First off, one of the girls I was going with, Deirdre, was sick, so that was sad :( Then, the biggest tragedy of all happened. When we got to the Barcelona airport (where we had a connecting flight to Dublin) I tried to get our boarding passes when the lady informed me that we were in fact on a flight for 11 o'clock that morning that had already passed instead of on the flight getting ready to take off for Dublin. So basically, we were stuck in Barcelona. When I asked if there were any seats left on the flight she said yes and they gave us a rough estimate that each ticket would cost 200 euros each. Ouch. Wanting to see what other options we had, we went to RyanAir and asked them about their flights, but they didn't have anything until the next day at two o'clock in the afternoon which would take away a whole day in Ireland! (and it still cost about 200 euros each). So we went back to AerLingus and asked them exactly how much it would cost for us to get on their flight. Suddenly our 200 euro tickets jumped up to 310. Gross, huh? So we bit the bullet and bought the 310 euro tickets. I just want to point out that this is EUROS so these tickets were over 400 dollars each...I have to #firstworldproblems this hard core, but it still sucked. But I have to say it was worth every penny!
When we were getting in line for the plane to Dublin, the weirdest thing happened...I asked a man "Estás en cola" and he replied with "Sorry?" HE SPOKE ENGLISH!!!!! Suddenly we were surrounded by English!! It took us a few hours before we started getting used to hearing English everywhere and speaking to strangers in English, and worst of all, realizing that when we talk about the people around us they can actually understand what we are saying!! What a bummer!
I almost immediately fell in love with Ireland. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. The people were so great and friendly, our hostel was great, and everything was SO GREEN!! Plus we saw some pretty cool places:
I really would love to write more about Ireland, but it was just too great to find words to do it justice. From seeing an Irish show to listening to buskers on the street to meeting people from all over the world to falling in love with a fantastic guy working at our hostel to starting dance parties on the street to seeing how many pictures of gingers we could get the entire three days we spent in Ireland were full of one amazing moment after another. So much so that we were actually sad to be going to London. Sad to be going to London! How ridiculous is that!
London was a slap in the face at first because I didn't realize how expensive it was going into it! I took out sixty pounds at the beginning thinking it would last me the whole time...that was a joke. That may have paid for my hostel and transportation. Needless to say, I didn't purchase many meals in London, because it wasn't worth the money!! Just a warning to you fellow travelers....but other than that it was great! There is so much history in London and it was really cool seeing all of the things that are always on tv and learning about the Royal family.
Buckingham Palace
Imitating Joey in Friends and hopping into the map
Big Ben!
The London Eye
Platform 9 3/4, King's Cross Station (:
After seeing all of the touristy places, we were getting geared up for the real reason we were in London--to see Wicked!!! The morning of Wicked, my friend Alexz was looking at a pamphlet for the show and she saw that every day at 10 o'clock they have 24 front row seats for sale for the show that evening...an offer we couldn't pass up! So we decided to forgo seeing Windsor Castle (which was apparently really cool!!) but we stood in a very short line on a Monday morning and got front row seats to Wicked!!! We tried (and failed) to sell our old tickets on the street before the show started, so we ended up paying for two tickets, BUT it was sooooo worth it!! I have had the Wicked soundtrack stuck in my head 24/7 since then, but I wouldn't have it any other way (:
Sorry that was an INCREDIBLY long entry, but so much can happen in 6 days in the UK!! Now I'm back in the land of the Spanish and determined to make every second here count like we did during the weekend. Until next time!
