Hola, Bienvenidos a Espana

So we left Dublin (sad) and took flight to Barcelona (happy)!

I immediately realized that Barcelona is a very laid back city with so many interesting things to see and a ton of wonderful history.

Antoni Gaudi is a famous architect from Barcelona and his work is all over the place here.  He is such a big part of this city.  Some of the things that he has done are Casa Batllo (Batt-ee-o), Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, Parc Guell.  I saw all of these, but didn't go in all of them.

Also, Barcelona is a beach city.  There are some nice beaches that have good sized waves for surfing, so we went and watched some surfers our first full day here.

There are some awesome parks here.  Park Guell as mentioned earlier is beautiful and is on a hill giving a great view of the city.  Parc de la Ciutadella is a park near the Barcelona Zoo that has a rather large fountain in the middle of it.

This is also the city where Rosalie spent about three months before so she has some friends in the city.  We went to a young adult worship night on Thursday night and I met her friends and a few new people too.  They are awesome!  I am sad to leave them.

I took a tour of the Camp Nou.  That is FC Barcelona's (one of the best soccer teams in the world) home stadium.  The place was great!  I got to wander around all over the stadium.

After that, we went to a fountain show at the Magic Fountain of Montjuic.  There they play pop music and the fountain lights up and does some cool patterns and the show lasts almost 30 minutes.  That was very fun!

Sunday (today) I went to the International Church of Barcelona, which was great, and then out to lunch with some church friends and then to Hillsong at night.  Hillsong was like a huge Christian dance party with a sermon in the middle.

Here are some pics from the week thus far!

Sagrada Familia.  It was not finished in the 1880's when Antoni Gaudi died.  It is still in the process of being completed... Some say it might never be finished.  I say "not with that attitude"

Cool stained glass inside Sagrada Familia.

Ceiling in part of the Sagrada Familia.

 At the front of the Sagrada Familia.

The Nativity Facade of the Sagrada Familia. If you look close, you can see the story of the nativity around the place.

Mosaic wall in Parc Guell.

Mosaic Salamander.

Bench around the Parc.

Interesting columns.

Interesting Sculpture.

Agbar Tower.

Camp Nou.

Magic Fountain of Montjuic. (I have a video of some of the fountain going, but it would be too large to upload.)

George Bernard Shaw once said...

"Ireland is the largest open air asylum in the world."

I don't know about all that, but I do know that the people here have some of the best senses of humor in the world.

Yesterday, we started out the day and went to St. Catherine's Church of Ireland.  It was a fun experience, with great worship and friendly people.  After that we went and saw Dublin Castle and walked around that for a while.

That night we headed to the basement of a pub called the Stag's Head where there was a comedy club called the Comedy Crunch.  We got tickets really close to the stage and ended up getting involved in various acts... My beard was a point of honor :)  They were very funny people.  We had a great time.

Today we started the day early!  We headed on a day tour to the west coast of Ireland, leaving the city at 6:50 AM.  We made some stops on the way and saw some awesome sights.  We saw the Cliffs of Moher, a place called the Burren (a huge 200,000 acre boulder field), a cool monastery, a couple castles, and some of the small villages around the countryside.  We had a tour guide who did an great job entertaining everyone on the tour.  That trip took most of the day, so we are back here relaxing from the long bus ride.

Dublin Castle.

The Cliffs of Moher.  Phew...it was windy while we were there!  That water is the Atlantic Ocean.

More Cliffs.

 Wave of the Atlantic crashing on the rocks at the Burren.

 The part of the huge boulder field at the Burren.

Corcomroe Abbey.

It's not easy being green

Okay, well maybe it is!

We arrived at Dublin and found our hostel with relative ease.  We are staying at a hostel called Oliver St. John Gogarty's which is in the Temple Bar district.  That district has plenty of fun places to eat and drink and is very close to so many of the major attractions in Dublin.

Our first day in Dublin we got on a hop on hop off bus tour around the area and stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral and walked around there for a while and then hopped back on and stopped next at the Guinness Storehouse.  The storehouse was huge and so well designed.  They had a huge self-guided tour where you go through their whole brew process and then the history of the Guinness family and how they have gotten to where they are today.  During the tour, you get a lesson on how to taste Guinness and how to pour it.  Then you get to go up to their Gravity Bar which offers a 360 degree view of the entire city.
After that brewery tour we made it back to Temple Bar and went to a restaurant that had some great burgers.

Day two started with breakfast (free breakfast) at the hostel and then we headed to the hop on hop off bus again.  We rode that around with the live commentary guide and then took a separate route around the docklands.

After that we walked to Trinity College and took a guided tour of the grounds there.  The tour guide was interesting, funny and knowledgeable of the things of the college.  We learned that the people in charge of naming things there at Trinity College lack imagination.  Their big square at the front of the campus is called Front Square.  The big arch that you go through to get to Front Square is called Front Arch, etc.  But the campus was cool.  People like Bram Stoker (the writer of Dracula) and Oscar Wilde went to Trinity College.  Also at Trinity College is the famous library which houses the Book of Kells.  The Book of Kells is a very old, very ornate, writing of the four gospels of the New Testament.  The text is beautiful.  I found it interesting how they can tell the story of the gospels in images while also writing the text in Latin.
The Long Room in the library is also a sight to behold.  It was majestic looking with all of it's leather bound books and high wooden book cases.  One thing to note is that the books are not categorized alphabetically or chronologically or by any means other than the physical size of the books.  Fancy trying to go pick one out?

We left the campus and headed to lunch at this nice place called Sweeney's.  I had Irish stew and it was delicious.

After that we headed to a cinema and saw the movie the Grand Budapest Hotel.  If you haven't seen it, it is a quirky movie, but it is funny.  Watch out for language though as it may be a bit strong for a younger audience. :)

 Stained glass window at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

 The main part of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Front Square at Trinity College.

Front Arch at Trinity College.

The Long Room at the Trinity College Old Library.  (See if you can notice that the books on the bottom are big and they get shorter and shorter the higher you go)

Mind the Gap

So we got to London Southend airport on a flight from Venice and made our way by train and bus to a bar called the Chippenham Pub. There we met Ron.  He is the person we stayed with for the length of our visit to London.  Ron works at the same company as my mom and that's how we got in touch with him.  Ron had been in London all of a week before we showed up so his place was still pretty empty, though we did our best to try to get him to fill his shelves.

Day 1

Our first day, we went down to the Westminster tube stop and went to see Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament with the Elizabeth Tower, commonly (and incorrectly) known as Big Ben.  Big Ben is actually the Bell inside the Tower.  The London Eye is also there across the River Thames (Tim's).  The London Eye is a huge Ferris Wheel right off of the river.  After seeing that, we did a walking tour that went through many of the places where Harry Potter was filmed.  The tour guide, Richard Walker, was very knowledgeable and kept it interesting... he also sounded exactly like Malcolm McDowell if you know who that is.  After the tour we went to an outdoor open air market called the Portabello Market, we had crepes there and they were very good!  Then we met up with Ron for dinner and headed back to Westminster to see it all at night.

 Front of Westminster Abbey.

Parliament and Big Ben.

London Eye.

London Eye at night.


Day 2

Sunday was the day before St. Patricks day and there was a cool parade going on in celebration of that.  After that we walked around Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and down Oxford Street all the way to Hyde Park.  I saw a McLaren driving along (wow, nicest car I've personally seen in action).  We then made our way to a pub that was showing the Tottenham v. Arsenal football match.  These are both London teams and they are pretty fierce rivals.  It was not good for Tottenham fans... 1-0 Arsenal.  Ron met up with us there at the pub and after the game, we hung out with him the rest of the evening.  We ate at a restaurant that was Sherlock Holmes themed.

Bagpipers in the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

The Sherlock Holmes pub/restaurant where we ate.

Day 3

We started out this day and got a ticket to a Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus tour.  This is a cool thing that lets you take a bus all around London with a live tour guide or with recorded audio commentary depending on the line you are on.  We saw many sights around town, hopped off at Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace and then Baker Street.  We saw 221b Baker Street and saw where a certain detective is from.  After that we went to the King's Cross station and stopped by Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter reference if you don't know it).  We went to a curry restaurant and it was great.  Then we headed to the London Eye and took a ride on it.  The views around the city were amazing!

St. Paul's Cathedral.

Tower Bridge (sometimes incorrectly regarded as London Bridge but London Bridge isn't really that special looking)

 The Shard.  The tallest building in the EU. Looks like a big shard of glass.

Buckingham Palace... The Queen was in.

The home of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.

The ceiling in Kings Cross station.

View of the Eye from inside one of the pods.

View of Parliament and Big Ben from the Eye.

Day 4

In the morning we headed out to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  Then we headed to Leicester Square and bought tickets to go see the Lion King on the West End in London.  After that we made our way to Camden.  Camden is an interesting borough in London.  There is an awesome market that was made from an old horse stable that is huge and there were street vendors with tons of different cuisines.  The were all giving away free samples too!  It was nice because they weren't pushy about buying their stuff if you took a sample.  They were pretty laid back.

Then we headed to the British Museum and walked around that.  That was amazing.  We saw exhibits about ancient Egypt including the real Rosetta Stone, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, Chinese jade, Ancient Japan and we barely scratched the surface.

Then Rosalie, Ron, and I went to the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. It was great.  They did such a good job, I got chills three times watching it.  It was the first professional theatre production Rosalie or I have seen and we were not dissappointed.

 Changing of the guard.

Day 5

On this day, Rosalie went back to the British Museum and did some shopping on Oxford Street and I went on a tour of the cities' Football stadiums.  I did a tour of Tottenham Hotspurs' stadium (White Hart Lane) which was awesome, and then I saw Emirates Stadium (Arsenal), and then Stamford Bridge (Chelsea).  Then Rosalie and I met back up and went to a place called Nando's for dinner.  That was good chicken and interesting too because they had free refills on sodas and frozen yogurt which is almost unheard of in Europe.

The pitch at White Hart Lane.

FA Cup and League Trophies.  Tottenham was the first club in Modern history to win the Double, when many said it was not possible.

 Fellow American is currently the backup Keeper.

 This copper cockerel is over 100 years old.  This is the logo for Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club.

Emirates stadium.

Stamford Bridge.


Day 6

The next morning, we left for Dublin at 6:30 in the morning.  I should be able to blog more here.

What you are now, we once were...

...what we are now, you shall be.

Today, we started out the day and went to the Basilica of Saint Clement.  That is one of the oldest christian buildings in the world.  It was built on the foundation of a building destroyed in the great fire in Rome in 64 AD.  Then was rebuilt in the 2nd Century and then another was built on top of that one in the 4th Century.  There was a beautiful mosaic at the front of the church with deep rich colors.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the church.

Then we headed to the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks.  That was soooo awesome and creepy.  It is like a museum where they mention many things about who the Capuchin Monks are and what they do and things like that, and then you get to the crypt and it is a hallway where each of the rooms are decorated with bones. Human bones, everywhere.  There was one room that probably had at least 100 skulls around the place.  The crypts were decorated like that around the 1600s and there is some disagreement with who is actually the one who did it.  In on of the crypts is an inscription with the words of the title and first line of this blog entry.

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the crypt either, but I bought a postcard that has a picture of one of the rooms.

VENI VIDI VICI

So due to spotty wifi in Roma, and no wifi in Venice and London, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I have made it through Italy!

After leaving Rome, we headed to Venice.

Venice is a sweet little city of islands and canals.  The atmosphere is very touristy, but there are no automobiles or bicycles on the islands so there is a laid back atmosphere.  The churches all over the place are really intricate inside, and I saw a couple places that were in some great movies (I was where the "library" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was) St. Mark's square was beautiful and the water right next to is was a beautiful blue-green color.  It looks just like the movies with boats and gondolas going around all over the place.

Another cool part of Venice is their tradition of Carnivale.  There are many shops around the city that have super intricate masquerade masks and those shops were a joy to stop in and browse for a while.  (I got a mask)

After Venice we headed to London... I'm going to split up the posts so that it doesn't get so long.

Santa Maria of Salute Basilica

St. Mark's Square

St. Mark's from the side... The front was being worked on.

Bridge of Sighs.  This bridge connects the New Prison with the Doge's Palace interrogation room.  Lord Byron named the bridge the Bridge of Sighs because it was the last view of Venice a convict would see before being taken into the prison cell and they would sigh because they wouldn't see the beautiful Venice anymore.  (Apparently that isn't really the case, but it's the legend)

Rialto Bridge.