So I'm home now, I got home Monday night. I was supposed to get home the day before, but I had quite an adventure trying to leave Spain. It all started Sunday morning at 5am when our bus left Salamanca to take us to the airport. We arrived at 7:30 and I had breakfast with some people from my group, two of whom were on my flight. At about 9:00 we decided to try to check in at the automatic kiosks but it said our check in was unavailable. We noticed that a lot of the flights to London were being canceled due to weather, which is where our layover was, so we decided to get in the line for the check in counter, which was realllllly long, so that at least we'd have a headstart if our flight was canceled. Sure enough, after waiting in line for about 2 hours, our flight got canceled. So we ended up waiting in that line for 4 hours, and when we finally got up to the counter, we were told that there were no flights to the U.S. until the next day. So after we got our flight info, we were told to go to a different counter to get the tickets and to get our hotel voucher. We ended up waiting in that line for another 4 hours, and finally got everything sorted out. After being in the Madrid airport for 12 hours, we took a bus to the hotel. We had never been so happy to see a hotel room in our entire lives. We only ended up being there for about 5 or 6 hours, because we woke up at 2:30am and left the hotel around 3 to get back to the airport because one of the girls and I had a 6am flight. Luckily everything went smoothly this time, and we flew to Rome and then from Rome to Boston. Because Rome is the opposite direction from the U.S., the second flight was 9 hours, the longest flight I've ever been on. Since I was so tired from not getting a lot of sleep for the past few nights, I was able to sleep for a lot of the flight, so that made it go by faster.
It hasn't been as weird as I expected to be back home, except for getting used to not hearing Spanish all the time, and knowing that when someone says dollars they actually mean dollars, and aren't just making a mistake when they mean to say euros haha. I just hope I don't forget all the Spanish I've learned since the most I'll be speaking it next semester will probably be Spanish classes, but I'm hoping that's enough to keep up the same level. The biggest thing to get used to is the time difference, which has been causing me to wake up around 8am for the past two days and be ready to pass out by 10 every night. Although it is sort of nice that it is helping me be a morning person, the jetlag has made me tired all the time, so hopefully I can adjust soon so I'm fully functional.
This will probably be my last post on this blog, unless I remember something amazing that happened in the past few weeks that I forgot to write about. I had an amazing semester in Spain, and I will never forget it. I'm also so happy that I got to travel to other countries in Europe too, some that I've wanted to go my entire life. I hope I get to travel more in the near future, although not too soon because I'm ready to take a break from traveling for a little while lol. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and sharing my experiences with me this semester. ¡Hasta luego!
22 diciembre 2010
10 diciembre 2010
Dublin, Norwich and London
I just got back yesterday from my trip to Dublin, Norwich and London. I should probably be studying for finals right now, but I decided that updating my blog was an ideal way to be productive but procrastinate at the same time. :)
So, the trip. I had so much fun, and it was awesome because Ireland and England are two countries that I have wanted to go my whole life. My time in Dublin was definitely too short, but I´m sure I´ll get to go back, hopefully before too long. The trip started out with taking the train to the airport at 6am, a little earlier than I would have liked but I was excited so I didn´t care. The "excitement" started pretty much right away. Our flight was delayed by 2 hours, and then when we were literally about to land in Dublin, the pilot suddenly pulled up and the flight attendant annouced that the pilot "decided not to land." We were all very confused, but then a few minutes later we heard that the Dublin airport had closed because of snow (to me and the people I was traveling with, who are from NY, it didn´t look like much snow, but I guess we´re just used to it), so we ended up flying to Shannon, Ireland, where they put us on a bus for 4 hours back to Dublin. So my initial stay of a day and a half in Dublin basically got cut back to only 1 day since that half a day was spent just getting there. But I made the best of it. That night we met two guys who ironically were also studying in Salamanca but we´d never met them before, so we ended up hanging out with them while we were there. I got cool Irish food at the bar we ate at that night, which of course I took a picture of haha.
The next day we only really got to see two things, but it was a good day anyway. Getting around was hard because of the snow, both because it made walking hard and because the public transportation had lots of problems. The first thing we did was go to the Guinness factory, which was awesome! The ticket came with a free pint of Guinness, which we got to pour ourselves. The other thing we saw that day was Kilmainham Gaol, which I´ve wanted to see ever since I learned about Irish history in high school. We got there just as it was closing so we didn´t get a full tour, but it was still a great experience, and they let us in for free since it was so late in the day. Here are some pictures.
Then it was off to England, and again there were weather complications. The snow by then had moved on to London as well, so there were weather delays on both ends, which caused us to sit on the plane for almost 2 hours before finally taking off. But at least the airport was open, so I was able to get there. By then I had missed my train to Norwich, where I was going to visit friends, so I had to buy another one which was ridiculously expensive given the horrible exchange rate between dollars and pounds. Then there were delays on the trains I had to take, but I eventually got there, and had a nice, pretty relaxing weekend with Rachel and Vickey. I also saw Harry Potter. EPIC!! I really want to see it again. I think so far it´s the movie that has most followed the book. I guess since they´re doing 2 parts they can be more true to the story because they have more time.
After that, I got back to London with no problems and met up with my friends again at our hostel. The hostel was great, and it had a pub downstairs which was really fun and gave us a place to hang out so we didn´t have to just stay in our room the whole time. I was in London for 3 days, and did a bunch of the normal tourist things. The first day we walked to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye and Westminster Abbey, which were not far from our hostel. For dinner we had fish and chips, which I was super excited about. The second day we went to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, then we to London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. The third day we went on a free tour, with a tour guide named Giles who was really awesome. Unfortunately, my camera died so I didn´t get any pictures that day. I will post some of the pictures I did get.
That´s about it for my trip, we got back to Salamanca without incident. And now I really should try to study some more. Yuck. This will probably be my last post before I leave, since I come home in 9 days. I´m really excited. I´ve had a great time in Spain, but I´m ready to be home again.
So, the trip. I had so much fun, and it was awesome because Ireland and England are two countries that I have wanted to go my whole life. My time in Dublin was definitely too short, but I´m sure I´ll get to go back, hopefully before too long. The trip started out with taking the train to the airport at 6am, a little earlier than I would have liked but I was excited so I didn´t care. The "excitement" started pretty much right away. Our flight was delayed by 2 hours, and then when we were literally about to land in Dublin, the pilot suddenly pulled up and the flight attendant annouced that the pilot "decided not to land." We were all very confused, but then a few minutes later we heard that the Dublin airport had closed because of snow (to me and the people I was traveling with, who are from NY, it didn´t look like much snow, but I guess we´re just used to it), so we ended up flying to Shannon, Ireland, where they put us on a bus for 4 hours back to Dublin. So my initial stay of a day and a half in Dublin basically got cut back to only 1 day since that half a day was spent just getting there. But I made the best of it. That night we met two guys who ironically were also studying in Salamanca but we´d never met them before, so we ended up hanging out with them while we were there. I got cool Irish food at the bar we ate at that night, which of course I took a picture of haha.
The next day we only really got to see two things, but it was a good day anyway. Getting around was hard because of the snow, both because it made walking hard and because the public transportation had lots of problems. The first thing we did was go to the Guinness factory, which was awesome! The ticket came with a free pint of Guinness, which we got to pour ourselves. The other thing we saw that day was Kilmainham Gaol, which I´ve wanted to see ever since I learned about Irish history in high school. We got there just as it was closing so we didn´t get a full tour, but it was still a great experience, and they let us in for free since it was so late in the day. Here are some pictures.
Then it was off to England, and again there were weather complications. The snow by then had moved on to London as well, so there were weather delays on both ends, which caused us to sit on the plane for almost 2 hours before finally taking off. But at least the airport was open, so I was able to get there. By then I had missed my train to Norwich, where I was going to visit friends, so I had to buy another one which was ridiculously expensive given the horrible exchange rate between dollars and pounds. Then there were delays on the trains I had to take, but I eventually got there, and had a nice, pretty relaxing weekend with Rachel and Vickey. I also saw Harry Potter. EPIC!! I really want to see it again. I think so far it´s the movie that has most followed the book. I guess since they´re doing 2 parts they can be more true to the story because they have more time.
After that, I got back to London with no problems and met up with my friends again at our hostel. The hostel was great, and it had a pub downstairs which was really fun and gave us a place to hang out so we didn´t have to just stay in our room the whole time. I was in London for 3 days, and did a bunch of the normal tourist things. The first day we walked to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye and Westminster Abbey, which were not far from our hostel. For dinner we had fish and chips, which I was super excited about. The second day we went to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, then we to London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. The third day we went on a free tour, with a tour guide named Giles who was really awesome. Unfortunately, my camera died so I didn´t get any pictures that day. I will post some of the pictures I did get.
That´s about it for my trip, we got back to Salamanca without incident. And now I really should try to study some more. Yuck. This will probably be my last post before I leave, since I come home in 9 days. I´m really excited. I´ve had a great time in Spain, but I´m ready to be home again.
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