Nice

ok, so i'm caught up on all my posts. i wish i could have gotten them up when i was in the cities. i'm now sitting in our hostel and it's pouring outside. the rest of the group went to a matise museum but i'm not feeling that well so i'm just resting in the hostel and they are meeting me back here for dinner. we bought grocerys to make barritos. the grocery is within walking distance from here so we just walked. do you see a trend on this trip. we've walked a lot! but it's a good way to see it all. i'm going to catch up on few emails now and grab a nap before dinner.

Barcalona

we took a night train from paris to barcalona. it was cool cause i fell asleep after we watched the dog town and the z.boys documentry and woke up in barcalona. it was pretty hot here. except for the last day it rained. we took advantage of the sun and hit the beach. our hostel was only a 15 minute walk to the beach. it was great. we just layed out and swam all day. it felt good to relax. we'd been packing in so many musemus and walking that i was tired and barcalona came at a perfect time to relax. we went to gaudi's cathedral. it was an amazing piece of work. started in the 1800's he worked on it for 40 years until his death. he was killed by a bus infront of it while admiring it. go figure. the crazy thing is they are still constructing it. it has really ornate mosaic features and the stone just drips off the building. we waited in line for about an hour to climb about 300 stairs. not just any stairs these spiraled the entire way in a width of about 5 feet. it was a bit scary at times. my legs were shaking on the way down because sometimes i wouldn't be able to see the step because light was pouring in the tiny windows and my eyes didn't adjust in time. but i'm glad i went up. it was worth seeing. the food was really good in spain. best i've had all trip. pizza, chinese and an all you can eat buffet. that was great. i'd defiently go back to barcalona.

Paris

Bonjour Paris. i loved paris. it was my favorie city so far. i really wish my girlfriend were with me in this city. i miss her. paris was great. i was in charge of this city. we all took a city to pick what to do and be in charge of research. i studied french for 4 years so i could get around okay. it was fun to speak a different language and actually communicate. we did a lot in paris. when we arrived we went from the train station to a travel agency who set us up with a hotel! yay! not a hostel. it wasn't bad. had our own showers and a nice balcony. the weather was great all 3 days. we first went to the eiffel tower at night after a nice dinner. it was amazing to see the real thing in person! the lights go off every hour for 15 minutes and everyone oooohhsss and awwwwassss when they first start. the next day we went to the louvre almost all day. it was great. i got to see all the famous pieces like the mona lisa and the venus de milo. it was amazing. i never thought i'd actually see this in person. we also went to the centre pompidu. this museum was a trip for me. they had an exibit going on all about graphic design today which was great for all of us. it really sparked my mind and i got a lot of ideas. i wish i had written them down cause i forget most of them now. but it was really inspiring to see modern art displayed so well. we went back to the eiffel tower and went up it this time during the day. it was crazy high. you could see all of paris which is a huge city from the top. at the top it told you how far away you were form every country in the world. i can't really describe the feeling up there. it's just high. it almost looks like your in an airplane close to the ground. the people were really nice to us in paris. most people had preconcieved notions about paris but this city was so diverse i didn't feel out of place. i just tried to speak french and people were nice. paris is my new favorie city and i want to take my girl back there.

London

I was really looking foward to london and it didn't disapoint. we got in around 10 i guess and took a train to the notting hill area. we were meeting up with brian stone, one of my design instructors for carnival. canival is the third largest in the world behind trenadad and brazil. it was crazy. it was just a celebration of life. floats, music, people, beer...everything. we walked about a mile and a half or so to get to the carvinal from where we were staying. the first day we were there for about 3 hours and the next day for about 6 or so. we tried to contact brian but we couldn't reach him. we finally got an email from him and we met him for dinner and drinks. he was in a really good mood and we at at this bar/grill downtown. one night we went out downtown to go to a club. it was monday night so there weren't that many people out. it was an ok night. london at night is really cool. all the lights and busses. it reminds me of nyc only with double decker busses instead of cabs. the people in london were nice to us. they told us it was usually way more crowded but because of the attacks most people moved away and people weren't coming into the city. kind of like sep. 11 in nyc. there were still a lot of people i can't imagine what the traffic would be like this time last year. we went and saw big ben, the tower of london and the eye all in one day. also buckingham palace. it was a huge area to cover but they were all relatively close to one another so we just walked it. london was one of my favorite cities so far.

Dublin

ok: i'll go in order of the cities. so we started off in dublin. flew all night from chicago to dublin. it was not a bad flight at all. only 6 hours. i slept most of the way. the food was pretty bad though. last time i came over the food was better. it was some sort of chicken pasta. getting into dublin was rough. when we landed we filled out these cards that had our personal information on them to get into the country. and it asked for the address of where i was staying. so i put NA. don't ever do that. i almost didn't get into the country. the customs guy tore my head off asking why was i coming to his country without a place to stay. i explained to him we were traveling and staying in hostels and didn't have an address. he finally let me through after yelling at me. the rest of the group left this question blank. now i know what to do next time. geez! thought i was being thorough. so dublin was great once i got in the country. we asked an old man on the bus where the address of the hostel was were staying at. he was so nice he got off the bus with us and walked us there. dublin was a quaint town. a river runs through the middle of it with cool bridges between the two roads. we went to the guinness factory. awesome display graphics and information graphics. had a pint of guinness at the gravity bar. it was the best view of dublin! 360 degrees. one night we went out to the tempel bar district. this is where everyone goes in dublin. i mean everyone. it was so packed in the bars it took 30 minutes to get a pint. but we had a great time. they played mostly american and british music all night. i remember queen, lenny kravitz and weezer. as the night went on and everone became more drunk the entire bar was singing these songs. the last night in dublin i didn't go out because we had to be up at 6 to catoh our flight to london.