My 42-hour adventure in London

So as I remember it, you were all sitting on the edge of your seats while I was getting ready to leave on an epic journey through London and Germany for the second half of my spring break. I think if memory serves that you were also all staring at me, googley-eyed, trying to figure out just how I can pull of these ridiculously good looks while still maintaining my devil-may-care attitude. What can I say? It's a gift.

Anyway, the morning after the latest in my line of glorious blog posts, I finished packing my bags and left home to catch my flight to London. My entire plan was based on the fact that the flight left a little after 4, but somehow between the main Plaza in Toledo and the bus station I convinced myself that it actually left at two, and that me being at the bus station at 12:30 meant I wasn't making my flight. Yeah, I'm not sure either.

My fears allayed, I continued on my usual journey to Madrid's Barajas airport and boarded my RyanAir flight to London-Stansted. The flight was pretty much uneventful, except for the part where, after most of the passengers had boarded, the pilot got on the horn and told us that we had three minutes to find a seat or we might be delayed up to two hours. Yeah...not sure where to go with that one. Guess ya gotta love RyanAir.

When I finally did land, I remembered the nice warm, homely feeling it gave me to be able to ask directions to the bus stop in English. This was in stark contrast to the eyebrow-raised suspicion I felt from the rather inquisitive customs official who checked my passport in the airport. I'm going to assume it had something to do with an American coming to London from Spain that confused him. Oh well.

The bus from the airport into London took an hour and after I got off I immediately looked everywhere in sight to find either TJ or Kyle, two of my friends studying in London who I was planning on meeting at the bus stop. Naturally, neither of them were anywhere to be found. Even more naturally, Spanish phones arbitrarily decide not to work when calling certain London phones, TJ's among them. Finally, I got in touch with Kyle who (naturally as well...for him at least) had forgotten to set his clock forward an hour for DST and missed meeting TJ. Keep in mind this is a full THREE DAYS after the clocks turned over in Europe. Niems, I love ya, but c'mon man...

Finally, I found TJ. Turned out he was bumming on a staircase about a block away. Whaddya gonna do, I guess. We road the Tube back to his neck of the woods and dropped my stuff off in his flat because, well, I didn't feel like schlepping my crap all over London. My shoulders now much more relaxed, we headed to a nearby pub and had what was actually a fantastic bacon cheeseburger. At least those Brits got something right, eh? I also got to try Carlsberg, a beer I'd yet to get to during my adventures AND I added one more to my collection of pint glasses. Booya.

Having nothing else to do, we went and got another pint. This time we stopped at a place called the Old Red Lion where I got my first taste of Strongbow, an alcoholic cider (kinda tastes like a mix of light beer and champagne). Unfortunately, they couldn't spare us a glass, so they gave me a Kroenberg glass instead. I mean, I wanted Strongbow, but I'll take it. While we did briefly consider a third pint, TJ did have a quiz in the morning and I had a few plans of my own, so we headed back to his flat to meet up with our friend Charlie and some of his other friends who were watching Armageddon. They also may or may not have been playing a fun drinking game. It may or may not have been fun. But, all doubt aside, I DID get tired so I had to get my stuff and head to bed.

As if life didn't have enough wrinkles at this point, I was also awaiting the results of the Glee Club elections (which took place at 11 PM London time) and I found out that I had gotten into a three-way run-off for the Presidency. That would certainly make life more interesting the next day...

Not that that day wasn't interesting enough already. My main problem (if you can call something so fantastic a problem) was that I had already committed myself to seeing Les Miserables at 2:30 that afternoon and then following that up with a five-stop pub crawl with TJ, Kyle, and Charlie. That meant that, waking up at 10 AM and taking the 45-minute walk to TJ's classroom building (luckily a block away from Trafalgar Square), I would have about two hours to run around and get as many pictures as I could of London's main sites. I would like to narrate this frenetic insanity now:

Alrightlet'sgetgoing!HeylookTrafalgarSquare! *clickclickclick* OhandtheNationalGallery! *clickclick*Fewmoreofthisfountainoughtadoit *clickclickclick* Rightmovingon!Ohlook,HorseGuard! *clickclick* I'llcomeback.Gah!BigBen! *clickclickclick* Westminster *clickclickclick* Redphonebooth!Doubledeckerbus! *clickclick* SignforBuckinghamPalace!OhandonemoreshotofBigBenforgoodmeasure! *click* HeywhyaretheRoyalGuardinformationlikethat? *click* BuckinghamPalace! *clickclick* Toomanypeople.HeychangingoftheGuard! *clickclick* *video* *click* HorseGuardagain! *clickclick* Aaaaaaanddone!

[Griff collapses, out of breath, near the ND classroom building]

Seriously, though, it was a great time and I got some really cool pictures out of it. Plus, it gives me a great reason to go back to London when I'm older and actually enter all of these places that I saw. Anyway, the reason I had to get back to the classroom building at around noon was because I had been an idiot and forgotten my passport in the flats (a 45-minute walk away, you'll remember). This posed a problem because in my passport was my student visa, without which I wouldn't be able to get the student rush seats for the 2:30 Les Mis performance. Tragedy, I know.

Luckily, my friend Lizzie was also studying in London and agreed to come with me to the theater to buy my ticket while on her lunch break. Unluckily, the student rush tickets (where they give you half price on their best ticket available at the time) didn't start until 1:30, so when we went at noon we were SOL. Luckily again (2-1 Luckily, for those keeping score) Colleen, a girl who I hadn't met until the previous night at the Armageddon screening, volunteered to come back with me after her class ended at 2. Fast forward through a buffet Chinese meal and a lonely pint in a pub and I was back at the theater and, before I knew it, had spent 27 pounds on an eighth-row ticket to Les Miserables.

I can't even begin to describe how truly awesome that show was. And I don't mean awesome the same way surfers mean that wave was "awesome, dude." I mean awesome in the old sense; truly awe-inspiring and beautiful. It sounded amazing, of course, and at one point I was actually moved to shed a single tear. I can't think of any better way to spend 25 pounds and honestly, if you should have the terrible misfortune of getting one of those one-week-to-live notices, make sure you come to London and see this show. You won't regret it.

After that amazing three hours, I called TJ and met up with him back at the classroom building, where he printed out all of his tickets/boarding passes for Germany and we found our route for the pub crawl. Once all four of us – TJ, Kyle, TJ's flatmate Sam, and I – were gathered together, we headed to the first pub, the Princess of Wales and downed a quick pint. Then, it was off to the Coal Hole, where curiously enough we were able to find a green ale that tasted rather good. Go figure, right?

At this point it was around 7 so we headed upstairs at the third pub of the night, The Wellington, to enjoy our next pint over dinner. I originally ordered fish and chips, only to find out that for some inexplicable reason they DIDN'T HAVE ANY! What kind of London pub is this?! Still, hunger overcame rage, and I ordered something else that was quite good and filling.

As we were waiting on our check, Charlie and his sister randomly showed up at the Wellington to join us for the final two pints. There was much rejoicing (more so when the check was finally paid). From there we headed on to the Bear and Staff, a fantastically named establishment if nothing else. About this time I started to fade a little bit. Granted I'd had a lot more alcohol in my system several times before this; it was the carbonation that was getting to me. My best solution was to drink this fourth pint as quickly as I could and hope it would make me burp. Miraculously, it actually kind of worked, and by the time we got to the White Lion, our final stop of the night, I was feeling okay.

The sad part about the White Lion was not that it was the end of our journey, but rather that it was out of the T-shirts we were supposed to get for completing the crawl. Lousy bastards. Still, a fun time was had by all, and it was most certainly time to get a Doner kebap. Apparently it's a London thing, but they make them available with garlic sauce. So incredibly clutch.

Back in TJ's flat, I hopped on Skype where we first talked to Mary and Jenny back at good ol' SMC. Five pints deep, that was quite fun. Though not as fun as next Skyping my family for my dad's birthday (which it had turned in the UK, although it wouldn't for six more hours back home). Yeah, we had fun. There was kind of a dent put into that fun when it came across the wire that I'd gotten beat by a few votes in the race for Glee Club President, but whaddya gonna do?

To end the night, TJ made me watch Beerfest in preparation for our trip to Germany the following morning. Not the best movie I've seen, but certainly not a bad way to spend two hours, so I ain't complaining. Also, for those wondering...the garlic-sauced kebap was phenomenal.

Here I leave you all for now. I'll be honest; I may not update this until at the very least when I'm finished writing all these damn papers I have due this week. At best, I'm hoping to have updated through Germany when I leave for San Sebastian next weekend, but hell, who knows at this point? Either way, you've got something to read now.

Right, I'm off.

Ta luego,

Griff

I mean, they're both trails, right...?

So, here I am, on the eve of my admittedly foreshortened spring break, to update you good people up to now. Where did I leave off last? Oh yeah, I was feeling REALLY homesick after having a fantastic weekend in Sevilla with Mary, Kate, and TJ. Good times...followed by bad times, but I'm sure none of you want to hear anymore whining about that. Onward!

The following weekend was one of the few I'd decided I would stay in Toledo. Granted, this stay-at-home weekend came with a Friday day-trip sponsored by the Fund, but I'll count it as wanting to get to know my city better. We left from the Fund about 9:30 Friday morning to board a bus that would take us around the Ruta de Quixote, a collection of sites throughout Castilla La Mancha (the region of Spain from which Miguel de Cervantes' legendary knight Don Quixote hails.)

[Cue music from "Man of La Mancha"]

We would be accompanied by Miguel and José Luis, two of the program coordinators from the Fund who usually come with us on these trips. But this trip we had a special guest: Professor Rafael Fuentes Mollá, of Siglo XX and Cine fame. As a lit. professor, this guy knew a thing or two about Don Quixote and la Ruta. Unfortunately, as a lit. professor, he loves to hear himself talk, and thus would sit on the bus mic for half an hour explaining the rolling hills drove through as a powerful symbol for something or other. I'll be honest, I can't remember many of the names of the towns we stopped in, and those names I DO remember are just names (i.e. I can't place the names with the stops to which they pertain or the order in which we saw them) so I'm just going to pretend you all know which towns/landmarks I'm talking about and go with it, okay? Cool.

We started in a town with a plaza of some kind that apparently is representative of the kind of plaza that Don Quixote left at the beginning of his epic journey to fight evil and earn his knighthood. This stop essentially consisted of us listening (attentively, of course) to Prof. Fuentes lecture us for a few minutes on the significance of this plaza, followed by free time, during which Michael and I wandered aimlessly before ending up in the same café as everyone else on the trip. Not a great way to start the day, but hey, at least the coffee was good, right?

Our next stop was a similarly small town that seemed to be similarly devoid of people (I forgot to mention that this was Spanish Fathers' Day, so everyone was, presumably, wherever Spaniards go to honor their fathers). Professor Fuentes again stood in the middle of a plaza and explained to us its significance (I think this time it was the doorway that was similar to the one Quixote might've ridden through at the beginning of his journey...or something...) and we were again given free time. Thankfully, this town (indeed, this plaza) had a little more to offer than the last one. For one thing, there was an old wooden wagon (think covered but, well, without the cover) in the middle of the plaza. So what did we do, you ask? Damn right we took pictures of ourselves as horses. What would you do?

This town was also a lot more fun when I realized that basically everything building was whitewashed with a blue accent. The same seemed to go for the signs and pictures around the outsides of the buildings - mainly white, but with bits of blue. For those of you who have been reading attentively and/or looking at my pictures on Facebook from the semester, you know what comes next. For those of you who haven't (and you ought to be ashamed), I have two words for you: color accent. It's a setting on my camera that allows me to pick one color from the environment to highlight while everything else is rendered black and white. Thus began my Picasso-esque Blue period for the day. If I do say so myself, I think I got some pretty sweet pictures, like this one of one of the shops near the aforementioned plaza.

After wandering around the town's center for another ten minutes (and taking the obligatory pictures with all the Quixote/Sancho Panza statues and silhouettes) we loaded the bus up again and headed to what I think was the town of Consuegra. Here, we listened to Fuentes drone on about las molinas de viento (windmills) that were such a famous part of the Quixote epic. For those not familiar with the story, this old guy has basically been driven mad by spending all his time reading stories of brave and chivalrous knights of old and, despite his old age, goes out into the world to imitate them by fighting what he perceives as evil. These windmills represent one such evil (he sees one and thinks it's a giant, so he attacks it...doesn't work out so well). They may also represent a Middle Ages mind confronting the new technologies of the Renaissance, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about any of that. The point is, we took some pictures next to some really old windmills and everyone had a lovely time and no one was accidentally beheaded by one of the blades. I mean...what...?

Anyway, enough about Jason. It was time for lunch. I'm not sure how they found this place, but it kind of reminded me of a hotel dining room; ridiculously long tables with fresh white tablecloths and, of course, fantastic food. I may or may not have had some meat lasagna on a Friday during Lent. It's okay, though, I'm pretty sure I'm damned anyway. Oh well.

After lunch, we got back on the bus and drove another forty-five minutes to a castle that was apparently representative of Quixote's time (ya know, if fictional characters can have "times"). The tour, of course, was guided. If you're a good fan of this blog, you know how I feel about guided tours. That, combined with the fact that the caffeine had worn off, made me rather unhappy. But hey, got some pictures in a castle and we got back to Toledo by 6. Woohoo.

While at home, I spent most of my time updating everybody my pictures and finally blogging about the previous two weekends (hopefully you all enjoyed). But, alas, it got to around 11 and I got bored with this and went out. I met Karinna (of guerrilla photo war fame), Liz, Sarah, and Diana at the Fund where we decided we would try to find a cool bar outside the Casco. Yeah, I was rolling with four girls, what up?

We picked Santa Teresa, one of the neighborhoods just outside the city walls, to begin our search. This is also, conveniently, where Michael lives, so we got to meet him. Yay.

We first tried a new Australian-themed bar (Foster's, anyone?) where I had a bit of a scare. I set my jacket down next to a few others on a table in the corner, but a few minutes later, when I looked back, it was gone. This wouldn't have been an issue, except that my camera was in one of the pockets. Yeah, I wasn't happy. Good thing Karinna was there to speak Spanish to the bartender...

My camera recovered, the girls wanted some tapas. It was midnight, so we figured most places would be closed. Luckily we found one, but when we ordered our beers, no tapas followed. Thankfully, we were with a few girls who knew their way around the block and flirted until we got a fantastic plate of tapas. Yay for girls.

Then, of course, we ended up at O'Brien's, but with a twist...turned out a few of the girls had never played that glorious game known as Kings (a.k.a. King's Cup, Waterfall, Circle of Death, etc.). Naturally, we took it upon ourselves to teach them how to play, and much merriment was had by all. Then it came time for me to learn a new game called Presidents and Assholes. If you haven't played it, learn; it's fun. But not fun enough to keep us entertained much past 2 a.m. With that, we bid Emilio or usual farewell and headed home.

Saturday was pretty uneventful for me. I spent the day (after I woke up well past noon, of course) putzing around my house doing things that I honestly can't remember, so I just won't report anything. That night I was ready to go out to botellon when a perfect storm of things happened that prevented it. First, I'd temporarily forgotten how to get to the botellon park. Second, I didn't know when everyone was going, so if I did find it there was a chance I might be sipping on a 40 all alone. Third, I had very little money on my phone, so I couldn't get to anyone to figure any of this out. There were a few intermediate steps involving going to O'Brien's to meet Michael and some of the Puerto Ricans and them not being there, so eventually I grabbed a can of Pringles, a Coke, and a chocolate bar and spent the night in my room watching Miracle (great flick).

Sunday, unfortunately, was dedicated almost entirely to work as I had an essay and a presentation due the following week. Poems were read, English translations were Googled, DVDs were ripped, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Oh, I forgot to mention why ELSE this week would be an important one. For those of you for whom this blog is the only update you have to my daily life, I decided recently that I would run for President of the Notre Dame Glee Club. This is interesting in and of itself because, as far as I know, no one has ever run for this position from abroad. Previously, it was impossible to do so (one of the requirements is that you be present for Grills, a kind of town-hall type meeting in which all of the candidates are "grilled" by the other members of Club), but with the advent of Skype it looked like I might have a shot. Luckily, the Constitution is silent on a lot of this, so it was up to the current Executive Cabinet to decide my fate, and after a vote they allowed me to run. This meant preparing for Grills on Tuesday as well as getting a bribe together for our Campaign Party the following Friday. All from over 4,000 miles away. Yeah, fun. Fortunately, my good friend Murph stepped up to help me out and we were in business.

The first obstacle was the fact that Tuesday would, of course, be the one night of the year when I couldn't guarantee being at my computer at 11 p.m. local time to Skype in for the presidential portion of Grills; Michael and I are in a Spanish theatre class that would be watching a play in Madrid that night and weren't sure when we would be back. Made for a nice heart attack on the ride home, lemme tell ya. Thankfully, though, I made it back with plenty of time and endured the somewhat painful but always enjoyable ritual of Grills.

From there, I set to work planning my bribe. I'll explain: the weekend before the election, the candidates put on a Campaign Party at which they attempt to "bribe" people to vote for them using all kinds of goodies. Some people bring pizza, one guy last year did Bagel Bites...good times all around. I decided to go with sangria, the traditional Spanish wine (with sparkling grape juice for the young 'uns, of course), served by Erin and Angie, two fantastic volunteers who were apparently very convincing to a few of the guys (though that may've been the sangria talking). I also got Murph to bring his computer along so that I could Skype in. Now, this doesn't seem like much, but with the party starting around 10 and going until around 2 a.m., I would have to be online until about 7 a.m. local time. Guess I gotta thank my lucky stars for being nocturnal, huh? All in all, it was a great time, but by the end of it I was ready to crawl into bed and pass out.

As tired as I was, Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful; basically everyone had left for their Spring Break trips around Europe, so I was left to hang around Toledo until Tuesday, when I would leave for London. I basically did small stuff; got my haircut (finally), picked up AVE tickets to Sevilla for when my mom comes in early April, etc. etc. And so, here I am, on the cusp of what promises to be a fantastic trip.

I'll start off tomorrow evening in London where I'll, among other things, meet up with TJ and find out the (hopefully favorable) election results. From there...who knows? I do know at some point I want to hit St. Paul's Cathedral to check off the world's second largest Christian church from my list, and I also would be pretty disappointed if I didn't see the London production of Les Miserables, thought not as disappointed as Mac would be, I imagine.

Then, at noon Thursday, TJ and I will fly to Berlin, where we will spend two days (and our only night in a hostel) before traveling to Munich and finally Frankfurt for Easter. Yeah, it's gonna be epic. Plus it'll give me a lot to blog about, which is great for you guys, right? It's okay, just nod your heads. It'll all be over soon.

Right, that's pretty much it. I suppose I should also mention that yesterday, almost exactly one month after starting, I have completely caught myself up on ever heretofore aired episode of How I Met Your Mother. I know, I have no life. But damn it, NPH rules.

That's all for now, folks. See you on the other side of Lent!

Nos vemos,

Griff

Reunited

So...I should probably be spending this time working on the presentation I have to give Tuesday morning or the essay I have due Wednesday, but, well, that's just no fun. Besides, you all want to hear about what's probably been my favorite week/weekend in Spain, right? That's what I thought.

It started with what would've been a hectic Monday without the visitors I had coming to town. I had two papers due in my two classes for the day (taught by the same professor, no less) as well as the required discussions that go along with each. Needless to say attendance was required. This was made more interesting by these aforementioned visitors. As I may or may not have mentioned to some of you, my good friend Mary (a senior at St. Mary's) had come to Spain the previous weekend to spend her spring break here. Seems like a rather odd (albeit sweet) destination for a spring break, no? Fear not, there's a story...

It starts two springs ago, when Mary arrived in Spain to study through the SMC program in Sevilla (a city for which I've already professed my love in this blog). I've talked to her about it a lot, especially after I got accepted to ND's Toledo program, and from all I've heard it was truly a life-changing experience for her. So, when our good friend (and her roommate) Kate got accepted to spend her sophomore spring in Sevilla as well, Mary got pretty darn excited. Fast forward a little bit, and she finds out her younger brother Bobby will be studying in Madrid the same semester. With those three fantastically awesome people in the country she loves, all at the same time, it was just too much to resist. So she spent the first weekend chilling in Madrid with her brother (Kate joined her too), and then they, along with Bobby and his girlfriend Katie, came to Toledo on this fine Monday morning to visit little old me. Right, back to the story.

I was actually pleasantly surprised at how early I finished that second essay (3 a.m. Monday morning), which was lucky, because I got a relatively good amount of sleep before waking up two hours before class to meet everybody for some coffee. It was great to see everyone again. There were hugs, a couple of tears, and, of course, churros (though no chocolate this time...quite disappointing). Sadly, though, I had to run back to class at 11:30, so I left everyone wandering the city for a few hours.

After essay number one of the day had been turned in, I tracked the crew down and took them to one of the many great views Toledo has to offer; the Puente de San Martín (St. Martin Bridge) on the eastern side of the city. From there, we walked around the outer walls, everyone just catching up about who was where and what was what. Good stuff, I assure you. About that time, everyone got hungry, so we tracked down a place to eat. I had a great authentic Spanish meal...of steak and eggs. Hey, leave me alone; at least it wasn't Katie's pizza or Bobby's hamburger. At this point, it was about 3:15, meaning I had to run back and turn in my second essay of the day.

My academic day finished, I met up with the group and attempted to find the mythical Pride Rock, which supposedly gave a fantastic view of Toledo from above. It involved, from what I'd heard, leaving the city, crossing the other major bridge opposite San Martín and climbing the hills outside the city. We could go either left or right once we crossed. I chose left. Turned out I was wrong, and we just ended up walking up a hill for a while and not finding a view. But hey, we all know I'm directionally retarded, right? Thankfully, no one was too upset about anything, so we headed back home and introduced them quickly to the family (and, of course, the puppies) before seeing them off to the bus station.

My Tuesday was considerably less interesting, but Wednesday things got fun again as TJ rolled into town to finish off his spring break in Spain. Of course, he chose my busiest day (four classes) to show up. What a guy, huh? When I finally did finish up, I took him out to O'Brien's introduced him to a few people. Fun times. After my one class Thursday, we walked around Toledo as I showed him basically the same things I'd shown Mary, Kate, Bobby, and Katie. What can I say? I'm lazy. Afterward I brought him home and introduced him to everyone (he managed to win at both ping-pong and FIFA against my brothers) we left to catch the 1 a.m. bus to Sevilla where we would be reunited with Kate and Mary for a weekend of warm sunny fun.

The bus ride was, well, the same as it was the first time...long and full of lots of light sleeping. When we arrived, we worked out by trial and a little error to orient ourselves and set out in the direction of Kate's host family's house. Of course, it was only a twenty minute walk so when we got to the general area it was still 8:30 a.m. and thus way too early to a) check into our hostel or b) call the girls to tell them we were in town. Luckily TJ, as he was a bit too happy to point out, has learned a lot this semester about how to waste time. So we did just that, killing a solid two hours enjoying the surprisingly warm Sevilla morning. The girls finally did call us back...and told us to wait an hour and a half while they got ready. I won't say it, but y'all know I'm thinkin it.

We got to the church a few minutes before our 12:45 meeting time and waited patiently. About ten minutes in, TJ proposed a bet: over/under 12:55 they'd show up. I took the under...the over won when they finally did get there just past one. This would be a recurring theme (love you girls, mean it...).

My third time being reunited with friends this week was again a fantastic event. More tears, more hugs, and, if I remember right, at least one hiccup. Wait, no, that was another time. Never mind. Anyway, the girls decided to show us the school all the SMC-ers go to in Sevilla, and that was cool. Classrooms, computers, the usual bells and whistles...good times. Then we stopped by the local indoor market and got smacked in the face with the smell of freshly gutted fish. I was still kind of tired from the bus ride at that point, but I'll tell ya, that sure woke me up. We also found a shop selling all three flags TJ was looking for (Spain, Andalucia, and Sevilla)...only they were doing it for 18 Euro a pop. Yeah, we'll keep on shopping, thanks.

From there, we went to the Plaza de Toros to check out what's up. More on that when I go back again in April...Mom, get ready. Then we chilled by the river for a while and a good old-fashioned guerrilla photo war started. God, I love these things. I love it even more when all parties enjoy participating and don't have to be forced. As it got on to about 2:30, Mary and Kate told us they had to be getting back home for lunch, so we headed back in the direction of our hostel/their house. On the way, something random and seemingly impossible happened. As we walked, I looked down and my eyes caught a quiver of blue among the brown of the sidewalk. Then, literally at the same moment, Kate and I pointed and made some sort of noise of excitement, and then I took advantage of my long arms reached down and snagged the two 20-Euro notes sitting there on the ground. After a momentary victory dance, I agreed to split the 40 with Kate as she had clearly seen it too. TJ claimed to have as well, but I was skeptical. Still, I said I'd spot him ten, as I was footing his bill the entire weekend (there'd been some confusion on fund transfers with his folks, so he was running short at the moment). What a benevolent soul I am.

For lunch, TJ and I decided we'd try a place called 100 Montaditos, a place that lets you pick from a list of 100 little finger sandwiches with anything from ham and cheese to sausage and Brie to melted chocolate and almonds. Yeah, it was good. REEEEEAAALLY good. We later met up with the girls and took TJ toward the really touristy area of town. We were going to go into the Catedral, but it ended up being closed (nice planning, Kate), so we took TJ to my favorite place in Sevilla: the Plaza de España. Unfortunately, we took the long way (I'm blaming Mary this time, to be fair to both locals), but got there nonetheless. I was disappointed to find that construction had grown and now not only could I not see the Toledo section of the wall, the fountain in the middle was gone too. Stupid Sevilla. I made the girls promise we'd come back tomorrow.

Tired and hungry, we went to a favorite place of Mary's for some dinner. On the way, we saw a Scottish pub called The Clan, of which TJ and I made a mental note. When we got to the place, I was pretty starving, as I assumed were the others. Of course, TJ and I ordered dinner, the girls split a milkshake; I guess we didn't understand that real dinner for them would be at home in about half an hour...we were confused when they finished the shake and got up to leave. Oh well, at least my cheeseburger was good. Having some time to kill before we had to meet Mary and Kate to go out, TJ and I went back to the hostel to chill for a while. I almost napped, then decided it would be better to just lay there for a while. I'm weird, leave me alone.

We met up with the girls at around 11:30 (over/under bet was set at 11:15) and caught a bus to get us near to a bar we'd be going to to meet a few Spanish friends Mary made when she was here. They took us to O'Neill's, possibly the most American pub we'd seen in Sevilla. The group of Spaniards we met (eventually five of 'em) spoke varying degrees of English, so the whole night was a very confusing jumble of the two languages. I did feel kinda bad for TJ, being the only one to have not taken a Spanish class since high school. By the end of the night, though, he didn't need much help as he, Kate, and I talked in a corner while the Spaniards all surrounded Mary while she told what I guess was a VERY long joke. We gave her her moment gladly though...she was just basking in the glory of speaking Spanish again. One nice consolation for TJ, though: his second pint of Murphy's (yeah, we're creatures of habit) came in a sweet Guinness glass with a logo that called it "An Official Guinness Pub." He and I had almost the exact same thought at the exact same time: "Oh yeah, this pines to be stolen." Dude's turned me into a klepto.

As it got on to 3 a.m. we all felt tired, so we bid the Spaniards farewell and, after our hopes of an open kebab place were dashed, we walked home and went to bed. Originally the girls had told us they wanted to meet at 9:30 the following morning. We scoffed, but were still a bit nervous. By the time we got them home, though, they'd given us 11. We set the over/under for the actual meeting time at 11:30. Betcha can't guess which side won...

When we finally did meet up the following morning (*cough* afternoon *cough*) we decided we'd give the Catedral another go. Having been in there once, I didn't really do much besides walk around and appreciate once again just how friggin' big the thing is. It was cool to have TJ there, though...he was now able to check off the third largest Christian church in the world, leaving only number two: Saint Paul's Cathedral. I'm not sure why he hasn't managed to visit the one in his proverbial backyard, but hey, who am I to question?

After we'd taken a good amount of pictures on the ground floor, we (read: Mary and Kate) decided it was time to climb the Giralda tower and get a badass view of the city. Here we encountered a bit of an odd sequence of events. As I walked up the ramps to the top of the tower, I didn't give much though to the windows on my right because I knew that none of those views were anywhere near as cool as the one I'd get at the top. Somewhere along the line, I passed everyone and was at the top for about ten minutes looking for them (keep in mind this thing is about 100 square feet). Finally, I got a frantic call from Kate asking where I was. "I'm at the top," I said, "where the hell are you guys?" Right about then the emerged from the staircase, completely confused as to what had happened.

Okay, not as funny as it was in my head. But it was pretty funny in the moment, I promise.

Anyway, we spent the next half an hour or so snapping pictures (some traditional, others guerrilla) and enjoying the magnificent views of Sevilla. Finally, though, hunger won out and we descended into the beautiful mid-afternoon sun. Apparently Kate had never been to 100 Montaditos, so we figured since TJ and I hadn't hated it we'd hit it up again. Turns out melted chocolate and almonds on a little bun is just as amazing the second time...go figure. Once we'd filled ourselves up (and the girls had taken a page from our book and snagged some really cool Pepsi glasses), we parted ways; the girls wanted to go shopping for a bit and we, well, didn't feel that same need. Shocker.

I went back to the Plaza to embrace the food coma I felt coming on. TJ went off to do some errand that I can't remember, but I think it involved flags. Anyway, I walked into the Plaza, found a great bench in the sun and passed out with my iPod going. It was glorious. About 45 minutes later I woke up as TJ entered the plaza and took his own nap. I tried to fall back asleep, but when I couldn't, I just sat up and took funny pictures of TJ using weird settings on my camera (like this one...cool stuff, huh?). Once we'd both rested up enough, we went to a park nearby and grabbed some ice cream. When we'd finished and the girls still hadn't told us where they were, we grabbed some more ice cream (hell, we weren't complainin'). Finally, they told us that they'd gone home and that we were to call them "later".

Now TJ, smartass that he is, wanted me to call them and say "Hey, Later, it's Griff. What's up?" Yeah, I'm sure that would've gone over well. Regardless, we gave them half an hour and at 7 called them back. They told us they had some time before dinner, so we decided we'd meet for some churros con chocolate at a local cafe. Oh and how glorious those churros were. Kate certainly enjoyed them, anyway. Afterward, we let them get back home for dinner and we walked around a while, finally landing at (what else?) a kebab place for our final Sevillan meal. Since it was 9 at this point, we still had about three hours to get to the bus station, so we decided we'd track down that Scottish pub we'd seen the day before and grab a pint. And wouldn't ya know it...they had Murphy's! God, I love Spain.

Unfortunately, even drinking at a Spanish pace as I've learned to do, we finished with about two and a half hours to kill. What else was there to do but to find another bar with another pint? We eventually settled on P. Flaherty's because, well, we saw the Guinness and Murphy's signs above the door. Good times. Now two pints deep, we realized that it was 10:15 and, while we could probably have a third, we should probably not risk forgetting where the bus station was. And so we arrived around 11 and killed the next hour waiting for the girls to meet us. For some reason there was a little horse ride in the corner that kept playing "O Susana" and had I not been so tired I might've gotten up and kicked it. TJ, of course, found this very amusing. Finally, the girls arrived and we said our tearful goodbyes to Kate. At 1, we boarded our bus to Madrid and passed out. Once we arrived, I said goodbye to Mary as she boarded the bus to the airport, and then to TJ as he took the Metro to that same airport (methinks we could've planned that better, no?). An hour and a half later, I arrived in Toledo happy to be back with most of Sunday to recover, but also feeling the worst bout of homesickness I've felt since getting here. It wouldn't go away 'til Tuesday.

That's where I'll leave you guys for now. You're now just about caught up with real time (and that'll happen soon; I didn't go anywhere this weekend so there's not a ton to report). In the mean time, I need some sleep.

Paz y amor,

Griff

What? We're in a hotel!?

Alright, seriously, I just spent last night tagging, captioning, and posting over 250 photos, and damnit, I will update this blog by the end of this weekend or so help me God...

Well, you get the idea.

I'd now like for you to gather 'round while I regale you with another of my European adventures, this one taking place in Córdoba and Granada, two cities in Andalucía, the southernmost province of Spain. Probably the best part of this trip (which was run through our school) was that the week we arrived in Toledo we found out that because the Notre Dame Study Abroad program still made us pay full University tuition (which was apparently far greater than the tuition we would pay for the Fundación), ND students would be allowed to take this 200-Euro trip for free. Makes ya wonder where all that money goes...

Anyway, we were scheduled to leave for Córdoba via bus at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning. Having nothing to do Thursday afternoon and evening I locked myself in my room until I'd finished one of the two essays I had due the following Monday (from the same professor, no less). Once I finally finished that sucker up around 11, it had long since been decided in my mind that I wouldn't be going out for the evening. Naturally, I decided that rather than go to sleep at a reasonable hour so that I would be fairly well rested for the bus ride ahead, I booted up Ocean's 13 on my computer and watched that until, oh, 3 a.m. or so. Yeah, sometimes I think I'm stupid too.

So after my two hour...ahem..."sleep" I rolled out of bed and trudged through the empty streets to the Fund and then to the bus where I immediately fell asleep. This would become a pattern over the course of this weekend. We rode for about four hours until we reached Córdoba, which I imagine would have been quite the hopping little city had it not been for the unseasonable rain that continues to plague this semester of ours. After a while you really get tired of hearing, "Really, it's usually beautiful...this is the most rain we've had in years." But I digress.

As we got off the bus, we were broken up into two groups and met our respective guides. I don't remember our guide's name, I do know that, by the look of him, he'd speak with a British accent if he ever spoke English. I know that means nothing to most of you, but anyone who was there would probably agree. He first took us through the Judería, Córdoba's Jewish quarter. It was a pretty cool walk-through as we were surrounded on all sides by brightly white-washed buildings. We stopped into the old synagogue which, despite the build-up we'd gotten from our guide, ended up just being a huge room with a menorah and some cool designs on the walls. Guess ya can't win 'em all.

It continued to rain throughout our walk through the Judería until we reached Córdoba's cathedral which, it turns out, was converted from a mosque at some point in history that I forget at the moment. Either way, the convergence of the two cultures, Muslim and Christian, was apparent from the second we entered the courtyard. The place was full of an odd mixture of Moorish arches and ridiculous crosses...crazy stuff, really. But that was nothing compared to the inside. It's hard to describe, really, but I'll do my best.

The whole thing is essentially divided into two distinct halves. The first is clearly the remainder of the old mosque, with plenty of space for all the highest ranking Muslims in Córdoba to kneel and pray five times a day. This portion of the building has a lot of Christian artwork and a few small chapels around the outside, but for the most part the Muslim basis shines through, from the incredible double arches to the large doors through which the caliph and his family would enter for prayer.

The other half, of course, is a typical Christian cathedral, complete with ridiculously high ceilings and even more ridiculously detailed artwork in just about every corner of the place. My favorite portion, of course, was the choral section, but then I'm sure you could've all guessed that. Michael and I got our obligatory picture, yadda yadda yadda.

I'll pause here to note that, while I really did enjoy this tour, one thing I did NOT enjoy was the fact that it was guided. I didn't really know it until this semester, but I much prefer exploring tourist sites for myself – going at my own pace and stopping to read or ask questions when I feel like it – rather than being dragged along like a two-year-old, stopping every twenty feet to talk for fifteen minutes. Turns out this would not be my weekend in that respect, but like I said, I still enjoyed myself.

Right, enough of my bitching. After we got through the Catedral, we slowly made our way back through the courtyard and toward the bus. Despite feeling tired, hungry, and a little sick, this walk included what ended up being one of my favorite moments of the weekend. It started when we took a quick side-trip to a small plaza where our guide rambled for five minutes about God-knows-what. The important thing was that, in the course of my typical guerrilla-esque style of photography, I got a few funny pictures of my friend Karinna. She then retaliated and told me her pictures were better. Yeah, big mistake. I thus declared a candid shot war and spent the better part of the next half hour snapping as many shots as I could of her from every angle. Her battery died soon thereafter, so she tried to call a truce, to which I reluctantly agreed, but it would make for a fun little theme throughout the weekend.

We reached this temporary agreement just as we were about to board the bus for lunch. It was good to get some food in me, but even better was the fact that we would soon be at our hotel (no, not hostel...HOTEL) in Granada. After lunch, Michael and I killed about half an hour walking around doing whatever it is that we do, at which point we finally boarded the bus for Granada. I, of course, remember nothing of this ride as I fell asleep almost immediately. Guess sleeping for two hours before this trip wasn't too stupid after all, huh?

What? It still was, you say? Okay, fine, you're right.

We got to our hotel and I, of course, walked right up to our room and collapsed for another two hours. I ended up rolling out of bed just in time to catch the bus to a flamenco show, something I'd been looking to catch since I'd neglected to do so while in Sevilla. This was one of the cooler cultural portions of the weekend, for sure. The bus drove us up to the top of one of the many hills in and around Granada, to the gypsy area of town. We entered a bar and walked through a lobby and into a long, narrow room in which the show would take place. As a waiter came to ask us for our drink orders, I again got excited thinking that maybe someone in Spain would know what a 7 and 7 was. Once again, those hopes were dashed, and I ended up getting a Granadian drink that tasted like green NyQuil. Oh well, I guess that helped my sore throat out some, right?

While the drink left a lot to be desired, the show was nothing short of spectacular. For those of you who haven't seen one of these before (and if you ever get the opportunity, take it), I'll try to explain. The whole thing consisted of two separate "acts" involving two different sets of performers; a guitarist, a singer, and three to four dancers, mostly women. One at a time, the dancers would each get up to perform a solo dance while the guitarist and singer did their thing and the other dancers clapped along in rhythm, occasionally throwing in a cry of "¡Olé!" for effect. Probably the coolest thing about this show – aside from the ridiculous rhythmic control each performer possessed (I've never seen anyone move their feet so gracefully while making that much noise) – was that you never really knew when or where the song or dance would start. Sometimes the guitarist would pluck out a few chords and the dancer would follow his rhythm. Other times the singer would choose a style that would, in turn, dictate the speed and type of dance would make sense. Sometimes the dancer would just tap out a rhythm and go to town. I got the feeling none of us knew where the song would start, but each of the performers were so in sync that they were completely on point the entire time. Truly amazing stuff.

There was a small bit of unintentional comedy, though, when a dancer who had to be at least 65 years old stepped up to perform. As had been the case all night, cameras were flashing from the moment she stood up. But while the other dancers had performed without seeming to notice that there were other people even in the room, this woman was giving an admittedly scary death glare to everyone in the room taking a picture. She literally shook her finger at some people and still a few of these continued snapping away. Needless to say when she sat down she looked very upset. It was a shame too; she really could move and had put on a great show. Oh well, leave it to the American tourists, I guess.

Thoroughly amazed by what we had seen, we moved to the second portion of this little side-trip which was a brief tour of the rest of the Gypsy quarter, including a sweet night-time vista of La Alhambra, which we would visit the following morning. We snapped our fair share of pictures and when we finally got on the bus everyone was still talking about how awesome the flamenco show had been. Meanwhile, my truce with Karinna ended (she'd charged her batteries while I was napping) and the battle began anew. I've spared her the embarrassment of posting most of the pictures I have, but I'm considering a separate album dedicated to her...lemme know what you think.

We arrived back at the hotel and prepared to go out. It turned out that one of Michael's best friends from home, a guy named Nick, was studying in Granada for the semester and had offered to show all of us around. Gotta love having a friend who's a local, I s'pose. Nick met us at the hotel and took us around to a series of bars that were all very distinct (and a few obviously touristy) but nonetheless very fun. We finally arrived at a quiet pub around 2, but I, still being a bit under the weather, offered to be the first escort to anyone who wanted to go home early. Sarah and Karinna, being exhausted themselves, happily obliged and we said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. On our way home, I made what was perhaps the best decision I had in a while; I finally caved and got a Doner Kebab. For those of you who have never been drunk and hungry in Europe, this is the European version of Taco Bell at 3 a.m. on Friday. A kebab is basically just lamb meat in a pita with some sauce and toppings, but that night it was so much more than that. Thoroughly satisfied, the girls and I headed back to the hotel and hit the hay.

The next morning, I awoke happy to find that I felt much better. I guess alcohol really DOES have medicinal qualities...

Anyway, we all gathered in the lobby and waited for the bus to come pick us up for what would be the coup d' gras of the weekend: a tour of La Alhambra. This gigantic combination of fortresses and gardens was built by the Moors in the 14th Century and is allegedly the most visited tourist site in all of Spain. Pretty cool stuff, no? Needless to say I was pretty excited (read: my camera trigger finger was itchin'). That excitement did take a blow, however, when we found out that this, too, would be a guided tour. To quote my dear friend Jacques, le sigh.

Despite the unfavorable weather, the garden portion of the tour was pretty darn cool. We got some great views of Granada (La Alhambra is built on a bit of a hill) and got to walk through a labyrinth-ish courtyard full of hedges, bushes, and really cool little fountains. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did go camera crazy here.

After the gardens, we made our way inside to the fortress itself, which consists of a huge network of stone buildings that served any number of purposes when first the Moors and then the Christians inhabited Granada. We got to see some really ridiculous stuff, including a massive reception chamber, the walls of which were covered with the history of the Moorish occupation of Granada etched in Arabic. Unfortunately, our journey around the inside of La Alhambra was also where the guide element of the tour took a turn for the worse. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman we had didn't feel the need to make us stop for inordinately long breaks (45 minutes in one spot!?) while she told us every minute detail about whatever room we happened to be in. But I'm bitching, and no one wants to hear that, right?

The rest of the tour passed without incident, and it began to drizzle just as we boarded the bus back to the hotel. Yay impeccable timing. On the ride back, a bunch of us hatched a bit of a plan that included *gasp* a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel and *second gasp* exploring the Arabic neighborhood of Granada. It's a bit sad, I know, but I was most excited for the burrito at the front end of the trip (and yes, it was good). Still, the rest of the plan was pretty fun too. I'll admit it might've been more fun if we hadn't confused the Arabic neighborhood with the Gypsy neighborhood we'd been in the previous night, but that's just me. We DID run into a curious collection of people on this misguided journey, including a group of ten guys celebrating a bachelor party who were all...well...let's just say that if it was 6 p.m. at this point, I wouldn't want any of them driving a car until at least 11. The following morning. Yeah, it was like that.

When we finally did find the Arabic neighborhood, we tried getting into any of the dozen teahouse/hookah bars that lined the narrow streets, finally finding a spot after entering and leaving about four. I was very close to trying hookah for the first time, but some combination of the smoke, the dim lighting, and a day of walking around combined to suddenly make me very tired, so I headed back to the hotel where I (you guessed it) took a nice long nap.

I woke up to Michael changing clothes to go out. His plan was to break away from the group and go to Granada's botellon with his friend Nick. This sounded pretty good to me, so I asked to join them and, after much deliberation, they decided I was worthy. Since it was too early to get to the botellon just yet, we stopped first at a local pub and grabbed a pint to warm ourselves up. After that, we set out to find our 40s, an important ingredient for any successful Spanish botellon. At this point we ran into a rather odd situation in which we entered a convenience store, paid for and received our 40s, and then, before we could walk out, were told to give them back because "Cops hang out here all the time and we're not supposed to sell alcohol past 10." Understandable, but still a bit annoying. Luckily Nick knew of a few other places with a little less respect for the law, so we finally got to the botellon park, 40s in hand, around 11:30.

Nick's friends finally arrived around 1, after we'd all but finished our 40s. Luckily, they brought beer that they offered us, so we were once again happy. Michael and I also had a nice small-world moment in which we met a girl (whose name escapes me at the moment...I wanna say Anna?) who had gone to high school with Matt Callanan, a friend of ours from the Glee Club. That made for a good half hour of small talk, let me tell ya. Nick's friends continued to filter in slowly until about 2:30, at which point Michael and I had one of those moments where you turn to your buddy and you both have that "I kinda wanna go home" look on your faces. Thankfully, Nick offered to walk us back (we'd have been completely lost otherwise). Of course, we made our now obligatory stop-off at a kebab place and then got to our hotel where we said our good-byes to Nick. Let's just say it was a good thing check-out wasn't until 11 the following morning...

When I finally did wake up, I realized that I still had yet to buy my shot glass for Granada (I'd snuck away from our tour of the Judería to get one in Córdoba), not to mention a flag of Andalucía. Since there would definitely be shopping in the general area of the cathedral, I figured I may as well kill the hour and a half before lunch and catch a mid-day mass while doing the American tourist shopping thing. We got to the cathedral just in time for what we thought was the noon mass...turned out it wasn't until 12:30. I took advantage by exploring a pretty cool market (with a sweet system of tarps sheltering the street from the rain) and finding my shot glass and flag, as well as snapping a few cool pictures, including this one. Yes, that's Sarah's eye in the corner, and no, it wasn't intentional. Still turned out pretty cool though, I think.

Mass was...well...mass. Still don't know exactly what they're saying, but whaddya gonna do? After a nice lunch at the hotel, we boarded the bus for our six-hour journey home. Lots of sleep and a Spanish-dubbed version of Top Gun (yeah, that was interesting) later, we arrived back in Toledo just in time for me to start my second paper of the weekend, this one on a fantastic piece of literature called Bodas de Sangre, a play by Federico Garcia Lorca. Alright, I admit I read it in English, but damn it, I was tired. I finished the paper about 3 a.m. and went to sleep in preparation for what would be one of the best weeks I've had here so far.

But that, dear friends, is a story for another time (hopefully tomorrow afternoon). For now, I've got dinner waiting and my stomach has been rumbling since before I started writing this thing. Hope you've enjoyed part one of Operation Catch-Up. I'll be back for round two before the weekend is out.

Ciao,

Griff

Hangin' around Toledo

So after five straight weekends of traveling to destinations ranging from Madrid to Lisbon to Dublin, I figured it was finally time to give my body (and my wallet) a rest for once, so I spent my time two weekends ago [insert apology for lack of updates here] bumming around Toledo. I told myself I would dedicate my weekend to exploring the city some and figuring out just what the hell's going on around here. I also told myself I'd be a little productive and maybe get some reading done. You can all imagine how that little endeavor went.

Perhaps the best part of my weekend was that, with basically the entire ND crew out of town, I got a chance to hang out with my fellow Fund kids from other schools, which ended up being a really good time. Thank God I'd become friends with a few of the Minnesota kids, Liz and Abbey in particular, because without them I'd probably have sat in my house literally all weekend doing nothing. As it was, I took my one remaining midterm exam Thursday morning and came back to my house to relax for the day. When it got to that magical hour of about 7 o'clock I realized I still had no idea what I was doing that night, so I got on the horn to my Fund buddies and found out that they'd be meeting in one of the dorms to teach a few of the Puerto Ricans a fantastic game called Kings. It goes by many names - Waterfall, Circle of Death, King's Cup, to name a few - but all in all it's fantastic, as our island friends soon found out.

From there, we went the place that EVERYONE goes when they're bored on a Thursday night in Toledo (oh yeah, and they're under 25 and are American)...O'Brien's Pub. We had a great time there with our buddy Emilio, as per usual, before heading out to one of the many hopping discotecas in the old city.

Did ya sense the sarcasm there? No? Oh well.

Yeah, the club thing was a bust, but I was in a comfortable state at this point, so I did the natural thing and went home and slept until 1 the following afternoon. Yeah, I love non-traveling weekends. Around 4 I again decided it was time to call in the troops and figure out what to do. Turned out the Minnesota folks (all of whom were pretty darn cool based on my experience the previous night) were going to do the American thing and find some pizza. I, naturally, was 100% down for that. Unfortunately, our trusty guides (read: Liz and Abbey) didn't know when the place they wanted to go to actually opened. Yeah...

The girls decided they wanted to wait it out while we guys, being guys, had mentally prepared ourselves for food and thus needed to eat something immediately. We scoured a bit and, amid growls from our respective stomachs, managed to find a tapas bar that was open at 7. We quickly sat and each enjoyed a hearty sandwich and a beer...ya know...as an appetizer. Our stomachs sufficiently full (at least for the trip back to the pizza place) we left and walked back into the heart of the city.

Of course, when we returned to this pizza place we'd heard so much about the girls were nowhere to be found. The important thing, though, was that this place was open, so we figured rather than call them we'd just sit down and order. I distinctly remember hearing someone say, "Eh, whatever...they'll show up eventually." Sure enough, as we got our pizzas who should arrive but Liz, Abby, and Lindsay. Yeah, small booya there.

After we'd all had our fill of what turned out to be pretty darn good pizza, the conversation turned to what we should do for the evening. "Drink heavily" was thrown out several times, but we all agreed we should go back to the Fund first and if nothing else let this fantastic food settle. Then naturally talk turned to grabbing 40s on the way back, and as soon as someone mentioned "external hard drives" and "music sharing" things took a turn.

Now those of you who know me know that few things are more fun for me than stealing copious amounts of music from peoples' computers and laughing in the face of copyright laws while doing so. Something I enjoy even more than that is doing so with someone who is, as I am, a stand-up comedy nut. Turns out Flynn, a guy from Minnesota, is just such a man. After going back and forth about everyone from Louis C.K. to Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.) to Patton Oswalt, we finally got around to copying each other's music. And no, that's not a euphemism for something else...there were girls in the room and that would've just been weird.

Soon thereafter, someone suggested we watch a movie. I was all for it...but for some reason, when Fern Gully was the movie of choice I kind of decided I might be a tad tired and would call it an early night. By this I mean I came home at 1:30 and mindlessly surfed the web until 4. What can I say? I'm nocturnal to a fault.

After waking up past noon again (is it redundant to say I love weekends where I don't travel?) I putzed around the house until, you guessed it, it was time to go out again. This time I was fashionably late to the Fund pre-game and thus had to play catch-up...never fun, but definitely necessary. This time we decided we'd go to another area of Toledo, where we started the eve...

[The remainder of this post has been deleted for your safety. Its content was both offensive and dangerous to you and your family (read: nothing too interesting happens...bars were visited, clubs were considered and rejected, etc.). This message will self destruct in 3...2...1...]

BOOM.

*Through a cloud of smoke, we see Griff emerge from a hastily constructed bomb shelter relatively unscathed*

Good thing I'm handy with a Swiss Army Knife, some sticky tack, and a handful of spoons, huh, folks?

But seriously, the most interesting part of the evening happened after I left whatever bar/club I was at with a rather eclectic group of four: myself, Liz, my buddy Zach, and Laura, a girl I'd met that evening. We all decided that rather than go home we wanted to take a walk down by the River Tajo. Yeah, kids do weird things when they're in a city with an average age of 55 and it's 2 a.m. Even better than the walk by the river, though, was the fact that during the walk we got into quite the deep discussion about the social benefits of religion. I can't say everything we said was incredibly profound and intellectual, but hey, a good talk is a good talk, am I right? Once God got old, though, we seriously decided it was time for bed. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, I did indeed keep my streak of sleeping past 1 alive the following day. Who's the man?

Sunday passed without much incident. I finally did get out into the city and took a few pictures, but I figure I'll compile them into an album for the end...Random Toledo Pictures or something creative like that. For now, I'll leave you. Maybe if you're lucky I'll be bored tonight and rather than watching more of Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother I'll update you on what happened this past weekend in Andalucia. We'll see how that goes.

Ciao,

Griff

A truly Classic weekend in Dublin

Now gather 'round children, it's time to hear about my first trip outside the Iberian Peninsula. Yes, you heard right...I finally ventured outside of Spain and its Canada-esque counterpart Portugal and set a course for *dramatic drumroll* Dublin.

Well, I was excited anyway.

While I'd sworn after my last two trips to never again spend a night in Madrid's airport, I did realize Thursday morning that I would get to do the next best thing on this little adventure. Having a 10:40 flight doesn't seem too bad at first, but throw in the bus ride to Madrid, the long metro ride to get to the airport, and security, I got the pleasure of setting my alarm for 5:30 a.m. Friday morning. Add in the fact that I had to write a paper that Thursday night to be turned in before I left and it was basically even with spending the night in the airport. All that complaining aside, I will certainly take three hours in a warm, comfortable double bed to five hours on a cold airport tile floor any day. Besides, I was going to Dublin, so how could I really complain?

The journey to the airport was uneventful as usual, though different in that this time I was only traveling with two other people (my friends Maeve and Stephanie) instead of the group of nine or ten I've usually rolled with. Naturally, we got through security and to our gate with a good two hours 'til boarding...yay for planning ahead. We grabbed some food and contemplated what it would be like to be in an English-speaking country.

We arrived and, well, we were confused. It literally took all I had to not walk up to the window to get my passport checked and not say "Hola." Thoroughly shaken, we hopped a bus to University College Dublin where I would be part of an epic reunion. Yeah, I forgot to mention this earlier...the purpose of coming to Dublin this weekend was to do a bit of a belated birthday celebration for my friend Kristin who's studying there. This would involve me, TJ, Charlie, and Emily gathering in Dublin from our respective study abroad sites (Spain, London, and Rome). Yeah, we were excited.

After an hour on the bus we stepped off and I was immediately greeted with two huge hugs from Kristin and Emily (she'd gotten in the night before). After hurried introductions to Maeve and Steph, we headed to Kristin's apartment to drop off our stuff and then went off to kill some time before TJ and Charlie arrived at 5. The first thing we did was to spend 13 Euro apiece on weekend bus passes. This was the first in a series of purchases during which I realized that Spain's relative inexpensiveness is the exception rather than the rule in Europe. Oh well.

Next, we visited UCD's campus where I ran into a bunch of Notre Dame people I didn't know (but who all knew Sean Kickham, for some reason). From there, we did something I'd been meaning to do for a long time...we found an Irish music store. I've kind of had a thing for the stuff since getting to ND, and even more so since a weekend I spent listening to an excellent Irishman sing for two straight nights in a Pittsburgh pub managed by John Kearney. Needless to say, I was happy. I dunno if I was happy enough to justify spending 40 Euro on a total of 8 CDs, but damn it, I didn't care. What can I say? I'm a music whore.

After that and a brief stop for coffee we returned to UCD and met Charlie and TJ at the bus stop. There was lots of hugging, some tears were shed, and I think someone might have briefly fainted, though I could be wrong. Regardless, we were finally reunited and also incredibly hungry, so TJ and Charlie dropped their stuff and we went to find some grub. This search involved us going into and out of two or three authentic pubs before finally settling on an actual restaurant (damn kitchens closing at 7...).

I'll pause here because I'd like to explain to you good people a little goal I'd set for myself before going to Dublin. First of all, for those of you who know me, I really enjoy a good beer. Not as much as some people, to be sure, but I've got my taste. Anyway, when you think of Ireland, you think of beer, and when you think of Irish beer, you think of the glorious measurement of liquid volume that is the pint. From what I'd heard from people who'd studied in Dublin as well as TJ and Charlie in London, pint glasses, apart from being an excellent vessel to hold beer and a fantastic souvenir, are incredibly easy to steal. Yes, it's going where you think it is. My goal on this trip was to steal what I called the Grand Slam of Irish pint glasses: Guinness, Harp, Smithwick's, and Murphy's. I knew I'd be going to the Guinness factory, so that was basically taken care of. My targets were picked, and I was basically prepared (Kristin had promised to have a big purse at all times). Now I think the stage is adequately set...back to the story.

After we were seated at the restaurant, we were asked (as per usual) for our drink orders. I went with a Smithwick's this time, figuring I'd save the Harp for a true pub. Luckily, they had it on tap. When the glass arrived, I could barely contain my glee. Oh yeah, the beer was pretty good too, as was the meal. I'd apologize for foregoing the traditional Shepherd's Pie for a burger, but the thing was just too damn good to merit it. Plus, you folks know how I feel about apologizing. As we got up to leave, my fingers started twitching a little. I felt a twang of guilt...this was a (relatively) classy restaurant, not a dive pub. Luckily, I had the gang there to snap me out of my moralistic ways. Kristin slipped the glass deftly into her purse and we were outta there.

I'll pause (again) to explain another subplot, though one much more interesting this time, I promise. About a week before this trip, I'd been randomly friend-requested by Kristin's older sister Sarah. Turned out she had set up a rather elaborate surprise involving VIP access to a really cool club in Dublin. Our job as the visiting crew was to get Kristin out of the apartment for an hour or so so people could set up. I'd been getting texts throughout dinner I'd had to discreetly respond to (thank you, T9) updating the other group on our status. Luckily, we'd delayed Kristin more like two hours, so we got back to UCD's campus having given them plenty of time to prepare.

I'll admit I was the last one into the room...the lights were already on and "SURPRISE!" had already been shouted, but I'm pretty sure Kristin was quite happy with how everything went down. There was cake, there was cider, there were a lot of people, general merriment was shared by all. Half an hour later (we had to get ready, Kristin had to get over the genuine shock of what had happened) we all left the apartment for this legendary club Sarah had set up for us.

We clearly got there a bit early, because it wasn't quite filled up yet, so we took advantage of our fantastic VIP tables and started the night off with a celebratory beverage. Sadly, they had no pints of Harp or Murphy's available, so I settled for something less filling. We all sat around, got to know each other a little better, took a bunch of pictures (especially the five of us) and for a while it looked like we rhythm-less gentlemen might be in the clear. Then it happened...the inevitable moment where one of the girls in the party decides to scream some variation of "Dance floor, NOW!" This was immediately followed by lots of prodding and pulling on the shirts of the guys, especially TJ, Charlie, and myself (we were a little too late to the pre-gaming). This culminated at one point in Ashley, a dear friend of mine, trying to convince a stone cold sober TJ that he should really get out there. This is one of those immovable-object-unstoppable-force situations. Quite fun to witness, I assure you. Eventually, though, even TJ was guilted out there for a few songs and, while it was fun, I was just too exhausted from the travel day to keep it up too long.

After my requisite three songs were up, I returned to the VIP table to find random people sitting there fooling with Kristin's camera. Emily, who was with me, was not pleased. Eventually they left, but not before insisting on snapping a picture with all of us. Emily was still not pleased (see Kristin's pictures). The rest of the night was kind of a blur (again, I was tired) and at one point I almost fell asleep on the table. Kristin, bless her soul, saw me and decided that she, too, was tired enough to roll out.

The ride home was fun, especially the part when Emily spilled some food in the cab, a spill the cab driver discovered as we got out. He sped off with a rather disgusted look on his face. Emily remained unconcerned. I remained tired, though not tired enough to avoid the still massive amount of chocolate cake left over from earlier. So rich. So decadent. So perfect to fall asleep to...even on the floor of Kristin's apartment under a fleece tiger blanket.

The original plan for the following day was to wake up at 9. If you've been reading this blog at all, you know how I felt about THAT plan. Yeah, I rolled into the kitchen about 10:15. Good thing my friends love me too much to leave me. I downed some cereal (in cold milk, for the first time in a long time), showered, and left with the group. Kristin first led us on a small tour of Dublin's main drag, which included the obligatory stop in Carroll's, Ireland's chain of touristy shops full of great Irish chotchkies (don't know what that means? Get a Yiddish-English dictionary). It's kind of sad, but Ireland (or at least Dublin) has really capitalized on the whole St. Patrick's Day mentality of the US by making outrageous amounts of gifts in all shades of green. I walked out of the place with two 3'x5' flags (one of Ireland, one of Dublin county) and another shot glass for my collection.

Slightly poorer after our various purchases, we set out on a journey of epic proportions. Our goal: the Guinness factory. Seven stories of greatness. More importantly, though, it had Guinness pint glasses. Eyes on the prize as always, I was mentally prepared to lift at least one, possibly more, as were TJ and Charlie. Emily, for some unexplained reason, doubted we could pull it off. Silly, silly Emily.

The tour itself was mediocre at best. I mean, learning a bit about the brewing process was cool. Hearing historical tidbits about Arthur Guinness's general badassery was cooler. Take, for example, that when he signed the lease on the property on which the factory now rests, he agreed to pay 45 pounds a year...for 9,000 years. Yeah, that's foresight for ya. And the factory still pays those 45 pounds of rent. I felt the need to pay homage to such a genius. Still, all told, it wasn't really worth the 8 Euro. Before the gravity bar at the top anyway.

The rest of the factory aside, this place was pretty cool. It's a 360-degree view of Dublin with free pints of Guinness all around. And oh how glorious the Guinness tastes when it comes from the source. For the second time that weekend, tears were nearly shed. It was beautiful. I think what shocked me most, though, was that people would just take three sips and return their glasses to the bar. This is Guinness! From the factory! It's like liquid gold! For shame, random tourists.

The theft of glasses, of course, went off without a hitch (take that, Emily!). Of course, it helped that we had our half-empty bags from Carroll's on our hips that made it an easy final-sip-into-the-bag motion. I was rather impressed with how smooth it all went (that's what she said). I was happier, though, when I started to notice people just leaving empty glasses sitting around. I can't explain what happened next...all I know is I blacked out and ten minutes later I woke up outside with four empty pint glasses hidden in my bag. I can only assume I paid full price for them. Oh well. Two glasses down, two to go.

After leaving the factory, we spent another hour or so wandering rather aimlessly around Dublin and then went to a train station to take the half-hour ride to Howthe, a small fishing village outside Dublin. This would be our opportunity to snap a few nice pictures. Almost immediately after getting off the train, we met a pretty cool dog that ended up following us for a good hour as we did a brief tour of the coastline of Howthe, taking what pictures we could before the sun went down. We soon affectionately nicknamed him Bennett after our friend Chris. It had something to do with a few characteristics they shared...I don't remember exactly which ones, but I think it ended up being a bit of a jab at Bennett. If you're reading this, sorry bud. All in good fun.

Once we were satisfied with our pictures (i.e. we were too hungry to keep going) we walked back toward the train station to see if we could rustle up a little grub. We compared prices and eventually settled on a place called The Bloody Stream (appetizing, no?) where I got some authentic fish 'n' chips. In case you're wondering, no, they didn't serve Harp or Murphy's. Disheartened, I ordered a glass of water. When we finished dinner, we bit Howthe farewell and caught the train back to downtown Dublin.

After the train ride, we stumbled on the statue of Molly Malone (a.k.a. "the tart with the cart") immortalized in a famous Irish drinking song of the same name. We then decided that, despite being tired, we (read: I) wanted to give finding Harp one more try. We picked a pub that, unfortunately, had neither of my remaining glasses, so I figured I'd try Kilkenny. It was fine, but it tasted of failure more than anything else. While we were in this pub, something happened outside that I thought was a phenomenon reserved for the lake-affected climate of South Bend. I wouldn't call it snowing, nor would I call it raining, nor hailing. I think the best word I can come up with is "precipitating." It looked like snow, felt like rain, and landed as slush. I dunno, it was weird, but if nothing else it made for a fun walk to the bus stop.

We passed the rest of the night without much incident; the trip to Howthe and a day of walking around had really tired us out, and we wanted to wake up in time to grab some breakfast before heading to the airport for our 2 p.m. flight, so we hit the hay relatively early. The next morning, we did indeed go to a place that served an authentic Irish breakfast, but I just wasn't in the mood for some reason, so I wussed out and went with a smaller version (sans blood sausage, sadly). With that, Maeve, Steph, and I said our goodbyes and got on our bus to the airport. I found out later that once we'd gone the rest of the crew grabbed another pint in a pub where they served...you guessed it...Harp. *facepalm*

Our flight back was our first experience with RyanAir, including a nice little mini freak-out when we realized they really DO check the size of your bags when you get on. Luckily, our flight attendant was distracted at the gate with a guy who was trying to slam his bag into the container, so we slipped by without incident. The flight was uneventful, but the trumpet track they played at the end was a nice capper to the weekend. I got home in time for dinner and looked forward to a week of midterms.

I'll leave that off for now and include the midterm week in my update of my first weekend in Toledo, which should come fairly quickly after this one. 'til then, peace out.

Griff

Viviendo el sueño en Barcelona

Alright, folks, I'm finally over my sickness, I went to Dublin (you'll get that story soon, don't worry) and I just took the last of my five midterms, meaning now, at long last, I can update all of you on my crazy weekend in Barcelona a few weeks ago. Here goes nothin...

The weekend started (as had the previous one) spending a Thursday night in Terminal 4 of Madrid's Barajas Airport. Once again, I was lucky to get about two hours of sleep, but I didn't care; I was going to be spending Carnaval, Europe's biggest party, in Barcelona, a city famous for its nightlife. What could go wrong? Oh how little I knew...

When we finally got there, we realized that the glorious weather we'd heard about...wasn't. We soon found out that we'd chosen literally the coldest weekend Barcelona had had in years to travel there. Yay us. Still, we did what we always do as soon as we get somewhere...we found our hostel. My body told me to nap, but 1) we couldn't get into our rather small room just yet and 2) my friend Paul said something about going to find his uncle who was living here, so I decided I'd tag along with him instead. Man, am I glad I did. Turns out Paul's Uncle Joe is The Man...literally. He moved to Barcelona from Philly a few years back so his daughter, Paul's cousin, could go to an international high school there. He now alternates between being a kick-ass dentist in the States and livin the dream on one of the more recognized plazas in Barcelona. Not a bad life, eh?

Probably the best thing Tío José, as we soon began calling him, offered us was a knowledge of the who's who and the what's what of Barcelona. The first thing he did was tell us about a fantastic four-hour bike tour that left from the plaza immediately outside his door. We caught the next round, which left about a half hour later, and had quite a great time with our guide, a monotonously hilarious South African named JJ. He took us to just about all the big time touristy spots in Barcelona. We saw the Plaza de Toros, the Cathedral of Barcelona, and, of course, the Sagrada Familia, a massive church designed by Gaudí that's been in the works for over 100 years. It was cool to think about how much work was going into it, and the fact that there were all these huge churches that had been built hundreds of years ago and now here was one being built as we watched. I dunno though...one side kinda looks like a little kid just kinda drizzled wet sand onto it, dontcha think?

After our fifteen-minute photo break at Sagrada Familia, we finally got to go to a beach, something we'd been joking about doing since we went to Lisbon a few weekends back. It was...about a nice as a beach can get in about 45-degree weather with wind whipping up in stiff gusts every couple of seconds. Still, we munched on some bocadillos and enjoyed what warmth could be had, then hopped on the bikes and rode home.

We said our goodbyes to JJ (it had been quite the four hours) and went back up to Uncle Joe's apartment for round two of his advice on where to go. He told us about what was supposed to be a pretty cool castle/fortress on top of a hill that overlooked most of the city. Having recently become a guy who likes his great views (and snapping obnoxious amounts of pictures of them) I was interested. He stressed to us that "sunlight is precious" and that if we wanted to see this next landmark we'd have to move. I found this kind of funny because, as he was walking us to the metro station to start our journey, he insisted we take two quick detours to see some cool things Barcelona had to offer. Definitely worth it, but just a tad ironic, I thought.

He first brought us to Placa de Sant Felip Neri (if that looks weird it's because it's in Catalán, an old language still spoken in Barcelona that's one of the many symbols of how much they dislike being associated with Spain). At first it seemed like a small plaza that was in a bit of disrepair, but Paul's uncle explained that the holes in the walls were from bullets from Franco's firing squads. Apparently, Franco wanted to squash any memory of the cultural heritage of Cataluñia, the region of northeastern Spain of which Barcelona is the capital. As the story goes, if you were caught speaking Catalán in the city of Barcelona, Franco's guards would take you to this plaza to be shot. Yeah...suddenly those holes in the wall became a lot more powerful. There's also a kind of beautiful irony in the fact that there's now an entrance to a pre-school in that very same plaza. Hats off to Barca on that one.

We snapped a few pictures and then took another quick ten minute stop, this time in a sweet covered outdoor market. The whole thing was really cool and authentic-feeling and Uncle Joe, continuing his campaign for greatest host ever, bought us some really good fruit smoothies. He Finally, though, we had to catch the metro...sunlight was fading and we had a castle to see.

We got off the metro and found out, much to our dismay, that the badass gondola ride up to the top of the hill was closed for repairs, so we would have to take a bus up instead. Lame, huh? Even lamer, the bus didn't even take us all the way to the top (or so we thought as we were told to get off at one point while other people stayed on). We were accosted by a cab driver offering to drive us up the hill, and after deciding to walk we debated not going at all (we were all INCREDIBLY tired at this point) but after much wailing and grinding of teeth we trudged slowly up the hill. Our spirits were lifted by a fantastically random discovery...two huge metal slides just off the road up the hill. Naturally, we took a ten minute stop-off and had our first-grade fun. Reenergized, we finally made it to the top of the hill and found the castle. To be honest, the views were cool, but I'm not totally sure this was better than the nap we could've been taking at the hostel. Oh well, live and learn, I suppose.

Completely worn out, we finally got back to our hostel and rested up a bit, then headed back to Uncle Joe's. He'd promised to take us on what he called a "pub crawl of the best dive bars in Barcelona." He hadn't steered us wrong yet, so we were all pretty excited to go. We first stopped at his apartment where he'd set out for us a great sampling of cheeses and jamón ibérico (they do ham different here...it's kind of a delicacy) as well as a few glasses of cava, the Spanish version of champagne. It was, I'll admit, quite a step up from the André I'm used to, to say the least. Finally full-ish, we were ready to start the pub crawl.

First we went to a place that was apparently known for its mojitos. I'm not sure what made it so good, but Paul's uncle told us it was because Carlos, the bartender, added quite a bit of love into the process. Whatever was in it, it was great. Once we'd sipped those down, it was on to the next spot, involving one of the sketchiest journeys to a bar I've ever been on. We literally walked up to a shady building in the corner of a huge plaza and rang up (like in an apartment complex) to this bar. We waited, and waited, and finally were buzzed in. As we walked up the creepy old staircase I'm sure we were all wondering where in the hell Uncle Joe was taking us. We finally arrived at the door to a place called Pipa Club.

As soon as we walked in I was overcome with an urge to take pictures. This place was basically a converted apartment, with a bar in one room, a pool room in the back, walls lined with cases of tobacco pipes and old bottles, and my favorite part, a tiny room packed with people in front of a small make-shift stage. Providing the soundtrack for the evening was a trio of musicians; the first was a tall lanky guy standing with a content intensity as his fingers walked up and down the neck of his upright bass, the second was a dude probably on some kind of drug just rockin out on his guitar, and third was the star, a rather small woman who looked vaguely like Selma Hayek (though that could've been the mojito talking) and whose voice was as smooth as...well, it was smooth. After watching for a moment or two (and, of course, snapping a ton of pictures) we snuck back and enjoyed a nice game of pool. Having been assigned photographer for the evening, I was going on something of a photo frenzy and loving it. Sadly, though, we eventually had to leave this place too.

The coup d'grace of Uncle Joe's dive-bar crawl was an old, run down place right near our hostel called Bar Marsella. Allegedly, while he spent his famous period in Spain, Hemingway used to spend his nights here in the corner, combining several mind-numbing drugs and writing away. That's what Uncle Joe told us, anyway. Whether it was true or not, I'm stickin' to it. G'head, prove me wrong.

Whoa, sorry for flyin off the handle like that. Back to the story. This place was incredibly important for us because we would finally get to try that elusive European delicacy known as Absinthe. For all the build-up (thanks, Eurotrip) it wasn't hallucinogenic in the least, but it was probably one of the cooler drinks to prepare for. First, you dip a sugar cube in the Absinthe, then scoop it out and lay it on a small fork over the glass. You then light the sugar cube on fire (yeah...it's potent stuff) and let it drip into the glass. It's also recommended you water the stuff down a bit, and rest assured we did. I didn't want any green fairies popping up over my shoulder. The best way to describe the flavor is to say it's like a tangy black licorice. I usually don't like black licorice, but I figured it was part of the European experience, so what the hell, right?

Then came the surprise of the evening. We were all sitting in the corner of the bar, generally enjoying the smokey, loud atmosphere and yelling to be heard over the clanging of glasses and chatter of the other patrons, when out of the corner of my eye I see the flash of blonde hair and a gap tooth I know all too well. Yes, friends, Kyle Nieman himself had entered the bar. I'd heard from Michael that he was in Barcelona too with some kids from the London program, but I figured it would be a one-in-a-million shot if we ran into each other as there was no chance I was gonna drop however many Euros it costs to call a London phone. But sure enough, he walked in and the three Glee Clubbers were immediately united. After about ten minutes of quick catch up, hugs, and mutual complaining about the glaring hole the lack of singing had left in our lives abroad, Niems did his duty and tried the forbidden drink and we headed off to the final bar of the evening. I felt bad for Paul's uncle at this point...he hadn't signed up to drag 25 ND kids around. Still, he was in good spirits.

We finally arrived at our last stop, a classic dive bar where Michael, Kyle, and I just basically sat around and shot the breeze. Unfortunately, most of the people in my traveling group aren't fans of when Michael and I sing. I say unfortunately for their sakes, because the three of us were together and damn it, we were singing. I'm not sure how it sounded to everyone else in the bar, but to me it was the best rendition of "Tonight" I've ever heard. Good times.

Michael and I left the bar after about an hour and a half and had an experience I never really believed would happen while I was in Europe. It started with a guy asking us in Spanish if we had any cigarettes. We told him no and kept walking, but he ran to catch up with us and asked me if I liked dancing. I was confused, and at that point he hooked his left leg around my right and shoved his hand into my front pocket, obviously trying to pickpocket me (he had a buddy trying the same thing on Michael at the same time). Luckily I realized what was going on and yanked his hand rather forcefully out of my pocket and shoved him away, yelling at him in Spanish to get the...well, to leave. A little shaken but proud that I'd handled myself, we walked rather warily the rest of the way back to our hostel.

As was the custom, a few of the more dedicated travelers got up to see some sites around 9:30 the following morning, while I, using the excuse of mental exhaustion from the pickpocket attempt, slept until 12:30. Yeah, I'm lazy and proud of it. My fellow late risers and I headed out in search of food and found, after some price comparison, a fairly decent place that served paella and a drink for 8 Euro. Full and relatively back to normal, we met up with the rest of the group and we decided that now, on the eve of what we thought was going to be an epic Carnaval celebration, we should probably think about getting costumes. We found two costume shops, and after some thought and experimentation, I decided to drop a few Euros on an odd assortment: a plastic fireman's hat, an adhesive mustache, a pair of sunglasses, and a red feather boa. Yeah...I was kind of going for a Village People thing, I guess. Anyway, my friend Connor found a nun costume (he planned on making it a pregnant nun costume...a popular choice for Carnaval) and the other guys got some wigs and decided they'd just be women. While they went to find some dresses, I went back to the hostel to rest up and eat something.

Slowly but surely over the next few hours, we all got back, ate, showered (quickly, as this hostel seemed to ignore the idea of warm water being good for business), and got into our costumes. The girls had decided to go in flashy togas (very classy, I assure you), and Michael, the only guy who had a costume before we left Toledo, went as a female police officer. Oh yeah, we were quite the crew. At one point Kyle showed up and we just sat around for a bit before heading out into what was a maaaaajor disappointment. We decided to start the night at the same bar we'd finished at Friday, and we were sad to find that practically no one was dressed up. Clearly all the fun people had gone to Cadiz (the capital of Spanish Carnaval) instead. Way to go us.

After about two hours in the bar, things took a turn. I realized around 1:30 that, while I 1) was in a bar and 2) had had a drink or two, two things that should have kept me quite toasty, I was shivering uncontrollably. I took this as something of a bad sign and immediately left the bar and booked it to the hostel, where I spent the next ten hours shivering in my bed despite wearing my jeans, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and my jacket and being under a fleece blanket. Yeah...not fun.

And neither was waking up the next day, which involved about nine hours of travel between leaving the hostel at 11 and getting back to my house in Toledo at 8. Yeah, that combination of bus to the airport, sleeping at the gate for three hours, an hour-long flight, an hour on the metro, and 45 minutes on the bus home were by far the worst I've had as I spent them alternating between shivering from what I'm guessing was a 102-degree fever and trying to sleep.

When I finally stumbled into my house in Toledo, I immediately passed out on my bed and woke up once or twice during the night, but essentially slept for 14 hours until 10 the next morning, at which point I woke up and told my host mom that I would not be going to school that day. As a policy, when that call comes in from a host family the school has to call a doctor, so I got my first ever house call (I'd have been excited if not for how I felt). From what I could understand, he prescribed some fever reducers and told me to stick to liquids until dinner that night, when I would be allowed basically rice and potatoes. Appetizing, no?

I spent the next two days basically in bed, not eating much and bouncing between feeling like crap and feeling okay. I watched a lot of Entourage and talked to some people from home, but all in all it was more boring than anything else. On the plus side, I got to miss handing in two papers due on Tuesday, so I s'pose that was nice. I finally did return to classes Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday I was (luckily) feeling good enough to head to Dublin.

This is where I'll leave you for now, as you've got plenty to read (and I'm too lazy to get to Dublin until another time). So, until next time, enjoy whatever it is that you're doing.

Ciao,

Griff