Paris with the Ladies, searching Ireland for real leprechauns

During my February break, two of my roommates from college and one of their friends came to visit in Paris for a week. It was exciting to show my friends around and to see them again. We rented a cute little apartment in Montmartre, near Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coeur cathedral. It was a really nice neighborhood and we found a boulangerie (bakery) with the best pain au chocolates ever! Every day we headed out on some mission; to get good pictures at Sacre Coeur, to check out the Eiffel tower, to visit the Sex museum (actually quite interesting; discussed the cultural significance of sex in different societies and had lots of interesting political commentary too), and of course the Louvre. We also visited the centre Pompidou, the modern art museum, and Versailles. I may have re-visited some of the sites that I had been to before, but it was fun to go with my friends, we had lovely weather and let’s face it, Paris is always fun to visit! On the last day we spent together (I had to go back to Tours for school) we went to a vineyard in Vouvray for wine tasting. It was actually a really cool experience, because they explain to you how wine is made from the vine to the bottle. Vouvray specializes in sparkling wines, so it was interesting to learn how they keep the bubbles in the bottle. And of course we tasted wine! We then visited Amboise before having a lovely raclette dinner at Julien’s. We said our sad goodbye’s at the train station, and I hope that they enjoyed themselves as much as I did!

Dublin

Julien and I decided to head to the Emerald Isle to visit Pheobe, who is studying in Dublin, and to check it out. We left from Paris Beauvais airport, which is out in the middle of nowhere and teeny tiny. On top of this, the airport workers were on strike (no surprise there, right? J )so lots of people were angry and wanting their tickets reimboursed. We took ryanair, a cheapy airline that gets you where you need to go. We got to Dublin late on Friday night, and were given a nice tour of the city by our taxi driver. It was strange to visit a country where the native language is English, but it’s not American English so it still kind of throws you off. The Irish accent was quite endearing and the Irish people were so friendly. But I couldn’t stop thinking of Leprechauns.

Saturday we headed to Howth on the coast. We hiked around on some cliffs and were lucky to have beautiful weather. We ate fish and chips near the port and then headed back to Dublin for a real Irish experience: Rugby! Ireland was playing England so we went to the military base (‘cause Pheobe has connections) and got to enjoy the match with some real fans. Sunday we went to the Guiness factory for a lovely tour. Here we learned how they make Guiness beer, why it tastes so much bitterer than other beers (because they roast the grains) and of course got to taste the dark brew. In the taxi there we met our first and only anti-French sentiment, but it was only in jest (if you don’t know, France beat Ireland in a soccer match that determined whether or not Ireland would be in the World Cup. The thing is, Thierry Henry, a French player, majorly hand-balled the ball right before a pass and helped get the winning goal. The handball was extremely obvious, but since there is no video review of the match, and the ref didn’t see, it doesn’t matter). The taxi driver did bring it up, but he said he’d root for France in the World Cup, nevertheless. We did a walking tour of Dublin, seeing the book of Kells, St. Patrick’s cathedral, a real leprechaun (haha) and other lovely sites before heading to the airport. Unfortunately our trip was just too short to really get the whole Dublin experience. Looks like I will have to go back soon!