Paris and Barcelona

So the second half of my spring break was to be spent traveling in Paris and Barcelona. My friend, Darby, was traveling with me on this four day trip. We were to to leave on Saturday morning really early so we had all day Saturday and Sunday in Paris. Then we had all day Monday and Tuesday and Barcelona. Then we would fly home Tuesday night and be in Dublin in time for St. Patrick's Day. This was the original plan, but of course, plans change...

Friday night came and my friend had a little too much fun at the bar, which resulted in him being really sick and really drunk when we had to leave for our flight on Saturday morning. Somehow when he got sick, he felt something hanging in the back of his throat. Assuming it was food, he tried to get it out with his finger. Unfortunately for him, it was not food, but part of his throat had elongated and was now touching his tounge. Which made it extremely uncomfortable. It was hard to swallow and it was getting hard to breathe. He wanted to go to a doctor, so of course I started worrying and got a bit freaked out and wanted to bring him to one asap. We left the terminal and made our way to airport information. A paramedic came and eventually we were sitting in an abulance to get checked out in the hospital. Lucky for him, he got a shot to take away the nausea. He started feeling better after that, but the shot was in his arse, so he complained about that the rest of the day. After he was able to see the doctor, it turns out the cause of his throat was he drank too much alcohol (surprise) and because of that, his throat swelled and got irritated. It could have been from the Guinness.

So after that exciting beginning to our day, and missing our flight, we decided to go back to the house and sleep. After resting and debating if we should take the trip or not, we decided to give it a try. Fortunately, we were able to catch a later flight out of Dublin to Paris, at 7:40 pm for Ryanair's wonderful "missed flight" fee. By midnight that night, we finally found where we were staying in Paris (thanks to my friend, I just got us lost...). Needless to say it was a long day.

We woke up early the next morning to walk around and see the sights in Paris. I have to say, Paris is beautiful. The buildings are all so extravigant and I absolutly loved them. It would have been a little nicer if it was warmer, but I'll take what I can get. We saw the typical touristy sights but I think my favorite was the Eiffle Tower. During the day it wasn't anything too special, but we went back at night and it was amazing. It was fabulous to look at. I would love to go back and see it again.

So pretty

One funny aspect was Darby got haggled. We were walking down the street and this guy picked up a ring and stopped us. He asked if it was ours, and we said no. His fingers were too big for the ring and so he gave it to my friend. He started walking away, and then came back and asked if we had any spare change for food. Unfortunately, Darby moved his hand out of his pocket so the man heard the jingling of change. He gave the man about 2 euro. After looking at the ring closer, we decided it was probably brass and useless. But it was funny to say the least.

Ring fail.

We had to wake up really early to catch our flight to Bareclona the next morning. We got there in plenty of time, but waking up so early was really killing us. When we got there, we found where we were staying but then we decided that our main goal was to find food. We ended up in this area of little shops and resturants, and we found this hole in the wall resturant. It was the BEST food I've ever had. The meal made everything worth it. It was so good. I was shocked. All we could think about the rest of that day and the next was going back to this restaurant. (When we got home we realized it was Indian food, not Spanish food. Interesting!.. ) Then we walked around La Rambla, a famous street in Barcelona. It was pretty interesting, until we got to the area where they sold like... pets, maybe just animals is a better word? They had chickens and rabbits and turtles... and MICE. Seeing the mice and rats killed me so we swiftly walked away...

BEST MEAL EVER

The night wasn't as exciting. Since we were both so tired we took a 4 hour nap, then found dinner. And dinner was a let down to say the least. All we wanted was the food from earlier...

The next day we had to check out of our hotel at 12 which unfortunately meant that we had to carry all of our luggage with us all day. We ended up going to the beach and then taking this lift up to a mountain. The view from the mountain (and the lift) was amazing. It was so awesome seeing Barcelona from such a high angle. We only bought one way though, so after walking around for about 3 hours we realized that the only way down, unless we wanted to pay again, was to actually walk down the entire mountain. It took us another 40 minutes to walk down, but we found a metro and decided to go back to our little resturant and shop area. We went through this maze and tried to find our restruant from the day before. We walked around for about 20 minutes and ended up finding it... but it was closed! We were pretty depressed to be honest...

View from the mountain!

After that sad event we both made our way back to the bus station and took the hour long ride to the airport. Darby got a big mac and I got a crab sandwich to pass the time. We had to wait 2 hours, and then our flight got delayed an hour. We were so antsy to get home at this point. Eventually we were finally home in Dublin and could call it a night. Just to wake up the next morning for St. Patricks Day. Overall, the trip was a ton of fun, and I'm so glad that we went. The extra fee for the late flight was worth it and seeing those two cities was amazing.