Friday brought the arrival of Spring break. Everyone at my internship had the day off so I didn't go in either. I got my hair cut and then hung out at our dorms until we got on the bus to Dublin at 2pm. We got to the bus station around 4 and immediately checked into our hostels, which happened to be on the next block over. Afterward, we walked around the city centre a bit and got dinner then hung out before returning to our hostels to go to bed for a few hours before our very early flight at 6am.
I didn't enjoy my hostel, My Place Dublin. Our room had 20 beds in it and smelled like sweat. I didn't sleep at all either since Adam, Mallory and I were in a room with about 17 old men, most of whom snored loudly. We got up at about 3:30am and headed to the Dublin airport. Everything went pretty smoothly from there and we arrived at the Beauvais airport outside Paris around 10am. We then took a bus from the airport to Paris and then a taxi from there to our hostel. We stayed at St. Christopher's Inns which we liked for the most part. Our room was lovely and had a great view. The bunk beds were nice with curtains to block out the light.
After we checked into our hostel, we decided to explore the area around our hostel a bit. We found a great boulangerie (bakery) which made chocolate croissants (Jaira's dream). We had lunch at an Italian restaurant. The owner spoke Italian, the waitress spoke French and we spoke English. It was an interesting combination. The pizza was really great however. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel to relax for a while. That night, we took the metro (my first time) and tried to get over to Notre-Dame. We ended up getting separated but eventually found each other. The Easter Vigil at Notre-Dame which was amazing! The service was mostly in French but it was educational for me to listen to and read along with in the prayer book. We stayed till almost midnight there and then headed back to the hostel.
On Sunday morning, we headed straight over to the Louvre to beat the crowds and barely waited at all before getting in. This was my favorite place to visit. The Louvre is massive and beautiful and there are things to interest everyone. We saw (or tried to see) most of the exhibits but honestly, one could spend days in there. After that, we wondered around the courtyard, looked at the Carrousel, and then decided to head to the Arc de Triumphe. On the way, we stopped for footlong hot dogs in baguettes, yum! As we walked down the Champs-Elysees, we saw many street dancers and some of the most expensive shops in the world. We crossed the 2 miles between the Louvre and the Arc and took many pictures in front of it. The Arc is surrounded by a huge roundabout with at least 6 lanes and we weren't sure how to get over to it. In the end we decided to run across, dodging cars and laughing our asses off. On the other side, Adam was stopped by a police officer who laughingly said: "Monsieur, you cannot cross here." When the rest of us saw the police officer, we scattered in all directions though none of us got in any real trouble. That was my favorite moment of the entire trip. Afterwards we explored the Arc, contemplated going to the top and decided to skip the lines and wait till the Eiffel. We then headed back to Notre-Dame to see it during the day. That night we had dinner in the restaurant attached to the hostel, shared a few bottles of wine, fruit and cheese and relaxed.
The next day, we went to the Eiffel Tour. Unfortunately, that day was a bit chilly and windy and the lines were long so we played the Alphabet game to distract ourselves. We finally got on the elevator to go up after about an hour. The view was magnificient. We took many pictures and decided to go all the way to the top top. We finally made it there after another hour, enjoyed the view a little and almost immediately went back down to the ground where my feet like to be. We stopped in a small cafe and had some lunch then walked over to Luxembourg Gardens. It wasn't much to see without the leaves on the trees and most of the flowers but it must be amazing during the summer. The day had gotten nicer so we explored a bit then headed over to find the Catacombs. Unfortunately, once we found them, we encountered a CLOSED sign. We then headed back to the hostel after a long day of walking to relax. Adam, Anna Mae, Jaira and Mallory decided to go to a pub crawl while all I wanted was to have a quiet night.
On our last day in Paris, we headed straight over to the Catacombs. They were really interesting to see and I wish my boyfriend would've been there to enjoy them with me. After that, we hurried over to Versailles. After a mishap with the metro, we finally got there. There were giant lines but they went surprisingly fast. The tour of the house was amazing, everything was very rich and beautiful and I enjoyed seeing something that I had studied in my French Civilization class. I even got to see the bedroom of the Sun King, Louis XIV! The gardens were also grand and the day was nice. I enjoyed the hours we spent there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take our time as we had to hurry to the airport to fly to Faro, Portugal.
We got to Faro at around 1am I believe and checked into our hostel, Casa d'Algoa. While not much to look at from the outside, this hostel was my favorite and the people were great. It was more like a small community than a hostel since they made group meals and everyone went out together. The next day we got up and started exploring Faro. The streets were confusing but we eventually found a little market, an exercise park and a municipal supermarket with fresh fish, fruit and bread. It was much different than the Walmarts of the U.S. or the Tescos of the UK. We got some food and headed back to the hostel. We broke out our swimsuits and did some tanning on the roof while the sun was out. That night, we decided to dress up and go to a fancy restaurant near our hostel. That was my favorite night in Faro. I tried some new dishes including cream of prawn soup, xarems and cockles with maize porridge, sangria, and wild berry vodka. I also had a chicken sandwich, wild berry cheesecake and apple pie. It was all wonderful and for less than 20 euros. I shudder to think what a restaurant like that would charge in the US.
On Thursday morning, we headed out to Desertas island to spend a day on the beach. We enjoyed it while the sun was out but we ended up getting soaked by rain on the way back to Faro. After getting back and changing, we visited the Bone Chapel which used over 1000 remains of monks to build a memorial for them after having to dig up the bones to build the church. I thought it was a strange memorial. We had a group meal at the hostel which was really delicious. That night, we went out with a woman who works at the hostel and a couple German guys who were staying at the hostel. We started at a bar which was fun and then headed to a club. Overall, it was a pretty good night.
The next morning, we took a train to Lagos to spend one more day at the beach. It wasn't quite warm enough for swimsuits and was pretty windy but we spent a few hours then and then headed back to Faro. We explored some shops in Old Town and got a bottle of port which wasn't great. I went to bed early since we had another early flight to Manchester.
On Saturday, we arrived in Manchester at 10am to brave a 12 hour layover till our flight back to Dublin at 10pm. We spent about 8 hours hanging out in Cafe Nero, alternately eating, taking naps and reading. Once we went through security, we had dinner in the airport and explored the shops. We hung out at the gate for a few more hours and took the very very short flight to Dublin. They barely turned off the seatbelt sign before it was back on and we were landing. We spent a couple hours in Dublin before the bus back to Belfast. We arrived in Belfast between 3 and 4 am feeling very exhausted. The bus driver even had to wake me up when we arrived. We all collapsed into bed that night.
On Sunday morning, we got up and headed downtown to Primark to buy some cheap clothes for the Festival of Colors. We all settled on a pair of leggings and a white shirt. We ate some falafel and watched the entertainment until it was time for the color party. We then got in the ring for 8 minutes and threw colored powder at each other and strangers, the result of which was comical. We walked back to our dorm and received many strange looks and laughs.
The next day, we got on a bus to Derry/Londonderry and got there about 10:30 for our seminar there. We met a man who gave us his opinion on the troubles and explored the Fountain. We talked about our spring breaks a little and other matters relating to the program and headed back to Belfast.
It's weird to think that as I'm writing this, I only have 11 days left of my internship. I can easily say that my last day will be a sad one and I will miss everyone I've met here a lot. I can only hope that I'll get to come back and visit someday.
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