kylecrowe
Spring Break 2010
After arriving back in Rome after one of the best weeks of my life, my computer broke, so I have been unable to blog for weeks, I apologize for the lateness of this post, anyways, here’s a summary of my spring break:
Thursday, March 18th: Last post I talked about how easy the trip to Amsterdam was, our journey to Dublin was the opposite. We were scheduled to fly from Rome to Dublin late at night, most people from our apartment were going, plus my friend Catherine who lives in a different part of the city. The night before we were scheduled to leave Catherine lost her cell phone, so over E-mail we had to set up a meeting place before going to the airport. I told her I could either take the tram towards her apartment and meet her at that stop, or she could come to our apartment. We agreed it’d be easiest for her to meet us at our apartment. While quickly finishing up some last minute packing my friend Christine told me she just ran into Catherine and that she wanted to meet at the tram stop instead. I was a little confused, but didn’t have anyway to contact Catherine, so I got my bag and headed towards the tram stop to meet her. After taking the tram towards Catherine’s apartment I got out and searched for my friend. I stood in the middle of the street and turned in a full circle multiple times, I had no idea where she was. I waited here for about a half hour, helplessly searching for her. When I couldn’t wait any longer I got on a bus to go to the train station (to get to the airport in Rome we need to take a bus, to the train station, then an hour bus ride to the airport) hoping Catherine would be there for some reason, however, if she wasn’t I would be in trouble because Catherine bought my plane ticket to Dublin because she owed me money. If I couldn’t find her in the next half hour or so I wasn’t going to Dublin. While on the bus I received a call from an unknown number and answered to a very flustered and distraught Catherine. It turns out she was waiting at my tram stop the whole time I was waiting at hers. Both of us were extremely flustered, but I told her she needed to take a cab to the train station because we were in danger of missing our flight at this point. Meanwhile, our other friends had just got on the hour bus ride to the airport, while Catherine and I had just met each other and had to wait an hour for the next bus. This would still give us enough time, except that bus was late. We watched the time on our cell phones pass as we continued to get nervous. About 45 minutes late the bus finally arrived, 90 minutes before our flight was scheduled to take off. It was one of the most nerve racking car rides of my life, but after running into the airport with our luggage we discovered our flight was delayed and there was no longer any urgency. We got to Dublin safely late that evening.
Friday March 19th: After taking it easy the night after a hectic day of travel I woke feeling strangely fresh Friday morning, I wasn’t hungover. Making the most of our 36 hours in Ireland’s biggest city we started the day with a free walking tour that showed us all the monuments in the city and taught us this history of them too. While waiting for our tour of the Jameson Whiskey Distillery, we grabbed our first Irish pints. The Jameson tour itself lacked the information I was expecting, but made up for it in entertainment as my friend Mitch and I were chosen for official whiskey tasters.
After that the girls needed to get ready for the evening, while the guys decided to have another pint, or five. For dinner we all went to a Irish music and dancing show that also provided traditional Irish food. After the fun show we fully experienced the Dublin nightlife, it was a great evening.
Saturday, March 20th: On our last day in Dublin we woke up early to visit the “Kilmainham Gaol, an old Irish jail. It was designed in Panopticon-style, meaning a guard could stand at the end of the main cell area and see every cell door. It briefly housed the conspirators of the Dublin Uprising of 1916 who were quickly executed on the jail grounds” (Rsefer.com).
After that we boarded our 3 hour bus ride to Galway. Once in Galway we settled into our hostel and explored the city. It had a small town feel to it and had more kids our age than any city we’ve been to. We heard there was a big rugby game this night between Ireland and Scotland, so we found a pub that we could eat dinner at while watching the game. Before Scotland won in the very last seconds, Ireland tied the score and the bar went crazy, ourselves included. We then joined the rest of Galway in drinking away our misery that night. I actually preferred the nightlife in Galway to Dublin, I thought it was equally hectic while having more of a homey feeling to it.
Sunday, March 21: Somehow we were able to wake up early again, as we boarded our full day bus tour to the cliffs of Moher. While seeing many things along the way, the cliffs blew my mind, they were one of the most breathtaking things I’ve seen in my life.
After 9 hours of sightseeing on a bus we returned to Galway and boarded our 4 our bus ride to Cork.
Monday, March 22: Most of my friends went to Scotland for 3 days, but I had a little less time so I went to another Irish town for a day and a half. I knew nothing about Cork prior to my arrival, but it was a pleasant surprise. We walked around the small city, taking our time yet still hitting all the tourist attractions. In the afternoon we took a short bus ride to Blarney Castle. The Castle was surrounded by one of the most beautiful parks I’ve seen and I was also able to kiss the Blarney Stone, supposedly granting me a life time of elegance.
Tuesday, March 23: I woke up in Cork, had an amazing Irish breakfast then made my way to the small airport and got on my plane to LONDON. In the city I wanted to visit most, I was extremely unprepared. I got off the plain and only had a printed map of London, it was too big for me to read any street sign. I managed to find a cheap bus that could take me to the center of the city, from there I found and internet cafe and prayed my ipod battery would not die on me as I checked my email and looked up how to get to my hostel. I was able to locate it fairly easily thanks to London’s extremely convenient public transportation system. I dropped off my stuff then started wondering aimlessly around town until my buddy Brendan got off work. I strolled around Hyde Park for two hours and saw Royal Albert Hall, a world famous concert venue.
Brendan texted me saying he was off work and I met him at his apartment. The reason I came to London a day earlier than everyone else was to see a concert of a band called “fun.” The concert was an amazing experience and deserves it’s own blog post.
Wednesday, March 24: I had another day to myself before my friends arrived in London. I did another free walking tour to get acquainted with the city, which due to my awesome tour guide Marcel, left me feeling very knowledgeable about the city after the 3 hour tour. Marcel had a few recommendations on how I could spend the rest of my day. I went to the Winston Churchill War Museums first. I’m beginning to take a huge interest in the history of World War II, but knew close to nothing about it from the British prospective. In the museum I was able to see where Churchill and the rest of the British government secretly conducted business underground during the war. There was also a digital diary of Churchill’s life that let you browse by period of his life, to separate months, down to every individual day of his life during important times. I spent about an hour reading his diary during WWII, and read about 10% of it, you could easily spend 10 hours here.
I was mentally exhausted so I grabbed a quick lunch then went to the National Galley, London’s most prestigious art museum. I loved the museum because it had many works from the Impressionism era, the only time period I’ve studied. There were numerous works from Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir and Seurat. I listened to my iPod as a enjoyed 3 hours of strolling through the museum. It was about time for my friends to arrive, but in attempt to meet up with them my phone died and I was left helpless once again. I went back to Brendan’s apartment, but no one was there. I waited for about a half hour until one of his roommates got home and I used his cell phone to call my friends, I was able to meet up with them fairly easily after that. That night we met up with a couple other friends who were in London, one was planned, one was random. If you think It’s weird randomly running into someone you know in Chicago, it’s 100x weirder when it happens in Europe. The rest of the night was a blast as it was the first time we were all together and a few days and we had already missed each other.
Thursday, March 25: Possibly my favorite day all semester, a few more of our friends arrived in London, they decided to all do the walking tour due to my recommendation. My friend Jake had already visited London, so while they were on their tour he took me through a food market in the city where we ate lunch, then we walked through the financial district. We then met our friends at the end of their tour and went to purchase tickets for a play we wanted to see that night. We then headed to the Tower of London, but upon arrival decided to save the 17 euroes it costs to get in and instead take inappropriate pictures in front of Tower Bridge.
We then walked through Harrod’s, the most expensive department store in the world, while none of us could afford anything, we had a great time looking around. At night we went grabbed a drink before we saw “39 Steps” a Hitchcock spoof intended for a college audience. The play itself was creative and funny as it only used 4 actors for nearly 20 roles. After the play we went to O’Neills bar, because we heard they had great live music on Thursday nights. We were there fairly early so we enjoyed drinks almost as we enjoyed each other’s company. Before the band came on I sneaked a peak at the set list they taped down on the stage floor. At that point I knew it was going to be a night to remember. The whole night the surprisingly good cover band played all the songs my friends and I have listened to over the past few years. The 4 members ripped through countless Killers, Strokes, Kings of Leon and MGMT songs as we danced, sang, sweat and drank the night away.
Friday, March 26: “I have never raged with more passion than I raged with last night…I was so sweaty” were the first words of this beautiful day, from the extremely hungover Robert Sefer. With all of us feeling the same way, we sucked it up and hit more tourist attractions. We went to Abbey Road and tried numerous times to duplicate the Beatles cover art. Won’t you don’t notice in their picture is that the street is actually very busy. Needless to say we angered many people in London trying to get to work on time that morning.
We then went to the London Eye, the biggest ferry wheel in the world, which provided an amazing view of the city over the course of a 30 minute ride.
Next we went to the Tate Modern, a contemporary art museum. It housed many questionable pieces, but I was glad to see the very famous museum. We rested up a little before all going out to dinner in China town. That night we saw Motion City Soundtrack. I had been having dreams about this concert for weeks by this point. It certainly deserves a post of its own. We went out after the concert, and when everyone went to bed, I took a cab to the airport, pulled an all-nighter and caught the earliest flight back to Rome to meet my family!
It was an incredibly busy, hectic, stressful, expensive, but most of all fun, Spring Break, and the next few weeks were nothing different.
