There's no place like Florence...

Ah, it's so good to be back. I got into Florence around 8:00 Sunday and wanted to kiss the ground of this precious place. Break was absolutely ridiculously AMAZING!!!!! It definitely wiped me out, though. I know I have a lot of blogging to do, so for now I am just going to give a general rundown of what I did. I can blog more later. If you have questions about specific places we went to, comment and I will tell you!

We flew out of Florence on Friday night and arrived in Dublin. We walked around a bit, went to a pub (of course), and we went to bed. The next day we walked around a bit before catching the bus to Cork. It was a four hour ride that was pretty cramped and uncomfortable, but worth it because Cork was so fun. The next day we made the trip to Blarney Castle before returning to Dublin on Monday. There we saw the sites, did a little shopping, ran into friends who are on our program in our hostel, went out to dinner, and went to the Long Bow, which is supposed to be the best pub in Dublin.

We woke up at 4:15 (yes, 4:15) and Katie, Dana, and I caught our cab to the airport so we could make our 7:30 flight to Nice. We were cranky all morning to say the least. The flight to Nice was absolutely wonderful--there were no screaming babies and we got in early. Not too bad.

To be honest, we did not have the best time in Nice, most likely because we slept for less than two hours. Nice is a beautiful area, but the town is a bit touristy so if it's not beach weather, it's not the best place. Also, we got lost repeatedly, including once in the middle of the night. Nice was an adventure. Our second morning there we went to an outdoor market and had socca among other things, so it saved the trip for us.

We then began the great train journey. We took a train to Avignon, spent the night in Avignon, then took the train to Nimes, stopped there for a few hours, then took the train to Montpellier. We stayed in Montpellier for the night and then in the morning took the train to Barcelona. I have decided that I absolutely love train travel. The scenery was breathtaking, seriously. The mountains, the shores, the fields...it was just gorgeous. Plus train travel is much smoother and much less cramped than bus travel.

The time we spent in France was really relaxing and fun. Avignon was gorgeous and I had one of the best meals there. Nimes was really cool. We didn't get to see the aqueducts because they are a bit out of town and we didn't know how to get there, but we did see the ancient Roman amphitheater and the Maison Carree, a beautiful Roman temple. Montpellier was a surprisingly cool town--it felt like a cross between France and Spain. It was laid back and hippie-ish. So cool.

Then came Barcelona. Barcelona was incredible. There is really no other city like it. We saw the Picasso museum, the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi Park, the old town, Bari Gotic, ate paella and tapas, and stayed in the cutest hostel ever. It was so much, but by they we were so, so tired from all the travelling and lack of sleep. It was also the weekend of the blisters--Katie and I had the worst blisters, so bad that we had to plan what we did around the amount we felt capable of walking. It's the price of an amazing break.

Ok, that is the short version. More fun stories to follow...