I know i'm desperately in need of a blog post but i can't even begin to explain how busy life has been. the good kind of busy. the happy kind of busy, so all is well.
Since January, I have been to dublin, galway, and the Cliffs of Moher which took us really all over the western coast of ireland; Brussels and Bruges which are in belgium, and last weekend I was in Cadiz for Carnaval. It has been such a whirlwind and so much fun. But for the next month, I will be in Madrid and then April will get crazy with traveling again.
Let's start with Dublin, so Elli and I went to Dublin to go see Maroon 5 in concert, which was incredible. I forget how much I LOVE live music. And how that's how all music should be. The 02 in Dublin was a really small venue, so it was great and Adam Levine is a dream boat, so swoon. We ran around Dublin for the day and saw the Dublin Castle, the Guinness factory, Trinity College that houses the Long Room and the Book of Kells. We also took a bus at 6am to Galway, then from there did a bus tour and went on this hike up a hill in Ireland farm country (and saw goats) on our way to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher were PHENOMENAL. It's like one of those places that you've always dreamed of being and you always wish you could stay. It was worth the whole day of winding roads and being cramped on a bus to get there. It was super windy and cold, and my hair was super hat hair-esque, but nevertheless it was beautiful. AND harry potter and the half blood prince (HP6) - the cave scene, where voldemort hides the locket horcrux was filmed there, which makes it even more awesome.
Elli and I ate our way through Dublin which was full of lots of veggie soups and potatoes. We went to the Guinness Factory and did the tour, went to Whelan's - which is the bar in PS I LOVE YOU, and got to see lots of happy ginger irish people that you dream of when you think of Dublin.
There were lots of birthday celebrations in mid-january, we did a super cute and fun birthday 26th dinner on the night of my birthday and we went out the weekend before to celebrate both Brittani's and my birthday. And on Sunday morning, we did birthday brunch for Brittani's birthday. Before I left LA, we did a family birthday dinner which was really fun, so I'm glad I got to celebrate my 26th yr all over the world. :)
After that, we had a puente (long weekend, with Friday off of work) at the end of January. Elli and I hopped a plane to Belgium for the holiday and had lots of fun. It was still cold in Belgium but not as cold as we thought it would be. We ate lots of frites (fries), gofres (waffles), and chocolate! It was a quick but good weekend. We spent Friday in Brussels and got to see everything. Brussels was super urban, and reminded me a little bit of Budapest, and a little bit like Dublin mixed, but a little dirtier (unclean). It felt like a very immigrant city, like lots of international people. Everyone in Brussels also spoke French, with a little English which was really interesting because Amsterdam is really close and in Amsterdam the dominant language is English. So I was super surprised that we went a lot of places and there were people that spoke very little English. On Saturday, we took a 1 hr train to Brugge. And I LOVED Brugge!! It was what you picture Belgium to be - with canals and little houses lined in a row, very much like Amsterdam but smaller and amazingly beautiful. Elli and I ate lunch at this super cute cafe that made their own quiches by hand and they had more veggie soup!! We bought lots of belgian chocolate truffles while we were in Brugge too. My favorite thing we did was that we took a boat ride through the canals, which made us really cold but it was so worth it. We might have drank our weight in tea that weekend as well, to help keep us warm.
February went by really quickly, and I can't believe it's already March!! Last weekend, Elli and I went to Carnaval in Cadiz with her roommate Ale (whose is from Cadiz) and his friends. I almost didn't go because I got a really awful stomach virus and was in bed with a fever for 4 days straight. I couldn't even get out of bed and walk to the doctor, it was that bad. I called my dad and he thought I was dying, and he wrote me an email later saying he had been praying for me everyday (not that he doesn't already) but you get how rough it was. Carnaval was really fun. Julio (Ale's friend) drove us in his car, so on Friday morning/afternoon we packed up and piled into the car, 3 boys and Elli, and me on a 6.5 hr car ride to Cadiz. It was fun to see Spain from a different point of view and go on a road trip. We played lots of car games, looking for signs starting with the Alphabet, and Happy/Sad slash honking the horn game. Julio, Luis, and Adrian thought it was really funny that all we wanted to do was play games all weekend (car games/drinking games). The car wasn't as fun as you would think though, I slept some, but it was pretty cramped for 6.5 hrs. The weekend was really good though. On friday night, we watched the Chirigotas perform on TV at Ale's house and we ordered Telepizza. I couldn't eat pizza because I was still sick and hadn't eaten all week, so Elli and I made rice and veggies that I ate. Which is funny because I ate rice while everyone ate pizza. On Saturday, we woke up around 1 and we saw people singing on floats (kind of like chirigotas) but in a parade, and we drank Moscatel all day (which is the typical Carnaval drink of Cadiz). Day drinking was super fun and we finally went home around 7ish. We took a two hour nap, then started cutting out felt patches, and sewing them on our costumes, it was so rushed and a little cutre (chinsy) because we had like 10 mins to do it. But it was fun, we made spanish flag patches, airplanes, and world patches because we were Goose and Mav from Top Gun. We even had mustaches and aviators with our army green jumpsuits. We botteloned in the street most of the night and then ended up going to the carpa (tent) at like 5 or 6 in the morning to dance and drink more. And we finally made it home at like 7 or 8 in the morning, it was fun to see everyone's costumes and just be out all night. AND I have to tell you, Ale's house was awesome, it was right on the beach and the view of sunrise/sunset was amazing. Definitely lots of sun chasing these past two months. I haven't uploaded pictures from my phone to my computer of Cadiz yet, so I will have to put them in the next post.
So the past two months have been a whirlwind to say the least, but that's more becoming the norm of my life, and i don't particularly mind that. :) Also I'm reading the Divergent Series (I bought divergent in Dublin) and it's amazing. It's like Hunger Games and the Giver combined. I bought the next books in the series, on amazon UK and they are suppose to come this week!!!
Things to look forward to in the next month.... DAD'S TRIP!!! My dad is coming for spring break and I cannot wait!! We are going to barcelona, paris, and portugal. I miss him so much, I can't wait to spend time with him. Also Matt and Krystal are coming to Madrid the week before my dad comes which will be so fun because I will get to show them my city and I will get to talk to Matt about books. And it's finally getting warmer in Madrid, so sundress/tights and cardigan weather is here and that makes me so happy.
"Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be."
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