Confessions of a Europhile in Thirteen Volumes: VOLUME IV

The travel trio united once more on New Year's Eve in Paris for a fun-filled night of getting all dressed up, having our asses grabbed on the metro, watching the Eiffel Tower light up at midnight the same way it lights up year-round, finding all bathrooms on lockdown on the Champs-Elysées, and miraculously hauling a cab after a strenuous two-hour effort. Memories . . .







The Gateway to Eastern Europe

January 1st: new year, new travels. We decided in October that we would spend the latter half of our Christmas vacation in a winter wonderland – Austria. We took a flight to Vienna and settled in at our cozy little hilltop hostel surrounded by snow. We were charmed.









Once settled, we wasted no time in hitting the city, which lived up to its reputation of grandeur and elegance.















Come nightfall, however, we glanced at a map of Europe and felt stupid for booking five nights in Vienna when we had never been closer to Hungary! At the train station the next morning we promptly bought tickets to Budapest for January 5th. We would spend two full days in Vienna and two in Hungary. In between, we would take a day trip to Salzburg where we could ponder the eternal question: “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” (If that reference eludes you, please watch Sound of Music now. Like right now.) As it turns out, a trip to Salzburg would cost us over 70 euros, while an hour train ride to Slovakia came in at a mere 14! Bratislava had never sounded more appealing.

The excitement of "a mere 14 euros" quickly gave way to the dread of "a mere 19 degrees F., minus windchill." My fellow travelers from Boston and Toronto happily trotted along as this Miami girl prayed Hail Marys to distract her freezing mind. Looking at the photos now, I think, "that was pretty!" At the time, however, I was half conscious.





Freezing temperatures make me delirious, at which time I begin speaking to statues.





I began to recover my marbles as we headed to Budapest, where the snow was melting. This means we were spared the bitter cold but greeted by icy slosh, which doesn't feel great when seeping through your faux suede Payless boots. Trust me. We spent most of our two days trying to navigate through the rain and taking hazy pictures of city views through foggy bus windows.













The highlight of our Hungarian adventure, though, was our decision to take a dip in the famed thermal baths of Budapest. As none of us considered bringing a swimsuit to Hungary in January, a trip to the local H&M became a priority. Running through the frigid Eastern European winter air half naked would have been worth it had the water been hot rather than lukewarm. Turns out, as we were kindly informed by a local, that the "hot" pool was the other one – over there! Running through the frigid Eastern European winter air half naked and wet is even worse. Troopers that we are, though, we lived to tell the tale.





I am eager to visit Eastern Europe again, particularly Prague, but next time I'll be sure to book for spring or summer. This trip marked the first time I fully experienced snow. Although I had watched it fall a few times before, I'd never seen it "stick." It's as pretty in person as I had envisioned, but – and I know this is obvious – it's freaking COLD. It also gets your socks and feet all wet even if you bothered to buy thick rubber-soled, faux fur-padded boots in a hardcore "outdoors" store in Paris. In the battle of Cold vs. Me, Me holds her own, but Cold wins hands down.

Confessions of a Europhile in Thirteen Volumes: VOLUME II

Miami Girl Freezes, Then Thaws Out

The rest of November is now a haze of teaching French teenagers about the American Civil Rights Movement, strolling about Angers, visiting Becca in Nantes, and eating at crêperies. Come December, the Christmas spirit was in the air. Early in the month, I took a quick trip to Madrid for the weekend to visit my dad, who hops across the pond every so often. Little did I know that France was preparing a winter smackdown for me.



In truth, only about one week felt unbearable; coincidentally, it was the same week that Moira, my friend and “compinche,” came to visit. We spent our days either braving the cold – it would not keeps us from our crêpes, damn it – or caving in – cheese, bread, wine, and dubbed episodes of The Nanny would do.





Then on Saturday – hyperbole alert – a miraculous thing happened! The weather warmed just as we headed to Paris, where we visited my favorite crêpe stand, the Rodin Museum, the Louvre bookstore, Galeries Lafayette, a fondue restaurant, and the Champs Elysées. The Louvre and the Champs Elysées are of course must-sees for anyone traveling to Paris for the first (or second, or third) time; I could blog endlessly about them. Instead, I'd like to focus on the lesser celebrated sites Moira and I visited that day: the Rodin Museum and Galeries Lafayette.

What is now the Musée Rodin is an early eighteenth-century mansion that was once a hotel. Artists like Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse rented rooms there, which they used as art storage or studio spaces. Rodin saved the building from demolition by offering his art to the state under the condition that the mansion would become a museum. And so it did. I love visiting the building and its accompanying gardens, and I never tire of photographing Rodin's sculptures, which are some of my favorites anywhere.















From the sublime to the commercial. Galeries Lafayette's ten stories of fashionable clothes, accessories, perfumes, and furnishings can keep a girl occupied for HOURS. Shopping is not what draws me to the Galeries, though. The department store is a gorgeous building featuring a glass and steel dome and Art Nouveau staircases, and the giant Christmas tree it shows off every December renders it that much more magnifique.





Paris is the kind of big city you want to be in at Christmastime; it’s the European New York of Christmas, I always say. (Huh?) To make up for this lack of eloquence, I give you two Parisian icons:





As you can see, Moira and I made the best of our one day in Paris. We said farewell the next morning, at which time I had to settle for watching dubbed episodes of The Nanny on my own.

An Irish Farewell

By day, it's quaint and cozy; evenings are quite another story. Our night out in Galway left me so dazed that I forgot how to combine words into coherent sentences. Having recovered at last, I offer a brief overview of the magical mystery tour we experienced that memorable evening.

If you can picture a frat party crossed with a gay pride parade (take your time ...), you are looking at Galway nightlife. Bar-lined streets packed with women donned in hot pink leopard print dresses and men sprouting angel wings; street percussionists heightening the euphoria of drunken, costumed (sometimes unintentionally) Irish youth; Samuel Beckett watching over you creepily as you ingest your dinner. These are just a few of the reasons the evening now plays a bit like a dream sequence. Had I no pictures to document the phenomenon, I'm not sure I would believe it had actually taken place.



Back to Normalcy

Following our trippy evening, we headed back to Dublin for the final two days of our Irish journey and hit all the sites that we could. Here are the highlights:

- A snooty wine drinker, I have never been able to make myself like beer, try as I might. In Dublin, however, I was offered a "lady pint" of Guinness at an old, decidedly untrendy pub and was determined to drink it all. Two Irish senior citizens decided I could use a lesson and thus trained me in the art of Guinness drinking. Rule #1: DO NOT SIP. This encouraged me, and I finished my half pint with relative ease. It does taste smoother in Ireland. I was enthusiastic enough to down another half pint at pub #2. By the time we arrived at the trendy (although empty and suspiciously odd smelling) establishment, we were ready for our cocktails. I had three, and beer before liquor ... well you see where this is going.



- Trinity College boasts the library of my dreams. Old books rock.



- Taking pictures of myself with literary figure statues is my favorite corny tourist thing to do in Ireland.



You might then imagine how disappointed I was to find Oscar Wilde perched atop an impossibly high rock or how old I felt when a bunch of 10-year-olds climbed it with no difficulty whatsoever.



- William Butler Yeats bothered to answer a trite questionnaire about where his artistic inspiration comes from. This is amusing to lit geeks.



- The historic Temple Bar district is highly touristy, but the old John Gogarty pub and restaurant is worth visiting anyhow for some traditional Irish tunes.



- The Guinness brewery, with its accompanying Gravity Bar and complimentary pint, is well worth the visit. The tour is very thorough, and the bar on the top floor offers an expansive view of Dublin. Walking about the more seedy industrial neighborhood is interesting in itself. I particularly loved the Catholic church's placement directly next to the enormous beer tanks, factory smoke billowing above the steeple. How Irish.



Thank you, Republic of Ireland

A week is never long enough in any country, but it was long enough to begin feeling at home in Southern Ireland. For a capital city, Dublin feels neither fast-paced nor sleepy; people are friendly; and places are relatively easy to get to (notwithstanding the bus system's insistent lack of punctuality). As for Northern Ireland, time constraints and the cost of the pound made it impossible for me to visit on this trip, but it will not escape my incessant traveler disorder for long.

Sick and Tired

I mean that literally. Ireland has been lovely so far; I, however, am sick (if carrying around a roll of toilet paper for blowing my nose is any indication) and tired. After writing in Dublin about my jet lag, Moira and I proceeded to walk aimlessly around the city for many more hours and didn’t hit the bed until midnight. The next morning, we took a train to Cork at the God forsaken hour of 7:00 a.m.

Blarney Babble

Once in Cork, we met up with Jen and took the requisite trip to Blarney Castle, where I underwent the infamous death defying experience of kissing the Blarney Stone. It goes like this: an elderly, loveable Irishman jokingly comments, “let’s see how you pucker up”; he asks you to lay on the ground and proceeds to pull you back, at which time you arch so that your head is dangling from the back of the castle tower precipice; just when you think you’ve completed the required task, the cheery old man calmly encourages you: “Further.” Finally, you reach the stone, you kiss it, and you are rescued from immediate danger. The enchanted stone has now awarded me the “gift of eloquence,” which I have not yet unleashed on my blog.

Note: I heavily over-dramatized the Blarney experience, as I was not actually frightened, and the metal bars underneath the stone would have saved me had I slipped, although hitting them would probably result in serious injury to the head.





The Blarney Castle grounds were absolutely gorgeous and fairytale forest-like.



See? I wasn't kidding.

Jen’s Birthday Blues-Turned-Green

Moving on, Friday began sans the famous “luck of the Irish,” as Jen tripped with her luggage and sprained her ankle … on her birthday! She carried on like a trooper as we all headed to Galway and took a day trip to the ancient Aran Islands, where we all rode bikes for hours, talked to horses and cows, and suffered from windburn (we’ve got the red foreheads to prove it). It was worth the trouble, though, even for Jen. See for yourself why:







Aran Islands - beautiful; rocky hills and bicycles - exhausting. Birthday dinner consisted of Papa John’s Pizza and chocolate birthday cake from the grocery store … in our PJs … at the guesthouse. We watched Friends and South Park and passed out.

Taking it Easy

By today, we had had it with the freaking tours. So, although we wanted to see a picturesque abbey in Connemara, we decided to walk about the Galway city center and browse. It’s adorable here, and I took pictures with Oscar Wilde (in statue form, of course). Also, for once, it’s not really cold and windy, which is about time. Ireland, meet the month of June.







We’re headed back to the guesthouse for a little down time before returning to the city center. We plan to wear our “cute going out clothes,” so Moira and I are going to endure our impossibly skinny jeans, which we slightly fear. Wish us luck.

Tomorrow it’s back to Dublin for the remainder of our trip. We hope the weather will stay fair so that we have an opportunity to wear all the “cute going out clothes” we brought in our luggage. For is that not, after all, what travel is all about?