Faro, That Time We Saw the Sun.

Well once again i am a little bit late here with the blog. I dont understand how people can be so Johnny on the spot with these things. Don't you people have anything else to do? Don't you?! Well i do. So anyWHO. We went to Faro, Portugal about a week ago! We laughed, we cried, we had a really great time. But actually, that all happened. We had to wake up at 3 am on Friday morning in order to get to the megabus stop on time to get the bus to bristol, to get on another bus, to get on a train, to get on a plane to Faro. I was beyond nervous and stressed out already so waking up super early didnt help much. Once we got to the megabus stop there was a bus already there so Mitch went to ask the driver if they were going to Bristol. The driver just looked at him funny and said "No,London..Londooon...Londooon" we just went and hid until the next bus came which actually was going to Bristol. I think as soon as the bus started moving i was asleep. I slept basically the entire way to Bristol. We got off the bus and had to start running up what has to be the only hill we have had to climb in Wales, ever. We were so afraid of missing our bus so we just booked it and Mitch was yelling "We're not going to make it!" and i was wheezing and basically meeting my death, so im sure we looked perfectly normal. Turns out you are not supposed to go whichever way we went into the busstop because that bus driver said "What are you doing out there? Its dangerous!" I responded with a couch and wheeze and just handed him our tickets. He let us on and off we went to the airport. We got to the airport and easily got through security and to our gate. We had about 15 minutes to spare! Once we boarded the plane i fell right back asleep and suddenly...FARO. We got a bus from the airport right to our Hostel which was nice. So we were able to check in and go right on our adventure. It turns out Faro is not a really well planned out city. The roads are all curvy and dont really follow the map, that was a fun lesson to learn. After circling back about 5 times we decided to try something new..head towards the steeple of the church and not use the map! It worked pretty well! We found the Chapel of Bones! Its a good thing that Mitch knows Portuguese because i would have never been able to figure out how we were supposed to go into the chapel. The actual Chapel of Bones is in the back yard of the church and is made out of human remains of past monks. It sounds disgusting but it was oddly really pretty.After exploring around there for awhile we went down to the Marina and looked at the bay for awhile before we ate lunch at a little restaurant by the docks. The food was pretty good there, it wasn't anything fancy but it was lunch! After lunch we searched for a museum for a good amount of time, found it, only had bills to pay for admission and the people wanted coins so instead of taking the bills they just let us in for free which was pretty cool. The museum showed Faro's past through textiles and pieces of art. It was cool to learn about the history of the old town and how it evolved into where we were. We made our way to the old town in Faro which is literally where the town started and nothing has been changed in it so its got a bunch of little shops and a really pretty cathedral. We climbed to the roof of the cathedral and got an amazing view of the city and the ocean. By this time we were both a little hungry, so after much debate we decided to go to this very picturesque restaurant in the old town. I'm not the only one who thought it was picturesque.. its on a post card! We looked at the menu and decided to get salads. I got the cheese and tomato salad and Mitch got the vegetarian salad. Mitch ordered for us in Portuguese which was very cool and the woman told us to sit wherever we wanted so we chose to sit outside at one of the tables. They brought us water bottles and cups to poor the water in. My cup had pink colored glass at the bottom and Mitch's had yellow. So the water turned the color of the bottom of the glass.You can imagine what Mitch's water looked like...We waited for a very long time just sitting in front of the restaurant. We noticed that there only seemed to be two woman working there.  When a man sat down outside by us and one of the woman brought him water i realized that she was walking kind of funny. It was more like a step of one foot and then the other leg would swing around...suspiciously like someone who only had one leg. Now don't get me wrong i have got nothing against people with one leg...i was just being observant. As we continued to wait the other woman working there kept walking out into the street to talk to people or to pet their dogs or just to dance around and sing and laugh kind of manically. We are pretty sure she had had a few too many to drink but again, we weren't passing judgment. Well we weren't until our salads came out. The woman came step-swinging along with one meal and the other woman came dancing and singing along with the other. The Portuguese must have a different word for "salad" because my cheese and tomato salad was literally cheese, tomatoes and ice cubes in a bowl. Mitch at least had a little bit of lettuce, but mostly it was just a strange veggie platter. We didn't want to be rude so we ate as much as we possibly could, paid and got the heck out of there. We decided to give up and go to McDonalds but we didnt want to get sick so we got salads again...luckily the real kind this time. After an 18 hour day we pretty much crawled back to the hostel and crashed. The next day we woke up and got on a ferry to the Deserted Island to go to the beach. It was kind of cloudy in the morning so the ferry ride over was quite chilly. Once we got there we walked on the beach and found a nice sunny spot to "sun-bathe". Why the quotes? I was covered head to toe so i wasn't getting any sun really...but i was warm! So we just hung out on the beach until lunch time where we went to the only thing on the island which is the restaurant, got some lunch and then explored the walking trail on the island. They like to call this a hike but i dont think there was an incline ever the entire way.  The plants on the island were weird cactus like things that really didnt look like they belong on a beach. It was very odd to say the least. After  back from the trail we made it back to the ferry which took us back to main land. We found some cool shops for souvenirs and a bookstore so Mitch could get Portuguese books. After shopping we made our way to Restaurante Centenario. We were the  first people there so the service was pretty good. I played it safe with a pizza and mitch got a vegitarian rice dish. Our food was very very good, much better than the night before! We got ice cream for dessert and then it back to our hostel! We left early the next  and made it safetly back to Cardiff!

Si, Yes, Oui!

So a few weekends ago we embarked on our journey to Paris. Neither Teagan, Mitch nor I actually speak French so the thought of being fully immersed in the language was a little daunting. However, we quickly realized that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as we could successfully make the “I have zero idea what you are saying/ have no idea how to even begin to respond to that” face on demand. We had no problems. Once we made it to the airport, met up with Teagan, got a VERY expensive taxi and found our hostel we were finally able to sit back and say “WE ARE IN PARIS BABY!” Of course it was dark and rainy so we couldn’t actually see anything but it was still great. It was pretty late by this point so we decided to go to bed so we could get an early start the next morning. Apparently my body was just totally amped up because I couldn’t fall asleep. I was really comfortable so I wasn’t really upset that I couldn’t fall asleep I was just kind of lying there…not asleep. This lasted until around 3 am when I was finally able to sleep…until the alarm went off at 6am and we had to start our day. I guess you could say that we overestimated the time that we would need to get up for breakfast because by the time we made it outside it was still dark out, and nothing was open. We just wondered around for a little bit taking pictures and looking around until we found a café that was open. Thankfully the people at the café knew a bit of English so we were able to get by without speaking very much French. I think we all got some kind of croissant, yogurt and juice. It was all very good and gave us a nice start to our day. Our café was right outside of Hotel De Ville so after breakfast we wandered around there and took pictures and then made our way across the bridge to Notre Dame. It was surprisingly close to where we already were which we were pretty happy about. Now I have to be honest, I wasn’t too excited about seeing Notre Dame. I thought it was just going to be a big church with cool architecture and such. While it was both of these things it also was one of the coolest things I have seen. The outside of the cathedral had so much to look at, there will statues and designs built into the design of the cathedral that made you feel like it was impossible for people to build such a vast structure with so much detail and so little technology of any kind. As we went inside the cathedral it only got more amazing. I felt like I was walking into the past in some way. Every inch of the cathedral was so unique and different that there was always something to look at and admire. We were all kind of shocked by how amazing the inside of the cathedral was so we didn’t say much while we explored around. After about 40 minutes we made our way to St. Chappelle cathedral, which was right down the road. It cost 5 Euro to get into the cathedral and when we got in it was just a small little room with stalls of people selling souvenirs. We were very confused to say the least. Eventually we figured out that the actual cathedral was upstairs. So we made our way up and it was definitely worth the 5 Euro. There were stained glass windows basically floor to ceiling in the room. It wasn’t even that sunny outside but the light came in through the windows so beautifully that everyone was just staring at the windows and the light paths into the room. After we felt that we had seen all that we wanted to see in the cathedral, we started to walk to the Lurve. Once again this walk was a lot shorter than anticipated. So we wandered around outside of the Lurve and found a really cool lock bridge. One of those bridges where people put locks on after they get married or if they are just in love I guess. From a distance it looked like a golden bridge but as we got closer we realized that there were so many locks that you couldn’t see the actual bridge anymore. So cool. After checking out the bridge for a while we made our way to the entrance of the Lurve. Since it was so early in the morning there was basically no line at the pyramid entrance. It was awesome to go in through the glass pyramid because even though it wasn’t too sunny the light shining through was so pretty. After we got over the shock of how huge the museum was, we started to make our way to the ancient Egypt section. I don’t know why we chose the ancient Egypt section of the museum but it worked. Mainly Teagan and I didn’t know much of what to look for other than the Mono Lisa. So of course we saw that! We pushed our way to the front of the pack of people and took in the Mona Lisa. Of course we wanted to look at it for a little bit but some rude lady was all like take a picture and leave. We basically just ignored her and did what we wanted and then continued on with our Lurve experience. Mitch knew what the most famous things in the Lurve were from his art classes so he would describe pictures to us and Teagan and I would go on a where’s Waldo like search to try to find him. Overall it was a pretty successful visit! Next we wandered around the gardens outside of the Lurve waiting to meet with Taylor for lunch. We saw all of the cool statues and modern art structures while we waited. Once it was time to meet up with Taylor we had to play where’s Waldo again in front of the Lurve. It took us a little bit but we eventually found her and she showed us to a really nice restaurant for lunch. I think we basically all got thee Croque Misure which is basically a grilled ham and cheese except French. It was super good! After we were fed and reenergized we started the long walk to the arch de triumph. The arch itself is so huge. I didn’t expect it to be that large. It was kind of shocking because we decided we wanted to climb it and when we actually saw it we were like oh crap that’s tall. But we waited in line, got our tickets and started our climb. I’m not sure how but we powered our way all the way up to the top and then collapsed on the well placed couches on the top of the stairs. We were all out of breath so after a few minutes we were able to walk out onto the roof to area and finally see the beautiful view of Paris. We took lots of pictures and then walked all the way back down the stairs and made our way to the Eiffel tower. Our legs were pretty much about to fall off at this point but we made it somehow! The line for the elevators to the top of the tower looked really long which was very discouraging to me but the lights on the Eiffel tower turned on right when we were underneath it so that made it better! The line took about 45 minutes and we had to go through metal detectors which were unexpected. Mitch got yelled at by the security guys in French because he had like everything in his pockets but they let him on so obviously security isn’t very tight. I don’t think any of us expected the elevator ride to take as long as it did. I didn’t think Teagan was going to make it because she was very nervous about the height aspect but we all made it! I don’t think cold is a good enough word to describe the temperature on top of the tower. The wind was so strong that it felt like my camera would be taken out of my hands. But as soon as we walked to the other side of the platform at the top the wind was not that strong so it was much better. Once again we took lots of pictures, took in the views and had a really good time.  I am glad we got to thee top at night because we were able to see a really different view of the city and it was beautiful. We rode back down on the elevator and immediately went to find a crepe guy selling crepes on the street as was recommended to us by Taylor. Teagan and I had nutella strawberry crepes and Mitch had an egg one and a strawberry nutella one. We ate our warm crepes in the cold and watched the light show on the Eiffel tower. It was perfect. Then it started to rain, and then suddenly it was pouring. We still had to make the long walk back to our hostel. Naturally I started panicking as I usually do. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes but by that point I realized just how long our walk back was going to be. So we walked and walked and walked forever. It took us 2.5 hour to get back to our hostel. OH did I mention that a bus drove by us and a title wave of water hit us? So we were all soaking wet when we got back but we put on dry clothes and collapsed after our 16 hour day. The next morning we were able to sleep until 9 which was glorious. We went out to breakfast at a really awesome French cafe thing. I don’t think they spoke very much English so we had to mime some things and do a lot of pointing but we got hot chocolate, coffee (Mitch) baguettes croissants and orange juice. It was all so good we just couldn’t stop saying OMG this is so good! I think it was the best hot chocolate that I have ever had. I didn’t want to drink it all...but I did! After breakfast we got souvenirs at a train station, checked out of our hostel, wandered around the ark by our hostel, got a taxi and went back too  thee airport. We had such a great time in Paris it’s hard to fit it all into one blog post. It was hard to say goodbye to Teagan again but I am so excited to see her and others in Edinburgh and Rome in a few weeks!!

ALLONS-Y

Last weekend we ventured to Cardiff Bay to go to the Doctor Who
Experience and Studio Tour! Step one was finding the right bus stop.
Since we have not gone on any of the city buses yet this was not as
easy as you may think. We got to the street with all of the bus stops
on it and had to find the HV bus stop. We walked around every bus stop
like a bunch of dopes and eventually figured out that our bus stop was
on the other side of the street, so we an across and found our stop.
We had to ask the bus driver how much it was and he just looked at me
at first and then told me and started driving before we even bought
our tickets so we could have not even had any money but i think there
is something wrong with bus drivers here. So we got dropped off in
front of the Doctor Who Experience, went in, found out we missed our
time, got a new time, waited around for a while and then we made our
way to the TARDIS!! I didn't expect to actually get into the BBC
studios but we got our visitor passes and got into the studio! They
showed us around the studio and told us what was filmed there and when
they use the TARDIS that we were going to go in. It turned out to be
the TARDIS that they are currently using so we couldn't touch it or
anything but i got to take lots of pictures and geek out completely
about being in the TARDIS. It was cool to imagine all of the different
actors and actresses that had been in the very same place that i was
when they were actually filming one of my favorite shows. It was also
kind of odd to see it in real life because it is just a set piece so
the outside of it is just plywood and support beams. However it was
still an amazing thing to see! We then left the studio and made our
way to the Experience. During the experience we were brought into many
different rooms and received "calls" from the Doctor telling us that
he was trapped and we needed to help him. So we got to feel like we
were in one of the episodes, Daleks chasing us, weeping angels coming
after us and a 3D space battle to top it off! It was awesome. We then
got to see all of the costumes and props and monsters used in the
show. I was especially excited during this part because it felt like
the actors where there with us and the monsters could come to life any
second. After we saw all of the things to see we made a quick spin
through the gift shop, got a bite to eat and made our way back to the
bus stop. Overall this was a very successful day trip, we had a great
time at the Doctor Who Experience and cant wait for our next studio
tour at the Warner Bros Studios in December!!

Dublin Lovin

About a week ago Mitch and I went on our first adventure outside out the U.K. to see our friends in Dublin, Ireland! We got to the train station around 5 pm and were sitting on the bench just waiting for the train to come and take us to the airport. We noticed that the train we were supposed to take wasn’t listed on any of the departure boards so we decided to check the online tickets. Well it turns out I can’t do math…big surprise…and the ticket actually said 16:09 which I thought was 5:09. So after this horrific discovery I leapt off of the bus bench and ran down to the ticket booth. The man at the ticket counter looked a little bit afraid as I charged up to the counter and demanded to know when the next train to Bristol was, but he hesitantly gave me the information that I needed and we were able to catch a train out to Bristol and we finally got started on our journey! We had to ask a lot of people for help but we found our way and got to the airport an hour before our flight took off. As we waited in the airport we saw a plane come into the gate near us and I realized that our plane was probably going to be one of those planes where you have to walk outside to get on it like you see in movies. This got me pretty excited because I have never walked on or off a plane like that before so it was just cool. Apparently with the airline we were flying on you don’t get assigned seats and you just pick whatever seats you want so luckily we were able to get two seats next to each other. Now im not sure how many of you have ever flown on Ryanair before but they sure do try to get you to buy a lot of stuff. As soon as we got on the plane they were offering us raffle tickets and magazines and they were selling all kinds of food and drinks on the plane. Obviously all over priced so we didn’t buy anything. This went on for the entire flight and I was surprised when we landed because I hardly noticed being on a plane with all of the selling going on. So we waltzed right off the plane and into Ireland, hopped on a bus and went to find our friends! Luckily there was Wifi on the bus because my phone was not letting me contact them to let them know that I had landed. So after sending out a desperate plea for help on facebook they got my message and we were able to meet them at the bus stop! Many hugs later and we were on our way to their apartment to put our stuff down and catch up. So we stayed up until around 2 am just talking and laughing until we realized that we wanted to get up early and we would actually need to get sleep in order to do that. So Nicole, Olivia and Laura showed us into their apartment where we would be staying for the weekend. The next morning we went out to eat at a cute little café called Queen of Tarts and we had some really good scones! My favorite! We then got to explore all around the city of Dublin, see all of their favorite places and learn some of the history of the area. It was really interesting to see how similar Cardiff and Dublin are. Both are very Urban but at the same time they have parks and very friendly communities. I really enjoyed seeing all of the street performers because it reminded me of Burlington so much. The only thing that was missing was Chair Guy. He’s great. So we got to see all of the cool shops and restaurants in the area as well as St. Stephan’s Green which was super pretty. Well aside from the fact that we almost died a very tragic pigeon death. Teagan, our fearless tour guide, thoughtfully avoided the masses of people blocking one path and took us down a different pat along the pond thing. Little did we know that it was slam jammed packed with pigeons. I really don’t know what’s with the pigeons here but they just fly right atcha. The other day I was just walking and I swear a pigeon almost landed on my head. I think it actually touched my hair. So anyway we had to make our way through the pigeons all over the path and we got stuck behind the SLOWEST moving woman who really appeared to enjoy the pigeons. Meanwhile all of us were whimpering and just making panicked noises as we crept through the pigeon mass. I think by the time we made it past the slow woman we were all running as fast as we could away from the horrible pigeons. I never knew that I was afraid of pigeons but I guess when you get real close to something like that you learn a lot about your self real fast. So before…after….I think this might be out of order but im going with it. At SOME POINT we got milkshakes. They were heavenly. I got a Galaxy caramel chocolate bar flavored one and for those of you who have never had a galaxy bar….you need to. Best chocolate bar out there. Hands down. So after walking just about everywhere in Dublin we were kinda tired. So we went back to the apartment and Mitch and I tried to plan as many of our trips as we could so we could try to meet our friends in other countries. This was a very long and stressful process but knowing that we will be able to tour some pretty awesome cities with our friends is well worth the stress. After doing all of this it was already dinner time. We eventually settled on a place to eat after asking around and internet searching. I believe the place that we ate at was called Porterhouse and it was awesome. We all walked in and were a little confused because it just looked like a bar, no tables or anywhere to eat really. A waiter eventually noticed our confusion and asked us if we needed help. After informing him that we had a reservation he took us to our table upstairs (The place was huge!) and we were able to start our dining experience. And what an experience it was…we made structures out of the coasters, took weird pictures that blinded us and just drew to much attention to ourselves in general. The food was absolutely delicious at the restaurant. I got a really good burger and we all split a piece of cheesecake and a Belgian waffle with ice cream for dessert. SO GOOD. After dinner we made our way back to the apartment to watch Pitch Perfect. Oh, and I got to take a bath which was awesome. I am a total bath person and living with my pod shower just wasn’t working too great. So I finally felt like a real human again after my bath and was ready to just relax and finish up our plans for our trips while watching our movie. The next morning we went out to breakfast at a really cool place called Bewley’s. We were all super excited about getting pancakes because we hadn’t had them in so long but when our orders came we soon realized they were not the same pancakes we were used to at home but they were still very good and overall the restaurant was another winner! After breakfast we were a little rushed getting to the bus stop to take us back to the airport.  However once we got there we realized we were a little early and had time to chat before we had to say goodbye. Once we saw the bus coming we started to say our goodbyes until we hear “Last call for the airbus” so we turned to get on the bus. Well apparently the bus driver woke up on the wrong side of the bed..or the floor because he was not pleasant. He shut the door in our faces and started to drive away. Well let me tell you what, I was not having any of that so I put my had on the door and held up our ticket. He did the mime for talking back at me..you know the one with your hand like the N’SYNC “Bye bye bye” lyrics. So he eventually opened the door and was like “yap yap yapping away..” I didn’t say anything in response I just got on the bus and found a seat. As the bus started to drive away we sadly waved goodbye to our friends and got together all of our stuff that we needed for the airport. Eventually the grumpy driver announced that we were at terminal 2. Not knowing what terminal we were supposed to be at we just read the signs and figured out that it was not the one we wanted so we just stayed on the bus until the next stop. Well mr. grump pot decided not to announce this terminal so the next thing we heard was “Are you going to stay on my bus forever?” Now we were completely flustered and it didn’t help that some woman kept asking us what terminal was and wouldn’t accept the fact that we didn’t know which one it was either. I stood up to get off of the bus while simultaneously trying to zip up my backpack and I guess I missed the dip in the floor which turned out to be a random set of stairs leading to the bus bathroom and I just totally fell all the way down the stairs. The very insistent woman was just like “OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” I just said yes and rushed off the bus, said thank you to the very grumpy driver and limped into the airport. We got our tickets stamped, went through security and waited to board the plane home. After a plane ride, bur ride, train ride, bus ride and another train ride we made it back to Cardiff! It was such a great weekend and I cant thank my friends enough for showing us around the city!! First big trip=SUCCESS! More to come soon! Oh also, the crossing lights make weird noises. That is all.