireland was an amazing place to end my semester of travels, good food, good football, and great people! Now it’s time to buckle down and pass my exams; yes it surprised me too when I found out that I actually had schoolwork associated with this semester. I’m banking on using ten-point vocabulary words in hopes of confusing my professors into passing me… keep your fingers crossed.

To Africa and Back by way of the UK

As I sit in bed writing this, immune system significantly depressed from too much public transportation, I am still in awe of the experiences I had over the last two weeks. Thanks to my friend Jourdan having friends all over the place, we were able to have free places to stay in some pretty cool cities.

Easter break spanned from a Wednesday to a Tuesday, so of course I extended it to a solid two weeks. The first week was spent in the Scotland and London. I will never again take for granted the comfort of seeing a sign in English. Edinburgh was beautiful with a rustic Royal Mile. Filled with kilt makers, pubs, and Starbucks; my yearning for a long cup of coffee was satisfied. I was surprised to find such delicious food; haggis (made from sheep but I prefer not to know the details), neeps (turnips), and tatties (potatoes) has become a favorite, not to mention the sticky toffee pudding, all washed down with a Magners. While walking around the town we stumbled across a hill completely covered in daffodils that looked out over the main part of the city, just begging to be the setting for an impromptu photo shoot.

After a few days in Edinburgh we took a bus to Glasgow for a night of tasteful mayhem. We went to a place that literally looked like your 4^th birthday and a dance club had a baby. When giant Twister, two dance rooms and bars, face painting and a bouncy castle are in one giant warehouse it is a dream come true. Needless to say, Glasgow did not lend itself to much sleep, but plenty of fun was had by all. After Glasgow we took an overnight bus to London, for one pound it was worth the 3 hours of sleep against a strange Glaswegian’s shoulder.

Being the week before the Royal Wedding and St. George’s Day (English 4^th of July, minus the fighting for independence part), London was packed! While wandering around the city one night I turned to look back at Big Ben and the House of Parliament, it was the precise scene shown at the beginning of Mary Poppins and kept me singing “A Spoonful of Sugar” the rest of the evening. I should have been a street performer like Dick van Dyke’s character. 

Abbey Road

London was lovely, but extremely expensive and made going to a developing country much easier on the wallet. We were flying into Fez, Morocco and realized that we had been circling for quite some time. The captain came over the speaker and notified us that there was a very bad storm over Fez so we were being diverted to Casablanca, about 6 hours from our actual destination of Meknes. While the rest of the plane broke out in panic and frustration, Jourdan and I laughed hysterically because this is how all of our travel has gone, never smoothly. We owe an apology to all the people on that flight, because it was probably our fault that something went wrong. We landed in time to get a train to Meknes and thanks to the kindness and hospitality of Moroccans we were able to find our stop at 3 o’clock in the morning. Despite the small detour, Morocco was amazing! A couple of the girls we were staying with took us to a hammam, a no frills bath house. You sit in this steam room, faucets lining the walls with a bucket, mat, and soap. After you put henna all over and let it sit, a big Moroccan woman comes over and lays you out like a child scrubbing your body like you’re covered in four inches of dirt and sin. It’s not the most comfortable, or modest, experience but at the end of it all it’s the cleanest I’ve ever felt. Women used to spend hours and hours at the hammam because it was one of the only places they were allowed to go; it was their social time. When in Morocco! 

Assilah, Morocco

It was a humbling experience to be in an Islamic country. It was strange to be the only girls in a crowded café, hearing the call to prayer, and buying alcohol is a whole other story: blacked out windows, separate entrance, opaque black bag that might as well be a scarlet letter on your chest. Despite being cultural polar opposites, the people could not have been nicer and friendlier. Sometimes the men were overly friendly and wanted to be your tour guide for the day, like one Moroccan at the beach who found us a horse buggy to take to a deserted beach and proceeded to stay all day showing off for Jourdan. I had to let him down later with what I remember from high school Spanish, thanks Senora Benzenhofer. 

The noble steed that took us to Paradise Beach.

Morocco came and went quickly and it was off to our final destination, Rome. Little did I know that I would be experiencing history. We arrived on a Saturday and it was packed, not uncommon for Rome, however it was packed with nuns and priests. Come to find out, it was the beatification, the first stage of sainthood, of Pope John Paul II. We spent all day Saturday seeing the major sights that everyone must see in their lifetime because Sunday the city would be practically shut down. We woke up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to go to the beatification mass at the Vatican. Despite arriving 2 ½ hours before mass, the Vatican was so packed that most of the bridges were already closed off by police. We tried one last round about way and successfully got onto the street leading up to the Vatican with millions of other people. Thanks to Jourdan’s keen crowd dodging skills we got a prime position to see a big screen for the nearly 3 hour mass and squeeze through to receive communion. Never in my life did I expect to experience a historical mass and receive communion at the Vatican, I think this alone took care of my church quota for the extent of my time abroad. 

Does not do the crowd justice.

This post does not do justice to the amount of things I saw and experienced during this trip. I owe so much to Jourdan and all the girls we stayed with: Jenni, Rona, and Mary Elizabeth. In two weeks I was able to see seven cities, four countries, and two continents. This was the spring break of a lifetime.