Sunday, September 14, 2008

What I Did This Summer Vol I: Europe

This summer I was lucky enough to be able to go to NUI Galway for a creative writing course, so I spent a month in Galway (really great place), then a weekend in Cong at a hostel where they played THIS every night hells yeah, a day in Dublin (heads up: Dublin airport, not so hot for sleeping over as there is an announcement every five minutes: please do not leave your bag unattended or we will DESTROY it), down to Italy with family friends in an AC-less flat for a week, then up into France for some solo backpacking (or rather, rollerbagging) to visit the D-Day beaches: recommendation- if you only have a few days, the musuem/guided tours are definitely worth the price. Guess what isn't? The Eurail Pass. Fuckers. Learned some valuable lessons, too. Use the duty free store for epic cowboy/Mexican showers. Bring shawls whilst in Italy if you wanna get in the churches. Stay up all night before your flight and you will pass the fuck out for your transatlantic like a sorority girl who left her drink at the bar when she went to take a pee-pee. All told, exceeding exhausting, fun, and I think I'll stay in the US for awhile, which I did to the nth degree two days after I got back on an EPIC road trip, so stay tuned for Vol II. xoxo b


Ireland (Galway, Cong AKA Inisfree!, Inishbofin, Spiddal)


Italy (Padua, Venice)

London

And please!, tell me about your epic/wacky/wackadoo/lame/sweet summers!

3 comments:

Northern Jon said...

That sounds P H A T 'n' T A S T I C
Nice pics!

Anonymous said...

Your trip really does sound incredible - you packed A LOT into a couple of months...

Thanks for sharing the photo-albums - you captured some great images (I'm glad I'm not the only one who loves pictures of churches, icons, and graveyards!), I can't BELIEVE you got to go to Normandy (I bet it was kinda weird seeing the folks playing on Omaha Beach)...
What were you most surprised by - culture, people, countryside, etc?

As for me, we spent some time in the Hill Country (Bandera, Kerrville, and Fredricksberg), but I mainly stayed close to home - it was a nice summer...

b said...

hahah, it was definitely weird seeing the old french dudes in speedos on omaha beach. oh what was it saved for!

italy surprised me with just how powerful an amazing basilica or church can be; and how miserable living in an AC-less flat is. argh! france was not what i expected; i'm not in a hurry to go back, but of course i was only there for 2 days.

i totally wanted to go to fredricksburg on our roadtrip for the museum and the peach cobbler or pie or whatever it was i had there when i was last there years ago, but it was too off route :( glad to hear you got to kick around and stay close to home! going away for that long, especially in a place as different as europe, has only reinforced, without being jingoistic, how i would rather explore what i've got here for a little longer before i do the jetsetting thing again. and that again will be when the dollar is way the fuck back up :p

 

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