Spring Break: VENICE

So I spent my two week long spring break mostly in Italy, and made my way over to Barcelona. For blogs sake, Ill just post city by city, otherwise Ill be on my computer for hours :) 

I decided to fly out to Italy a day later than the other four girls that I was traveling with, mostly due to a huge amount of schoolwork due when I returned, but also because a flight on Tuesday to Milan was about 50 euro less expensive, plus other kids from U of I were flying early that morning as well. When we fly to Italy, we've found it easiest to fly into Milan Linate and take a train from there. So thats what I did on my way to Venice. Some people stayed an extra night in Milan to go to an M83 concert, but I'd rather see Venice. The Milan trainstation is definitely one of the biggest in the country, and I would definitely compare it to Grand Central in NY or a Union station on steroids. 

Trenitalia is the largest train company in Italy, operation high speed trains to basically every city in the country. A train ticket from Milan to Venice ran about 9 euro, however my ticket from Florence to Rome was about 29 euro. It all depends on when you book it, I wish I had taken pictures inside the trains, they are super nice.

When I got to Italy, our hostel was really close to the train station, so meeting up with the girls was no problem at all. Venice is a very touristy area, so there was no real language barrier, as most people in the city spoke english. Looking back, the only place I really encountered a language barrier was Verona, since it is definitely a smaller city.

Our first night in Venice, we walked around and found our friend Catherine from Dublin, who was also staying in the city that night. We made our way to San Marco Square, which at night was absolutely breathtaking. Getting lost in Venice is pretty much unavoidable, since street signs sometimes are just graffiti on a wall.

We went out to dinner on the Grand Canal, the largest canal of water running through Venice, and our waiter told us of this bar to go to, one of the most popular among tourists. We said sure. This place was awesome. Posing as an Irish pub, this place had notecards plastered all over the walls of the place, signed and decorated by tourists from all over the world, writing their sorority/fraternity letters, school names and mascots, or just quirky sayings. I made two.

Waking up the next morning in Venice was beautiful. Italy just makes you into a morning person, since most places close for siesta around noon anyways. We walked around, trying to take the city in as much as possible. we were really only there for a day, in which you wan literally see the whole city. However i could have spent a week there if I was able. We insisted that we went back to San Marco, since most of our pictures didnt turn out so great the night before in the dark.

After that, we made our way over to the Rialto Bridge, probably the most famous landmark in the city. Its a bridge that is in essence a street, with stores alone the edges of it, crossing over the Grand Canal.

We missed Carneval by a couple weeks, however masks from the festival are definitely the best souvenir to purchase on the island. They are the most beautiful things and are EVERYWHERE.

My favorite part of Venice were all the side streets and canals. Gondolas floating through the waterways everywhere, some of the most beautiful places were the places not crowded by tourists and photographers.

Venice gave me my first taste of Italian food...my favorites:

Gelato. It is everywhere and comes in every flavor. over time, you can tell real authentic gelato by simply looking at it. We learned that the Gelatarias that said "authentico" in fact, were not. Of course, my favorite was coffee, with a scoop of hazelnut. But once I tried pistachio and some fruity mixes as well. You can't go wrong.

Pizza. Everyone kept on telling me that pizza was everywhere in Italy. They weren't kidding. In one day, I truly ate pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a good day. Pizza was nothing like back home. They literally cook it in front of you, making the wait very long, but the laid back atmosphere was one of the things I loved about Italy, and is everywhere, even in Rome.

I feel like my Italy blog posts are all pictures, but really I spent my entire time there trying to soak everything in, literally tripped over myself hundreds of times, looking up at everything there was to see. The small city charm of Venice was one of a kind, and was unique to any other city we visited.  

Illinois Invades Ireland

So much has happened since my last post! Since I was not able to make it back to Ireland for St Patrick's day, we made the best of what we could with unofficial. Turns out, everyone wanted to visit Dublin for U of I's unofficial. Over 60 people flew into the city for our very own festivities pub crawl. People not on our pub crawl probably thought we were silly Americans celebrating two weeks early...but hey we had fun and did Illinois proud. 

We made breakfast in true unofficial fashion, granted the boys made it, so it was mostly just sausage and bacon .

After breakfast, we made our way into Temple Bar, and overflowed the area with masses of college kids in green. Kids flew in from Italy, Spain, Austria and who knows where else.

Pub crawl aside, it was awesome getting to see everyone from Illinois for a weekend. Ryan came in on Wednesday and stayed until Sunday morning. Everyone went on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher, but I had to stay back and get caught up on homework before I left for Italy the next morning.  

Shopping in Dublin

There are tons of places for good shopping in Dublin, so I've decided to create a post dedicated to specifically that. Most shops and malls are open until around dinner time, so if you have a full day of browsing planned, we've learned to do so early in the day. Sometimes, stores don't even open on Sundays. 

Grafton Street:

This is definitely one of the first places we strolled through when we arrived here. Grafton Street is Dublin's liveliest pedestrian shopping mall. It is a couple blocks in length and spans from Trinity College and St. Stephen's Green. Nestled inside the alleyways is also the Powerscourt Shopping Centre, filling a converted Georgian mansion. At the end of Grafton Street lies St. Stephen's Green Shopping Centre, which is basically an american mall, complete with a grocery store in its basement. The shopping centre is iconic, with its glass domed roof towering over the city. 

Henry Street:

My personal favorite place for shopping is north of the Liffey, near the Spire, right off of O'Connell Street. Henry Street is full of the most popular (affordable) shops, such as Forever 21 and Penney's. It is also pedestrian-only. 

Millennium Walk:

Also north of the Liffey, this is the span of O'Connell Street extending from the river up to the Spire itself. Curiously enough, before the 1980's, this area north of the river was very dangerous, and definitely was not known for shopping or tourism. Since then, the Spire was constructed, statues were placed to commemorate the nation's most famous legends, and nowadays O'Connell Street is bustling with tourists. 

Along Millennium Walk, you will pass the Daniel O'Connell Statue, the man known as "the liberator", for founding the Catholic Association and demanding Irish Catholic rights in the British Parliament. 

Further down the street lies another monument to James Larkin, founder of the Irish Transport Worker's Union. The original statue that used to stand in that spot, one of the British hero of Tralfagar Admiral Horatio Nelson, was blown up in 1966, a contribution to a local celebration of the Easter Uprising's 50th anniversary. This one was put in its place years later. 

Street Markets:


Temple Bar Street Market: This is probably my favorite market, I usually try to stop by every Saturday morning. Lining all the cobblestone streets with food and other vendors, we wander for an hour or so, trying oh so many free samples! My favorite are the crepes, nutella here is gold, add strawberries and bananas, and I'm one happy camper. 


Moore Street Market: The Moore Street market boasts so much history. Most of its vendors have been working the same stalls for over 30 years. This market is unique in that it's very popular during the week, whereas most other markets pride themselves on their weekend turnout. 

Museums, Libraries and Cathedrals

This weekend was a couple days full of adventures around Dublin. We were planning on going on a trip to Trim Castle, but we missed the signup due to lack of internet in London last weekend. Oh well, another trip for another free weekend. On friday, I went to the National Museum of Ireland- Archaeology and History.

The museum shows treasures of Ireland ranging from the Stone Age up to modern times. The museum boasts of its broaches, chalices, and other examples of Celtic metalwork. The most famous work in the museum is the Cross of Cong, which we actually learned about in our Irish history course here.

     

  

Furthermore, I also toured Dublin Castle, which hosts state dinners, foreign dignitaries, as well as all of Ireland’s important inaugurations. Built on the spot of the first Viking fortress, this castle was the seat of English rule in Ireland for 700 years. It is located at the cross of the Poddle and Liffey rivers, giving the city its name after the black pool that resulted from their intersection, dubh linn in Irish. I touched on this place a little when I first got here, posted pictures of its courtyard.

I had no idea what I was walking into when I got there. I thought it was just a medieval castle, similar to the other ones that I have gone through. Instead, it is very elegant and used for the events stated above. It was very cool and was built around 1230. Most of the original castle is gone but a few parts still stand strong! Wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, however here's the gardens behind the castle. Looks a bit like the quad at U of I?

Directly on the Duhb Linn Gardens (shown above) behind Dublin Castle is the Chest Beatty Library. Chester Beatty was a rich American mining engineer who retired in Ireland in 1950. He left his priceless eclectic collection to Ireland as a charitable trust.

My travel book boasts on its "small collection", but I'd beg to differ. The top floor focused on great religions of the world, displaying Islam Calligraphy and Asian Christian manuscripts. The bottom floor is an exhibit dedicated to "the written word", showing off books carved out of jade, ornate snuff bottles, and even the oldest surviving copy of St. Paul's letter to the Romans, dating back to 180 A.D. 

Next on my own mini-tour of Dublin, I stopped by Dublin City Hall, the very first Georgian building in the city. City hall overlooks Dame street, which is the southern border of the Temple Bar district. When you step inside, under the grand rotunda, there are paintings telling the city's history surrounding a lovely statue of Daniel O'Connell, the liberator of Catholics in Ireland in the 1800's.

After City Hall, we stumbled across Christ Church Cathedral. Sadly, it was closed for tours for some reason or another, but we still got to read some plaques and circle the outside. Christ Church occupies the same site as the first wooden church built on the spot in Viking times by King Sitric. The church boasts its having the tomb of the Norman warlord Strongbow, another man we've learned about in our Irish History course, famous for leading the thin edge of the English military that dominated Ireland for centuries. 

Now onto some more things that I have learned during my stay in Ireland:

• All of the Guinness in America is not from Ireland. It is made in the Czech Republic. Perhaps that’s why people say the Guinness in Dublin is the best in the world. Also ironic that the Irish drink American beer (Coors, Budweiser, Miller Genuine Draft) and the Americans here drink Irish beer (Guinness and Smithwick’s) 

• J-walking in Dublin is more of an art than a science. But it’s a necessary art, because you would never be able to walk around the city without it. It’s funny because they have paint on the street telling you which way to look but plenty of people still screw it up. It’s not very hard: just look both ways and be quick. 

• While the Irish speak English, there is definitely a language barrier at certain points. Sometimes it’s hard for me to simply understand the accent while other times I just simply don’t know what the words or phrases they say mean. But I’m learning… 

• I love having the tax included into everything. If a price tag says €5, you pay €5 but having coin money in denominations as high as 2€ stinks, you actually have to keep track of your coins. 

• Many people don’t think about mountains when they think of Dublin, but the Wicklow Mountains are just south of the city and can be seen from many places around the city and at UCD 

• 21 is also a big birthday year over here in addition to turning 18. The clubs here have age requirements that vary up to 21. So you can be 19, legal to drink, but not allowed to get into certain clubs on certain nights because you aren’t 21. So on their 21st, they celebrate 

• Irish girls wear way too much makeup and dress very scantily but Irish people can tell an American just by looking at their face, not even their clothes or listening to them speak. Also, Irish people say Americans have no taste in footwear