Well everyone, this is going to probably be a pretty long post! Last Wednesday night we got a taxi to the Larnaca Airport in Cyprus and flew to the London Gatwick Airport where we had an overnight layover on the way to Ireland. Originally we were going to try to just spend the night in the airport, but then we decided it would be a better idea to get a hotel. We found a pretty good deal online for the Holiday Inn, which was right next to the airport so we got to sleep in beds that night. We didn't get to see very much of London since we were just there for the night, but we did walk to the grocerty store for snacks and we realized that the food there is way better and cheaper th
an in Cyprus! Oh well. The next day we got on our plane to Ireland and arrived there around 3:30. We took a taxi to our hostel, which was actually very ideal for us. We each paid 11 Euros for the night to stay there. There were 8 other girls in our room, but it worked out just fine. Everyone was really quiet. There was a little living room where everyone could socialize and meet people and there was a kitchen that people could cook in and store food in. Everyone that was there was young and a student pretty much.
After settling in there, we walked around the city a little bit and immediately loved it! It felt so nice to be around other English speaking people. It felt a lot more like home, even though there were of course, its differences. We went out to eat at a pub and I got a ham and cheese panini and baked potato. Later on that night we went out to a busy pub that was exactly like what you would expect and Irish bar to be like! It was great. There was a live band there that played all kinds of great alternative r
ock music and 
occasionally some Irish music...which we convinced Kelley to Irish dance to! Everyone that we came across was really friendly and nice to us.
We ended up meeting some people who offered to show us around Dublin the following day. It turned out that one of the guys was a security guard at the Trinity College, so he got us all into the Museum there for free! We got to see the huge library and the Book of Kells.
After that, we went to the Guiness Factory, which was pretty cool. They pretty much just tell you about how beer is made. (I think I like the Hershey's chocolate factor better : ) ) Anyway, after the tour you go all the way to the top of the building where there is a circular room with a panoramic view of Dublin and you get a free pint of Guiness, so that was fun! Our 2 friends that we had met the night before came with us and are a lot of fun. They had super Irish accents and a great sense of humor! They always made us laugh. It's funn
y what a small world it is, because we were looking for a table to sit at and we were standing next to these two girls. We could tell that they had the "American accent" so we asked where they were from and they said Pittsburgh, and they go to school at PSU! How funny. It gets better though. After that we were walking around Dublin a little bit more and we ran into one of the guys that lives in our building in Cyprus! He and his friends had been visiting Dublin too!
We walked arou
nd a really pretty park, and it was great because it was nice and sunny...a little cold though, but that was ok. It's funny though in Dublin, because literally 15 minutes later it started to rain and gusts of wind were awful! Kelley tried to get her umbrella to cover her wonderful hair, but the wind flipped it inside out and broke part of it. She still tried to use it though, and it was hilarious. The rain never lasted too long at a time. It usually just drizzled and then stopped and the sun would then come back out! It didnt stop us from doing anything that we wanted to do. We got some dinner...pizza and a hot dog (hehe) and went out to a pub again afterwards. It seems 
like that is what every single Irish person does at night! There are so many places to go and everyone is so happy and fun at them and there is always live music. The place we were at that night had live music and it was kind of mixed with a comedy show. Again, we met a bunch of people there. It seems like everyone there just likes to chat with and meet everyone. There was a group of guys there from Scotland who were celebrating a bachelor party and then we also met 2 Americans there. We met some French guys there too and we were excited because we were telling them about how we were going to travel to Paris in a few days.
ock music and 
occasionally some Irish music...which we convinced Kelley to Irish dance to! Everyone that we came across was really friendly and nice to us. We ended up meeting some people who offered to show us around Dublin the following day. It turned out that one of the guys was a security guard at the Trinity College, so he got us all into the Museum there for free! We got to see the huge library and the Book of Kells.
After that, we went to the Guiness Factory, which was pretty cool. They pretty much just tell you about how beer is made. (I think I like the Hershey's chocolate factor better : ) ) Anyway, after the tour you go all the way to the top of the building where there is a circular room with a panoramic view of Dublin and you get a free pint of Guiness, so that was fun! Our 2 friends that we had met the night before came with us and are a lot of fun. They had super Irish accents and a great sense of humor! They always made us laugh. It's funn
y what a small world it is, because we were looking for a table to sit at and we were standing next to these two girls. We could tell that they had the "American accent" so we asked where they were from and they said Pittsburgh, and they go to school at PSU! How funny. It gets better though. After that we were walking around Dublin a little bit more and we ran into one of the guys that lives in our building in Cyprus! He and his friends had been visiting Dublin too!We walked arou
nd a really pretty park, and it was great because it was nice and sunny...a little cold though, but that was ok. It's funny though in Dublin, because literally 15 minutes later it started to rain and gusts of wind were awful! Kelley tried to get her umbrella to cover her wonderful hair, but the wind flipped it inside out and broke part of it. She still tried to use it though, and it was hilarious. The rain never lasted too long at a time. It usually just drizzled and then stopped and the sun would then come back out! It didnt stop us from doing anything that we wanted to do. We got some dinner...pizza and a hot dog (hehe) and went out to a pub again afterwards. It seems 
like that is what every single Irish person does at night! There are so many places to go and everyone is so happy and fun at them and there is always live music. The place we were at that night had live music and it was kind of mixed with a comedy show. Again, we met a bunch of people there. It seems like everyone there just likes to chat with and meet everyone. There was a group of guys there from Scotland who were celebrating a bachelor party and then we also met 2 Americans there. We met some French guys there too and we were excited because we were telling them about how we were going to travel to Paris in a few days. 
We ended up not getting very much sleep that night because we had to be up by 6 a.m. for our Cliffs of Moher trip the next day. It was ok though because we had a very long bus ride
. I didn't really want to sleep because I wanted to look out the window at the beautiful country side of Ireland. We drove all the way across the country that day, and it was a gorgeous day. The sky was clear and blue! There were sheep, cows, and horses grazing all over. The tour guide/ bus driver was great too. He told us a lot of interesting things along the way and also made a lot of jokes and was absolutely hilarious. That seems to be a trend amongst the Irish. We stopped at a church and castle shortly in Limerick. It wasn't very significant; I think it was just meant to break up our trip a little bit. We also stopped near the Atlantic Ocean where there was a bunch of limestone cliffs or something crazy like that. I was just excited to see the ocean of course. We stopped for lunch, and then continued on the bus for another 10 minutes to the Cliffs of Moher. It was soooo pretty there. We had about 2 hours there to walk around, take pictures, and shop. We 
were so thankful for the beautiful weather because everyone is always afraid of the rain in Ireland! We could walk right out next to the edge of the cliffs. There was a sign advising against it, but everyone that was there just did it anyway, in order to get fantastical pictures. People have been discussing whether or not the Cliffs should be added to the list of the wonders of the world! I'm so glad we went there. On our way back the bus
driver was going really fast because he wanted to get back for the Dublin vs. Bulgaria football (soccer) game. Dezi and I were sitting in the back seat and it was super bumpy so we were flying all over the place! Someone even had to get off the bus and throw up!!! It ended up being ok and we safely arrived in Dublin like 4 hours later (haha). 
<---we almost fell off. JK!!
We were really tired when we got back and we had a super early flight the next day. We went to sleep around 10 and that night was of course daylight savings in the E.U. so we lost an hour and we woke up at what was like 4 a.m.! Our flight left at 7:30 for Paris, which actually
worked out pretty well because we arrived there around 10, and lost another hour due to time zones. It was quite confusing! Our roommate, Lauren's friend Erin is studying abroad in paris, and she had come to visit us a few weeks ago in Nicosia. She offered to let us stay with her in her dorm which was very nice of her. We gathered blankets and sheets and all were comfortabl
e enough to just sleep on the floor. Erin has been in Paris since January, so she was familiar with riding the train around the city and she knows where all the good places are for tourists. She majors in some kind of art and Paris is great for that! <-- Notre Dame Cathedral-->
Erin took us to the Notre Dame Cathedral which was really cool to see from the outside and the inside. We first got there we went to the Louvre, which is a famous art museum for anyone who doesn't know. It was absolutely huge and impossible to see everything, but it was beautiful. Just the architecure in the building was unbelievable. We saw the Mona Lisa, and a real Mummy...those were just the 2 most interesting things! Later that night we went out to eat at a pizza place and it was fantastic! Erin knows enough French to communicate with the waitors, so that was very beneficial, since a lot of French people do not know how to speak English. Even in the Museums t
hey don't write anything in English, so the most we could do was just look at the exhibit and infer what it is. I think they are just reluctant to speak anything but French because of their culture. We heard before we went that they are not nice to Americans, but everyone that we came across was moderately nice. We went to bed pretty early that night because again, we were very tired. We got to sleep in the next day so we felt pretty refreshed. Once we were ready to go out, we went to a creperie and got ham and cheese crepes, which were pretty good for lunch.
hey don't write anything in English, so the most we could do was just look at the exhibit and infer what it is. I think they are just reluctant to speak anything but French because of their culture. We heard before we went that they are not nice to Americans, but everyone that we came across was moderately nice. We went to bed pretty early that night because again, we were very tired. We got to sleep in the next day so we felt pretty refreshed. Once we were ready to go out, we went to a creperie and got ham and cheese crepes, which were pretty good for lunch. ^The Louvre where the Mona Lisa is
<-----Me next to the Mona Lisa
After that we went to another art museum that contained art by monet, so that was exciting to see. I got a discount at the museum since I am a student. Erin was able to explain some of the art to us since she is pretty familiar with it all. Some of her classes take her to the museums so they can learn about the art while looking at the actual art piece!
After that we went to another art museum that contained art by monet, so that was exciting to see. I got a discount at the museum since I am a student. Erin was able to explain some of the art to us since she is pretty familiar with it all. Some of her classes take her to the museums so they can learn about the art while looking at the actual art piece!
Art by Monet
We headed to Angelina's which is a fancy place to get pastries. All of the restaurants in France are super fancy and classy no matter what kind of place it is...restaurant, creperie, cafe, McDonalds...all very nice and well kept. Anyway, it was even more exciting to be there because we saw Dita Von Teese, who is Marilyn Manson's ex-wife and I guess a famous dancer. I didn't really know who she was, but Lauren pointed her out to us. So it turned out we were dining with the rich and the famous! I got this rasberry pastry, I'm not sure exactly what was in it but it was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. There were rasberries and cremey stuff in between two pink cookies! Wonderful.
We spent some time walking around Paris for a little bit after than and then one of Erin's friends was hosting a book reading by a famous author in a bookstore nearby, so we went and he read some of his new book to the audience. He is American and he wrote a book about his experience with wines and cheese I guess...not sure exactly where he goes with that in the book, but after his reading we got some free wine and cheese! We were looki
ng for a cheap place for dinner and we found a Chinese restaurant to eat at with dinners for 5.50, so I ordered my food first and of course I couldn't understand what they said when they told me how much I needed to pay so I just handed them a 20...big mistake. They told me that my dinner was 10.50, because I simply didn't say I wanted the "meal" and they wouldn't give me my money back. Obviously a tourist trap, because then all my friends ordered the same meal and paid 5.50. I was really mad so I smeared some rice and peas all ov
er the table for them to clean up. I got a little satisfaction out of that (hehe). Anyway, I got over it and we went to the Eiffel Tower. We decided to hike up the stairs which only cost us 3 Euros as opposed to taking the elevator for 10! We got another student discount which is always fantastic. We went right as the sun went down so it was pretty dark but still a little big of light in the sky so it was beautiful. We had the best weather. We took a lot of pictures and had a great time looking at the city lit up at night. Afterwards we went to a Sangria bar and it was delicious! The next morning the girls went to another art museum but Dezi and I were all 
museumed out so we just walked around the city. I like to look at the arcitecture of the buildings a lot more and that is free! We saw the building where Napoleon was buried and we ate some croissants with chocolate inside! We love Pairs food hehe. We spent the rest of the day walking around. We walked back to the Eiffel Tower during the day to get some more pictures. It was a perfectly sunny day without any clouds in the sky! Erin had class during the afternoon so after that we met back up with her and went to a church that was a popular tourist destination. There were Jamaicans there trying to scam people into buying their "bracelets," which were actually just ugly pieces of string. They would just grab people and tie this string around their wrists and then charge them 20 Euros for it. If the people argued with the price then they would keep charging them more and more. Erin knew someone who had to pay 100 Euros to get away from them! They 
were scarey. I'm not sure why it was legal. Anyway, after that we went to a Fondue restaurant which was an intersting experience. First they brought out the appetizer which was a little assortment of meats cheeses pickles and potatoes and then a little glass of wine. Then they brought out the bread and a big bowl of cheese which I guess was actually a big bowl of cheese and wine. They also gave everyone a big baby bottle of wine. So it turned out to be a very interesting and delicious experience. For dessert we had a brownie with vanilla sauce all over it. We walked around a little bit after that and saw where Moulan Rouge is...interesting area to say the least. We had to head back and go to sleep after that be
cause unfortunately it was our last night in Pairs : ( We had to be at the bus station by 6:10 a.m. and we thought we were giving ourselves plenty of time by waking up at 5, but we were wrong. We ended up getting on the wrong train and had to get off at the wrong stop and retrace the way that we came in order to go in the right direction. We got to the bus station too late, which was unfortunate for me because I had already bought a train ticket! So we ended up paying 140 Euros to take the taxi to the airport!! We were really nervous about being late because we had 3 planes to catch throughout the day. We ended up just barely making it to our plane after having trouble with the size of our carry ons. We flew from 
Paris back to Dublin. Then Dublin back to London. Then finally from London to Cyprus. It was a very long and stressful day, but we finally made it back to Nicosia around midnight on Wednesday night. I'm so glad that we went on this trip. It was probably one of the best vacations I have ever been on, because I learned so much. We always hear about what other countries are like and see them in movies but you never know what they are really like until you acutally visit them. Both Ireland and France were beautiful countries and traveling to both in one week was very interseting because they are such opposite cultures. We went from socializing with friendly outgoing Irish people in a laidback atmosphere to sipping wine in sophisticated French restuarants and admiring the beautiful art and architecture. I just want to thank everyone for the birthday money that I received this year and let you know that it is greatly appreciated and helped me to enjoy my vacation in Paris and Dublin : ) We have a lot more fun and interesting things coming up...I feel like I should be waking up from a dream sometime soon hehe. Next Friday we are heading tot Aiga Napa which is a beach resort area in Cyprus for a few nights and then the following Thursday we will be headed to Greece! There will be many posts to come! Talk to ya soon!
museumed out so we just walked around the city. I like to look at the arcitecture of the buildings a lot more and that is free! We saw the building where Napoleon was buried and we ate some croissants with chocolate inside! We love Pairs food hehe. We spent the rest of the day walking around. We walked back to the Eiffel Tower during the day to get some more pictures. It was a perfectly sunny day without any clouds in the sky! Erin had class during the afternoon so after that we met back up with her and went to a church that was a popular tourist destination. There were Jamaicans there trying to scam people into buying their "bracelets," which were actually just ugly pieces of string. They would just grab people and tie this string around their wrists and then charge them 20 Euros for it. If the people argued with the price then they would keep charging them more and more. Erin knew someone who had to pay 100 Euros to get away from them! They 
were scarey. I'm not sure why it was legal. Anyway, after that we went to a Fondue restaurant which was an intersting experience. First they brought out the appetizer which was a little assortment of meats cheeses pickles and potatoes and then a little glass of wine. Then they brought out the bread and a big bowl of cheese which I guess was actually a big bowl of cheese and wine. They also gave everyone a big baby bottle of wine. So it turned out to be a very interesting and delicious experience. For dessert we had a brownie with vanilla sauce all over it. We walked around a little bit after that and saw where Moulan Rouge is...interesting area to say the least. We had to head back and go to sleep after that be
cause unfortunately it was our last night in Pairs : ( We had to be at the bus station by 6:10 a.m. and we thought we were giving ourselves plenty of time by waking up at 5, but we were wrong. We ended up getting on the wrong train and had to get off at the wrong stop and retrace the way that we came in order to go in the right direction. We got to the bus station too late, which was unfortunate for me because I had already bought a train ticket! So we ended up paying 140 Euros to take the taxi to the airport!! We were really nervous about being late because we had 3 planes to catch throughout the day. We ended up just barely making it to our plane after having trouble with the size of our carry ons. We flew from 
Paris back to Dublin. Then Dublin back to London. Then finally from London to Cyprus. It was a very long and stressful day, but we finally made it back to Nicosia around midnight on Wednesday night. I'm so glad that we went on this trip. It was probably one of the best vacations I have ever been on, because I learned so much. We always hear about what other countries are like and see them in movies but you never know what they are really like until you acutally visit them. Both Ireland and France were beautiful countries and traveling to both in one week was very interseting because they are such opposite cultures. We went from socializing with friendly outgoing Irish people in a laidback atmosphere to sipping wine in sophisticated French restuarants and admiring the beautiful art and architecture. I just want to thank everyone for the birthday money that I received this year and let you know that it is greatly appreciated and helped me to enjoy my vacation in Paris and Dublin : ) We have a lot more fun and interesting things coming up...I feel like I should be waking up from a dream sometime soon hehe. Next Friday we are heading tot Aiga Napa which is a beach resort area in Cyprus for a few nights and then the following Thursday we will be headed to Greece! There will be many posts to come! Talk to ya soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment