Spring Break pt 3: Blame it on the Waffles

April 5

The day was a bit chilly as we walked the 5 minutes to the train station. It wasn't too difficult to find the right train to Brussels. We would arrive around noon so we settled in for the 2 and a half hour train ride or so.

Once in Brussels, we managed to find our hostel after help from a local. The Grand Place Hostel was probably in the best location we could have imagined. It was situated on a little side street right across from the Gran Place itself. After checking in and barely had time to throw our stuff in the lockers before we ran out the door to properly see the Grand Place.

Grand Place was pretty much a giant square with these beautiful buildings surrounding it. Don't ask me what their purposes are, I still haven't a clue. But apparently in the summer, the center of the Place is covered in a Flower Quilt.... that's literally a bed of flowers in the middle of this square. It looks so cool in the pictures, it made me a bit sad we weren't going to be able to see it.

Now, you may be wondering why I have hardly any pictures of Amsterdam.. and of Brussels. I assure you that I did take loads of pictures, probably too many. But here's the reason you aren't going to see any of those pictures.

After freaking out over how cool this place is (we'd barely walked 10 feet out our door!) we followed our noses to the delicious smell of Belgium Waffles. Standing in line to get my waffle, I was overwhelmed by all the toppings I could put on it. I decided not to hold back, when in Belgium right! And got Strawberries, Chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was right after I received my glorious waffle that I reached into my pocket to take a picture of it (in true tourist style). It soon became apparent that my camera was no longer in my pocket. I checked both pockets, my bag, and then everything all over a good 5 times. I snapped this picture on my iPod camera.... then started having a panic attack.

How good does that look!

We all retraced my steps.... all 50 of them. But alas, there was no blue Canon anywhere to be seen. I started to realize what happened... someone must have pick pocketed me. I was mad at myself for not keeping hold of my camera better, i felt violated that someone reached into my pocket without me noticing, but most of all I lost all my pictures and how was i supposed to document my trip going forward! I must say, after this I was probably the last person you'd want to travel with. Sorry Ally, Maggie and Rebecca! I aimlessly followed as everyone excitedly explored Brussels. My mind was still going back and forth the Grand Place plaza trying to find my camera.  

Eventually, my hunger got the better of me and I soon found myself in the little Italian restaurant two doors down from our hostel. We were served one of the best dinners I had on this entire trip. I would have gladly eaten there every night we were here. We turned in for the night, and I decided I would unfortunately have to use my iPod as my camera... and steal Ally and Maggie's pictures so you will see some Amsterdam after all :)

The next day, Monday, we headed out on a walking tour of Brussels. I still had no idea what Brussels was all about so I was excited to actually see the place. We ended up stumbling upon the European Union Parliament building... and touring the Parliamentarium. It's an interactive tour about the EU and had really interesting features inside, definitely quality stuff. Just walking around Brussels was a cool way to get to know it better. Here's some pictures from our walk.

Outside the history museum 

The Grand Palace

I really loved walking around the streets of Brussels. They are typical European streets and never lead you to where you think you are going. The street names were so cool, some were French while some were Dutch.. or Flemish, the Belgium Dutch. It was fun just to try and pronounce the names, and we made a joke of it.

We got back late after our walk and not too hungry for dinner. So Maggie, Ally and I went to the Waffle Factory to get waffle #2. It was then that I actually was able to taste the deliciousness of Belgium Waffles. 

The waffle itself was covered in a kind of sweet glaze, then topped with toppings of your choice. I went for the strawberry, whipped cream, and chocolate again. It was gone far too quickly though, and I almost wanted another one if they weren't so terrible for me. I did however, indulge in something of almost equal standards as the waffle.... Belgium Chocolate. Ally and I found a place called the Belgium Chocolatier and couldn't resist... Maggie was already making her way through her Chocolate covered strawberries ;) I picked out 7 of the best sounding gourmet chocolate truffles and left a very happy girl. We walked up to some steps that overlooked the city and you can see the steeple of the Grand Place on the sky line. It was there that we sat to eat our chocolate and talk about the exciting places we have yet to discover. Our trip that we had spent so long planning was finally becoming all to real to us now. It was a bit amazing that we were actually spending three weeks literally back packing across Europe. It was surreal.

Then we noticed that the lights on the steeple at Grand Place was changing colors. We ran down there to get some pictures, and as we did it turned into a light show in the plaza....

We spent a while sitting there in the square watching the light show and finalizing our spontaneous idea of taking a day trip to Bruges in the morning. Again, we had no idea what it was all about but it sounded like a really pretty town and heard good things about it from one of our roommates, and some random family I met in the middle of the square.

So there it is, after two days in Brussels, two waffles, and 7 chocolate truffles later I was starting to fall in love with this city... even though it ate my camera :(

Spring Break pt 2: Discovering Amsterdam

The wheels of the Aerlingus plane hit the landing strip, and we were in Amsterdam. It was just a little after 7PM as we walked into the Amsterdam terminal. It was more like a mall rather than a terminal though. First thing we saw was the classic "I Amsterdam" sign outside the terminal, so of course we had to go outside and take some cliché photos. We managed to buy a train ticket to Amsterdam Centraal with out any problems. 

It was a 20 minute train ride to the center of Amsterdam on one of the smoothest train I've ever been on. Everything was in Dutch though so it was a bit of a guessing game as to where we were. Good thing they had tv screens showing the stops coming up next, so it was easier to figure things out than it could have been. 

Once off the train, we walked out into Amsterdam and tried to orient ourselves. The Hostel Meeting Point was in a very central location, literally a 5 minute walk from the train station. The street we were staying on was clearly part of a very touristy section. 

While we were checking into the hostel Rebecca (Maggie's friend we were meeting and who'd be travelling with us until France) came running out of the bar room and gave Maggie a huge hug. The hostel keeper allowed her to change into the same room with us which was really nice. We went through the loud, dark bar room and made our way up the very steep, narrow stairs to our room, number 5. 

Since we chose the cheapest option, it was a 12 bed room... and there were already quite a few people there. We found our beds and looked around for the locker our key was made for. Taking a glance around the room it was clear that we were not looking for any ordinary locker, but that the large metal trash bins scattered around the room was in fact our locker. There was a massive padlock with a chain on the lid on each barrel. This was different. We shoved our three backpacks into the barrel and chained it up. I was ready for dinner.

Back outside we walked up and down the street our hostel was located on but found nothing remotely appetizing. Being picky was not really helping us at this point. We were starving and hadn't properly eaten anything since our Subway sandwiches early that morning. We were advised by our hostel keeper to not eat anything on this street so we moved a few streets over to look for dinner. 

Dinner came in an Italian restaurant. It was a last resort. We were starving, the prices weren't terrible, and it was after 10 at that point. It wasn't the greatest food i must say and we didn't realize they charged for the bread and water. But it was food none the less and I went back to the hostel quite satisfied. 

The night was a long one, between some guy snoring like crazy and the bed being a little less than comfy. But eventually I managed to fall asleep.

We were woken up by one of our roommates talking really loudly to his friends. Thank god they were packing their things up getting ready to leave for the day. But first of course they had to smoke in the room before they left... it's Amsterdam remember. 

We headed out in search of the Anne Frank house.Until I looked a few things up on Amsterdam after we planned our trip, I never knew the Anne Frank house was here. I guess I never really thought about where it was but I imagined it to be in Germany or Poland or something. It took me by even more surprise when we found it and it was kind of a boring modern looking building by the side of a canal. I'm not sure if it really looked like that or if it was fixed up to fit the museum or not but I was a little less than impressed. The line was so long we didn't have time to wait in line so we moved on. I'm sure if we went in I would have a different impression of the house, but it was honestly really disappointing to me. It was nothing what I imagined it would look like and I was actually okay with not waiting in that line to go inside.

We spent a good portion of the day wandering the city and walking along the canals. I love the character of the canal houses. They are so tall and narrow most of them seemed to have been leaning at odd angles too. It's a peaceful city to walk around in when you're away from the main tourist streets.

I was recommended to look around for canal boat tours so we did just that. We climbed aboard one of the canal boats and set off on our hour tour of Amsterdam, canal perspective. 

The view of the city from the water was definitely different. I loved the view of these tall canal houses standing so close to the edge of the water. It was on this tour that I learned why the houses are so skinny. In the olden days, a house was taxed by its width, so in order to avoid high taxes the houses were built taller rather than wider. As a result, the front doors were too narrow to fit any furniture through them. The furniture had to be lifted up to the windows by a pulley system attached to the top of the house. As were meandered along I realized all these houses still had the pulley system set up! To help the process it was common for the houses to be built titled toward the street a bit to lift big items. So the leaning houses were purposely built like that, I was beginning to suspect the builders to be drunk or something!

It was around this time that we discovered the Stroopwaffles. These are little wafer like sandwich cookies filled with a delicious gooey cream which I think is known as Stroop. It was incredibly addicting and we all ended up getting more bags of these delicious little things to attempt to bring home with us. 

The rest of the night was spent wandering the red light district and many of the streets nearby our hostel. To be honest, I was not a huge fan of Amsterdam. I really liked the areas around the Anne Frank house and places that weren't completely swamped with tourists. But the streets were walked down after dinner really turned me off from Amsterdam. I was a bit taken a back my the thick pungent smell of weed that lurked on every street. And maybe it's just the American in me, but I felt slightly uncomfortable walking by so many sex shops and red light strippers/ prostitutes. Amsterdam is definitely much more comfortable with things like that than I'm used to. I think it was all a little too overwhelming for me. I'd love to visit other places in the Netherlands though, because I know they aren't all like Amsterdam... at least I hope not.

I was looking forward to Brussels the next day. I would finally be able to leave the hostel we were in, which was starting to bring down my travelling spirits. I was looking forward to being in a place where I wouldn't have to feel like I needed a shower every hour. Belgium intrigued me a lot though, I knew nothing about it at this point and didn't really have any expectations for it at all.

Spring Break pt 1: Cork- Dublin- Amsterdam

April 3

Packed and ready for the three week journey that lay ahead. I'm not really sure how I fit everything into this duffel bag but I did.

The day was supposed to be the easiest day of travelling. We planned on getting the 10:30AM bus from Cork to Dublin for our flight to Amsterdam at 5:15PM. It would be a long day but we had planned it so we'd have time to get ourselves together and do it right.

Everything was going smoothly. Maggie, Ally and I made it to Parnell Station with perfect timing, even being able to grab a subway sandwich for breakfast/ lunch. We were mentally preparing ourselves for the nice long bus right up to Dublin while we sat there waiting for the bus. We had thought ahead and bought our tickets online to save a few Euros.

The bus pulled up into dock 2 and we tossed our bags into the luggage hold under the bus and climbed on board. We presented our tickets to the bus driver who looked at them and then said "this isn't the right bus...". Turns out we didn't realize that the GoBus (under BusEireann) isn't the exact same thing that we bought our tickets for. The GoBus that we tried to get on/ what we thought we bought tickets for goes direct to Dublin airport without stopping. The bus we had bought tickets for was the X8 that makes tons of stops along the way. Discouraged, we got off the bus and pulled out our luggage. We headed to the information desk to see when the X8 bus is leaving next.

The information guy told us that the next bus out that we have tickets for would be at noon. He showed us the bus schedule and told us we would be able to get to Dublin airport buy 3:50. So, now on a time budget, we decided to wait for the bus and hope for the best instead of buying a whole new ticket for the next GoBus.

Noon came and we were finally on our way to the airport. I was excited to start our trip and hoped that the bus situation was the only problem we would have. The information guy promised us we would be at the airport by 3:50 so now we sat back and relaxed. At least Maggie and Ally did... I however was stuck online emailing professors to try and get into a class I needed for Fall semester as it was registration day back home. Thank god for wifi, I was able to sort it out in about an hour or so but it was stressful. Between the wrong busses and my schedule I was stressed and wanted to relax and enjoy the beginning of my break.

As the bus ate up the miles, closing in on Dublin, I started to get the feeling that we weren't on schedule. I kept looking at the bus schedule the info guy had given me, trying to figure out where we were. I'm not really sure why I felt we weren't on schedule, maybe it was paranoia that we now had less time to get to the airport and through to our gate on time. But the more I checked the bus schedule, the more I felt sure it was wrong. The schedule said we should be in Port Laoise at a specific time (which I can't remember) but we were no where near there.

Soon, we were stopping behind a bus that had broken down and all those passengers came aboard our bus. An Irish girl sat next to me. We continued making our way to Dublin. It soon became very evident that we were behind schedule, and I started to wonder out loud especially when Ally asked me why I kept nervously checking the schedule. The Irish girl next to me asked where we were going so we told her and I asked how long it'd be until we get to Dublin because at this point it was after 3:30. She said it would be at least another half hour in to the city and since it makes stops in the city centre we should be there around 4:30.

At that, we all looked at each other and PANICKED. Our gate was to close at 4:50 and we would still have to go through security once we got there. Time was slowly slipping away as there was nothing for us to do but sit on that bus as it made so many painful stops along the way. Traffic wasn't on our side either. I was so anxious that we weren't going to make this flight... our first flight, that I literally started shaking. I think we all were at that point. The bus then made a stop at the bus station for like 10 minutes at 4:20 and then the next stop would be the airport.

We ran up to the front of the bus so we would be able to get off faster and grab our luggage. A new bus driver came on and we told him our situation. He told us that he'd be able to get us there for 4:45.... yes 5 minutes before our gate closed. My heart was just about in my stomach when I heard that. I was in straight panic mode. I've never been late to a flight before, and never missed one. As we left the station for the airport, the driver told us that ever since June, BusEireann has been telling people that this bus route takes 3:50 hours... when in reality it takes 4:30 hours. So this was not our fault but the stupid info guy that promised us we'd be at the airport on time when he knew full well the situation. He could have just told us to buy a ticket to GoBus that gets there on time!!

Time ticked by as we neared the airport. Our driver told us he would drop us off at Terminal 2 to save us a 10 minute walk from the normal dropping point at Terminal 1. We would have been dead if he hadn't done that... thanks bus driver!

4:45. We arrived at the terminal. 5 minutes until the gate closed and we still had security to tackle.

It was game time.

With adrenaline running through us all, we shot out of the bus doors like a rocket. We grabbed our bags and threw them over our shoulders, then sprinted like i've never sprinted before with 16 pounds of luggage on my back. I lead the way through Dublin airport, the layout of the place suddenly coming back to me as I ran up the stairs to the departure gates. We waited impatiently for the elevator to arrive to take us up to the security point, and nearly fell into it as the doors opened onto some business guy in a suit. We didn't care.

Once upstairs, I took one look at the security line, and nearly crumbled. The line was so long. We were never going to make it. It felt as if our mad dash was all for nothing. But then we saw an Airlingus lady standing at the end of the security line. We told her we were going to miss our flight and how can we  get through security quick, or just tell the gate that we were on our way... we were hoping for anything at this point. The lady told us to go to the fast track security line and ask them if they would let us through. We ran over there, and Ally pretty much word-vomited our story to the lady who then stamped us through the fast track line. We had all our stuff ready for security at that point and nearly threw our stuff at them. Shoes were off, jackets were thrown, liquids were out and ready. We whizzed through security in record time and then headed to our gate... which of course had to be down stairs.

Hopping onto the down escalator, Maggie's boot lace got caught and almost sent her flying down the escalator had she not caught herself. We full out sprinted to our gate until we noticed there was still a line waiting to board. We dropped our bags and panted waiting in the line. We had gone through Dublin airport in 5 minutes flat. We were still trembling from the adrenaline and amazed we made it to the flight. It also helped that there was a slight delay on the flight... it was almost as if they knew. I had never been so thankful, someone must have been on our side that day. Finally everything was falling back into place.

We boarded the flight to Amsterdam and taxied out of the gate. I was so relieved we had made that flight. When the flight attendants came around we all ordered a well deserved Jameson Ginger to calm ourselves and cheered to the crazy start of our trip. At that point we figured if we could make it on time for this flight, we would be okay in foreign countries. It was definitely a whirlwind start to our spring break but it makes for a great memory in the end.


Next post I'll pick up in Amsterdam after we landed.

3 Week Spring Break

Hey guys,

I just returned from my spring break around Europe today. To sum it up.... It was AMAZING.

I think I'm going to write a post about each place we went to separately, so it may take a little while but then I can put up lots of pictures and not bore myself.

It's ben a very long day today though. We woke up at 4:30 to catch an 8 o'clock flight out of Edinburgh and then a 4.5 hour bus ride back to Cork. It's back to real life and studying now unfortunately.

Easter in Ireland

You might think that Easter in Ireland is a quiet, holy day spent with family and eating a big Easter dinner.

When in reality, there's a beer fest.

The Franciscan Well holds an annual Easter beer fest for two days. Easter Sunday around 3PM Ally, Maggie, and I headed down to the pub to check out this beer fest. Since it was the afternoon it wasn't packed but enough people were there to have a nice atmosphere about the place. There was an outdoor tent with 12 different micro breweriers set up. All in all, there were about thirty different beers on tap. There was even a menu with all the beers listed.

 

I tried 4 different beers while there, a half pint of each. I tried an amber ale called Windjammer by a brewery in Waterford. It was supposed to have a pineapple/ mango taste but i didn't taste any fruitiness at all. Then I tried an Irish Red ale from Eight Degrees, a local Cork brewery, called Sunburnt Irish Red. I love Irish red's so of course that was delicious. Then I had one called Sunbeam Pilsner, from Seven Windows in Cork, which was absolutely amazing. It tasted like a Carlsberg :) Finally, I had to try a home brew called the Blarney Blonde.

Along with this delicious overload of beer we ate way too much delicious pizza.... You cannot deny how good this looks and it tasted even better. I'm definitely happy with the way our Easter went.

Also, I should make note that I won't be updated for about 3 weeks because tomorrow I leave for our trip!! Ally, Maggie and I are going on a fun European Adventure. Amsterdam- Brussels- Paris- Valencia- Barcelona- Edinburgh-Cork. Look out for lots of pictures when I come home :)