Guess I will update my blog again! I don’t know why I dread writing in here sometimes- it’s like another homework assignment. But I think I will appreciate it a little bit more someday when I can look back and distinctly remember my semester abroad. SO here we go:
I went to Paris, France, 4 weekends ago now. I went with just 2 other girlfriends, and the plan was just to relax and see some sights and enjoy a romantic getaway in the most romantic city in the world. Well, no offense to Paris, it needs to stop calling itself the most romantic city in the world. The sights were amazing and our hostel was very cool, but the city was big, the subways were dirty, and it was difficult to get around when we compared it to cities like Vienna, or even Madrid. When talking to locals they always said “Paris isn’t real France”- because there are so many tourists, and so many foreigners who live in Paris. I loved visiting, but my expectations were very different from what we experienced. Some of my favorite moments from the trip were seeing the Eiffel Tower light show, going to the Louvre, walking into the Notre Dame (we just wanted to sing songs from the Disney movie!), exploring the designer stores down Champs Elysess, CREPES, and our walking tour with our hilarious and dorky tour guide. What we saw: Eiffel tower, Arc de Triumph, Egyptian Obelisks, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, some beautiful parks, Notre Dame, the “love” bridge covered in locks, and heard some interesting stories about Napoleon and of course WW2. We also spent one day in Versailles, which was by far the best part of the trip. Versailles was exactly the beautiful castle and grounds that we imagined, and we were very lucky with the weather and spent a long time walking through the expansive gardens of the palace. As we walked farther and farther off, we stumbled upon some small summer homes of the extravagant Marie Antoinette, as well as her private “town” and animals among beautiful valleys and fields. Tourists seemed to disappear as we walked farther and farther off, and it was just an amazing and relaxing experience. The town of Versailles was exactly what you would think of when you think of a “French” town- the colors and the size of the stores and everything. If I could give advice to travelers, it would be to stay in Versailles for the weekend and then do a day trip to Paris, rather than the other day around. I think it would also be amazing to see the French Riviera some day. Overall, it was a fun trip and more relaxing than our crazy 10 day adventure, but I’m not sure I would go back to Paris; something you have to see once, and that’s probably enough for me.
So then 3 weekends ago I went to Dublin, Ireland for a weekend. I LOVED DUBLIN! This was probably my favorite city next to Granada. In general, I still think Granada is the coolest place we’ve been- lucky me that I get to live here! But Ireland in general was so beautiful, so covered in beautiful green land, we all were saying we wanted to live here someday on a small hill with sheep roaming around (maybe we were being a little idealistic and assuming it would be like the movie “PS I Love You”…). I understand now why Mr. O’Hara would tell Scarlett “If you got a drop of Irish blood in you, there’s nothing you love more than your land” (or something along those lines, yup I’m quoting Gone with the Wind, I’m seriously obsessed). The first day that we were there was actually Unofficial, and for those of you that don’t know it’s a made-up holiday at U of I that everyone celebrates as an excuse to drink all day. We showed up a little later on Friday, so most of our friends were just completely blacked out running around Dublin. We started off with a couple of pubs, and of course tried Guinness beer, although I preferred the lighter Bulmers Irish cider- loved this! However I thought the best part about Dublin were the pubs themselves. Everywhere had live music, and they played everything from covers of popular songs right now, cheesy 80’s summer music, and even “In the Jungle” from The Lion King. At one pub, the guitarist in the band held the World Record for the longest time playing the guitar without a break- I think it was something like 3 or 4 days. I am such a sucker for live music like this- it just reminds me of Crystal Lake in the summer with the fests, and day drinking and dancing around. So Ireland and I got along really well that night.
The next day we did a day trip to the Cliffs of Mohr, which are these very dramatic cliffs off the coast of Ireland. Along the way we were told some cool history about the Irish potato famine, as well as the changes that have occurred within the last 20 years to Ireland’s laws. Apparently as recently as 1992, it was illegal to buy or sell condoms at any other location than a pharmacy- and there would be a “black market” for condoms through your hairdresser or other connections. I think our tour guide was a bit of a dirty old man, and he enjoyed telling us some personal anecdotes about his troubles over the years with condom shortages…He also showed us the town where Obama’s great-great grandpa (or some connection of that sort) was from- and he was full of American jokes, blonde jokes, Irish jokes, and New Zealander jokes. I never realized before going to Europe that everyone makes fun of “kiwis” and Australians, so many of them travel over here and I was asked several times if I was from Australia.
Anyways, after a long drive we made it to the Cliffs, where by the way a scene from a Harry Potter film was filmed (in the sixth movie, when Dumbledore and Harry go to the cave to defeat the Horcrux…those are the Cliffs of Mohr!!) so that made me VERY excited. And I guess it had appeared in other movies over the years but obviously that’s the coolest. We were with a group of our guy friends, so I think that made us a little bit more adventurous with getting very close to the edge of the cliffs. We were climbing over “Do Not Enter” fences and exploring the areas that are supposedly strictly forbidden to tourists. But it was worth it- we all felt like the luckiest people in the world to be in the presence of such breathtaking views. And we had a blast walking around, and getting a little muddy in the process. Actually- for anyone who knows Pat Williams we saw him completely wipe out, covering himself and his camera in mud…I don’t think it would have been as funny if it was anyone else but him, but he tried pulling it off as purposeful- nice try!
After several hours at the Cliffs, along with some other stops along the journey, we were ready to go home and get ready for another night out. I was a little disappointed this night, because I was dying to get back into my live music pubs. I will always be more of a happy hour, live-music, tapas bars, Kam’s nights out type of chica. Of course, true to form all of the University of Illinois students wanted to do some discoteca and more clubby bars. I had a lot of fun that night nonetheless, but that’s sometimes one of the downsides of traveling in a huge group- can’t please everyone and you usually just have to end up doing what the group wants to do. But just getting that taste of live music already makes me feel like summer is here! Especially because the weather right now in Granada has been gorgeous and in the 70’s- even though from what I hear recently it’s even nicer than that back in Illinois!
So after my crazy 4 weeks of traveling basically back to back, last weekend I finally got a break and was in Granada for the first time in forever. However I was able to do a free day trip to Cordoba with my program here. Cordoba is another city in southern Spain, and it was about a 2 hour bus ride away. It is known for its Mezquita (Mosque) as well as flowers, and it was the capital of Spain when the Muslims first came over here. We went on a tour of the city, enjoyed some delicious ice cream, and had some free time to explore. It is a very small city, but so gorgeous- with small pots of colorful flowers lining every small alleyway and building, sharply contrasting the white stucco backdrop. A group of us wandered around the city, throwing a random tennis ball we discovered around and playing games with little children- and at one point stumbling into a park that definitely had a prostitute. We saw a woman chugging a 40 on a bench, in a trench coat, with only her bra and underwear underneath, and wearing knee high boots. I mean, if that’s not a prostitute then I don’t know what is. So we ran out of that park pretty quickly, especially when she started following Laura suspiciously…
The rest of my weekend in Granada was filled with exploring some new tapas bars, and going out with some of the new friends that I have made here through our program. Since then, I have still been keeping up teaching English to a class once a week. Last week, my friend Emily K. and I decided it might be good practice for the class to listen to a song, and then fill in some of the lyrics off of a handout we gave to them. We chose “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, not sure why, and I never would have thought that this song could be so complicated for a group of foreigners. Question after question came at us, “What does ‘Streetlights people’ mean?” – “Why are they living to find emotion, what does that mean?”- “Does smokey room mean there is a fire in a room?” Wow. The best part was having them recite each line as a class to practice pronunciation; we were choking back laughter since it sounded like a very horrible karaoke rendition of the song.
This past weekend I went to Barcelona, but right now I’m getting a little tired and have to go do some other work- so hopefully I can update again within a reasonable amount of time. Love and miss everyone and I cannot believe I am already more than halfway through with my program! Send me emails if you want to stay in touch- jessica.johnsey@gmail.com.
