Falling Off The Map

So it finally happened. I fell off the map as far as my blog is concerned. It has been at least two weeks since my last post. I'll try to sum up my past two weeks as good as possible. Last thing I told everyone was that I was going to Norway the weekend of October 10th. Well that never happened. You may have seen my unhappy facebook post about it. I arrived to the airport the morning of Thursday the 10th only to discover that my flight was canceled. There was a French air traffic controller strike and although nothing about my flight had nothing to do with France, I was to fly over France and that was enough to cancel my flight. I walked calmly over to a huge line and proceeded to stand in line for the next two hours while becoming more and more pissed off at every one of the French people in the world and the airline that didn't seem to find it necessary to warn me ahead of time that my flight would be canceled. After the two hours were up and I finally made it to the counter, I discovered that the next flight I could find would be on Sunday. Head hanging low, I began my trip back home from the airport. I could continue telling you my terrible story of dealing with the airlines, but the fact of the matter is that I managed to get most of my money back and then proceeded to have one of the best weekends of my life. To go back in time a little more I got a new roommate on Monday the 7th. We could immediately tell that she and I were going to be good friends. So back to Thursday. I finally got back to my apartment sometime in the afternoon and eventually Leah got back home. When she saw me she was disappointed for me, but we decided to make the weekend epic. That was all it took to turn my day completely around. Another long story short, it turned out that her parents were in town for the weekend. We guided them around town and tried to see as many of the cool sights as possible. To name a few, we saw the castle, went to a flamenco show, and went through the labyrinth (a hedge maze). We also visited Barcelona Oktoberfest which was an amazing event with real German beer and stereotypical food. One night Leah and I even went to a bar with her parents. We danced until the bar closed at 3:30 AM.

Monday was Leah's parent's last day here so we said our goodbyes after work. Tuesday was the second of four salsa classes. Wednesday, I chose not to go to the study abroad group activity and instead went to a Barcelona expat networking event with a few of the interns. I talked to a Cypriat, two Danes, and a Belgian guy. I think the night was pretty successful in getting me out of my shell.

Thursday, I went to Ireland with my friend Jazmin. We hadn't really planned much other than the flight to Dublin and our hostel. Upon arrival we quickly discovered how nice the people were when the customs official was having a laugh with us. We decided to take day trips out of the city on Friday and Saturday, so we saw as much of Dublin as possible on Thursday. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Stephen's Green (a beautiful park), Christ Church, Trinity College, and Dublin Castle. Dublin's population is about a half a million people, but it feels like a small town. The people of Ireland as a whole are also the most polite people I have ever met in my life. Friday, Jazmin and I took a bus tour to Kilkenny, the medieval capitol of Ireland. There we visited the castle and church. It rained cats and dogs and unfortunately we didn't have rain gear. After Kilkenny, the bus drove through the Wicklow Mountains where the movie P.S. I love you was filmed along with a scene from Braveheart. Then we saw the ruins of St. Kevin's Cathedral before returning home, soaked and cold. As soon as we got off the bus I found an outdoors store and bought a raincoat. That night, both of us were in bed by 10. The next day we took a day trip to the West coast of Ireland to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway. The cliffs were unreal! It really felt like the world just ended. Galway wasn't as impressive as we expected. When we finally returned, Jazmin went back to the hostel to rest because it had been a long day. I was determined to find a good craft beer in Dublin. After that beer I moved on to another bar where I met a girl from London. She was kind of crazy and managed to convince me to drink my beer quickly before moving on to a third bar. The next place was awesome and had a live band that played all of the best classic rock songs. We met up with more of her friends and danced a while before I decided I needed to head back to the hostel. To put it gently, it was tough to get up on Sunday. I was still up and ready before Jazmin though! We didn't have much time, so we went straight to the Guinness factory in the morning. It was the coolest museum that I have ever been in! After the tour, we ate a real hamburger at a 50s themed diner then went to the airport. Other than our flight being delayed 30 minutes, our flight home was relatively uneventful. Tired, I stumbled back into my apartment at 11:30 PM.