Dublin: Winging It

Updated Spain Posts:

El Mar

A Nutella and Pants Sandwich

An Inflatable Raft

Ancient Ruins

Ongoing Observations

NEW Spain Posts:

Viva Espana

Festival of St. John (the Baptist)

Flying Solo

Museum of Catalan History

Misc Other Sites in Barcelona

Of course there are other adventures in Spain, but I didn’t have pictures to go with them, so those posts are not updated

Again, Paris stuff later. I’m tired of adding picslol

Enjoy

And now that I’m in the middle of a 30-some odd hour journey from Spain to the US, I’m bored. Solution: blog about the things I see lol

Barcelona.
¤ My flight is delayed 1 hour . I guess that’s ok since it brings my next layover down from 10 to just 9 hours. Sweet.
¤Everything is closing. I should have grabbed food for the flight or for later. Oh well.
¤I’m seated next the most irritating couple alive. The woman is bitching about her flats hurting her feet, which are situated on the chair between us. She then starts going off about the Harry Potter kid getting $26 mil for the last 2 movies. Best part: berating her boyfriend/husband for being too much of a bloke. “I try very hard to speak well. You should too”. Said of course in a holier-than-thou tone. To top it all off she starts whining and actually threw a tantrum because she wanted chocolate. Are you for real!

Dublin.
¤I took my sweet ass time getting off the plane. Then I leisurely made my way to passport control. Even the flight attendants passed me. I guess being after 1am made people want to get home. Not me. I have time to kill. It turns out passport control was closing by the time I mosied over haha.
¤The departures terminal is closed. There is a growing group of us on chairs by the entrance to security. I found a corner to set up my raft. The poor Japanese dude next to me must think I’m crazy.
¤The raft is hard to inflate. I’m not sure why, but air seems to be getting stuck in on of the tubes. So I’m laying on the floor in an under-inflated raft. Either way it’s better than the chairs. Or worse yet, the floor.
¤I’m hungry. The stuff in the vending machine costs 1€. I have 70 cents. I am going to break into the candy I bought for my internship. Sorry in advance guys lol.
¤I just changed my clock. It was depressing turning it back an hour. 7 more to go!
¤It’s freezing in here!

¤Finally set up the raft. People have definitely given weird looks but I’m sure they’re jealous they don’t have a raft too. I managed a couple of naps between 4 and 7 before being disturbed by someone who told me I can’t sleep here. This officially made me feel like a hobo sleeping in the streets. But look buddy if you don’t want passengers sleeping on the floor, don’t give them 10 hour layovers in the middle of the night when everything, including the terminal itself, is closed!

THE raft

*Finally made it to the terminal, got on my flight. It’s almost empty!! Choosing seat 43K really was a great idea, because the only other person in my row has the other window. Note to self, always sit in the back of the plane. Anyway, I moved from the 2 window seats to the 4 middle seats, where I stretched out and took a nappy new. 2 Benadryl + 4 airplane seats = awesome flight.

New York:

*Well I’m back in the US. Only problem: I switched airlines so now I have to recheck my luggage. But…you can only do this 4 hours in advance. My flight is in 7 hours. Awesome.

*Update: After bitching about this to J, he suggested I switch my flight. DUH. How did I overlook this possibility??

*YES. 7 hour layover reduced to 2. I’m on an earlier flight!!

The runway:

*I’m chillin on the plane, in the middle of the runway. Yes, the MIDDLE of the runway. We backed out of the gate and taxi’d for a bit, then it started raining. Well more than just raining. There’s a thunder and lightning storm and the pilot just informed us all planes are grounded. Apparently it’s not safe to take off in lightning. Whatever, at least I’m on an earlier flight. Who cares that I’m in the very last row of the plane, next to a lavatory, and stuck by the window trapped in by 2 Hasidic Jewish guys? Speaking of, I don’t think Hasidic Jews are allowed to touch members of the opposite sex. Maybe I should keep my elbows to myself. Or maybe the plane should just take off. I’m ready to go home!

….and I’m HOME!!!

For some reason I decided to share this info with Petra. Not 2 hours later I found myself in a souvenir shop in the janky bus station. The guy working there asked where I was from – England?

I smiled, thinking of these recent convos and said no. Ireland? No. Scotland? No. Though I was thinking tp myself this guy is doing a really good job of naming off 3 of the 5 countries that comprise my ethnic heritage lol.

He finally asked where I was from. I thought about saying Canada but realized Americans aren’t hated in Spain so I fessed up to my US passport. He was like “Oh America! (though he did look confused) Well then you must want …” and started pointing to some junk on the wall.

Oh I see. You were guessing I was American so you could target your sales pitch lol.

A few days later I had more time to kill at that same janky bus station so I went to the same shop. Same dude asks me “where you from – England?” lol maybe he just thinks all white English speaking people are from the UK? This time I played along and said yes. He then pointed me to a different section of stuff, so perhaps his salespitch is targeted to his specific audience. Or maybe he’s crazy.

A few days later I was in another store buying lollipops and this dude tried to sell me cans of red bull. I said no thanks but he kept pushing the issue. Finally I just said “I’m flying home tomorrow and that’s too much liquid.” he politely told me that I could check them, after all, the flight from here to the UK isn’t far.

Lol another person who thinks I’m a Brit! And I am not even pretending to have an accent. Maybe this just means I need to live in England for a while and reconnect with my roots!

I totally wanted one. Yes, this is a BRILLIANT idea. I will just get one back in our little beach town.

Finding an inflatable raft became quite the mission. It seems the stores in our town sell pool noodles, swim wings, inner tubes, inflatable dolphins you can ride, and even inflatable pool sets if you’re weary of the beach. But no simple little blow up rafts to float on.

I was thinking something similar to this:

Looks pretty comfy, and not too bold (maybe in a more neutral/less flashy color than orange and yellow, but you get the point). Even this super small basic one would have worked:

Xavi suggested I try a department store so I hit up El Corte Ingles in Barcelona the next day. Mind you this is an 11 story store that takes up the entire city block. I read the signs and it appeared it might be on the 7 floor.

When I didn’t see any, I approached a sales lady and asked. However, I don’t know how to say “inflatable raft” in Spanish, so I asked “where would I find something I could use to float on in the water?” lol

She pointed me in the right direction. However, this section was filled with more pool noodles and some boogie boards. So I asked another sales lady who looked at me funny and asked “for you?” Yes. She directed me to the 8th floor with the sporting goods.

There they were. I had finally found them!

But something was terribly wrong. Yes very wrong. These all had weird cartoon like creatures on them. Surely there were others?

not the exact one i found, but you get the point

I walked around the section a few times and didn’t see any so I expanded my search. The entire floor. This didn’t help so I found a sales person.

“Do you have anything similar to this but without…(pointing to the weird cartoons) THESE?”
(chucking) “No that’s all we have left”
“Ok I guess I will take it. Where do I pay”
“Right here”
As I pulled out my credit card and asked if they take cards, he said yes and even asked if I war to be charged in euros or dollars.

Whoa! They can do that? Dollars please!

So despite the fact that I will be spending 17 hours total on a raft a la Dora the Explorer or some weird gremlin-like things, I’m totally stoked with my purchase. Practicing Spanish + getting charged in $ (avoiding the foreign currency fee) = a totally stoked Caro. With a child’s raft.

I pitched to J about my 9 hour layover in Dublin and came to realize I should go into town and sightsee. Mind you, this was decided the night before. So I few to Dublin, no guidebook, no plan, just vague idea of what I might do.

BEST layover ever! Turns out even though it was my first point of entry into the EU, I didn’t have to get all my luggage through customs. In fact, “customs” involved me walking through a door. I had been prepared to take a cab into town but found the tourism desk where I learned about the express bus. SCORE! I’m always down to save some money!

I really enjoyed the bridge you had to walk across to get into the main part of town

Heading into town, I walked over to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. So cool! Its basically just a religious book that was written in like 500 AD. It included the process of how special books were made, the materials used (cow hyde!) and the detailing that went into this particular special book. It was a trip!

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the book itself, but did get some pics of the college.

Old-school style university buildings

Next I headed to Christchurch Cathedral. The Irish sure do know how to construct a cathedral! I bought myself a Celtic knot ring, which I totally adore!

Side view of the cathedral

It was so nice inside. Very peaceful

I have a strange fascination with floor patterns and this caught my eye

Not quite sure what this was doing in the church, but i liked it

The Dublin Castle was really close so I headed there next. It was hard to find, especially considering it was a CASTLE, and not terribly impressive once I got there. Maybe Frommer’s would have warned me of this, but oh well. I was a woman on a spontaneous mission! So anyway I ended up in the courtyard and saw what appeared to be a door leading inside. There was a man sitting and I thought he was the tour guide that would lead the next tour indicated on the sign outside. Everyone had been really friendly up til then so I was surprised when he barked at me “We’re closed. You can’t be coming in ‘er” (said in thick Irish accent of course. Confused, I just headed out. That was a bust!

Front entrance, not too spectacular!

Bridge over moat

I had an hour or so to kill so considering the Guinness storehouse was a mile away, I decided to just stop in a pub and grab a leisurely Guinness. I mean, when in Dublin you can’t go home without having one right! I found a suitable place and took my time. This is truly what a layover should be like!

That rounded out my day in Dublin. I’m so excited I went out and had such a spontaneous adventure! Sure beats the hell out of doing crossword puzzles in the airport for 9 hours!

Anyway these posts will mostly be from my phone and will more or less lack photos. I’ll try to add pictures as I can. Otherwise I will just edit from home.

Let the fun begin!