COM0014 – Blog #1: What I did on my Vacation

I’m not someone who travels often, so when I had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks in Europe with my best friend, I took it! We looked up tour groups and spent 18 days traveling from Dublin to London to Paris to Barcelona.

It all started with us spending two days in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. The entire city lights up in green the night before (known as the “Greening of Dublin”). Everyone dresses up and pubs don’t close. Its a giant party for a full 24 hours. It was the kind of day you have to experience to understand.

Jameson Distillery

While the holiday itself was reason enough to be in Dublin we also had a few more adventures we wanted before leaving the city. So the next day, exhausted from all of the events of St. Patrick’s Day we met with our tour group, piled into a bus and took off for the Guinness Beer Brewery and Jameson Distillery. Its a mark of honor to go to Dublin and learn the craft of properly pouring a pint of Guinness. They actually have a pouring class in the Brewery where you can get certified for it. After getting certified we hoped in a cab and took off for the Distillery to learn all about how whiskey is made. We ended the night at a pub watching someone traditional Irish dancing.

Ireland was busy and exhausting, but it was only the start of our trip. Next up was London where we tried to fit as many touristy excursions as we could into 3 days. There is so much to do in the city it is nearly impossible to do it all. We tried to do all the major one though, The Eye, Big Ben, The Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Abbey Road. After getting through those we wanted to hot some local places and spent a day shopping through flee markets.

Still on the high of everything we had experienced so far, we jumped in with another tour group and headed off to Paris. It was a place we had both visited when we were kids but seeing it as an adult was a whole different experience.

Top of the Arc de Triumph

We shopped on the Champs-Elysees, climbed to the top of the Arc de Triumph, had lunch beside the Eiffel Tower.  We partied with the locals and learned more French in those few days than we had the entire time in school.

The tour group left the city as quickly as we arrived. With Spain as our next destination we didn’t mind.

This would be our last stop before heading home. We wanted see as much of the culture and history of the city as we could. This met hitting all the major tourist spot and trying to do it all in one day. From Sagrada Famillia to Park Guel to the Gaudi apartments, we got to see it all.

This was a trip of a life time and I am so glad I got to do it with my best friend.