Spring Break in Spain takes place over Semana Santa, the week before Easter. They have processions in all the big cities and various ceremonies and other festivities surrounding Easter and although I wanted to see what it was like in Spain I decided to travel on my days off from school. My first stop was Dublin, I arrived on Thursday night and stayed until Sunday night, from there I went to London through Wednesday, I spent Thursday in Luxembourg and then Friday and Saturday in Brussels before flying back to Spain.
Dublin was a lot of fun and I definitely enjoyed the city, I booked my weekend there with a student travel organization called Bus2Alps which organized activities and the hostel for us, very helpful. I flew in midday Thursday and didn’t do much other than walk around a little that first night but I was in a room with five other girls who were all traveling alone as well so I got to meet them and hang out with them. Friday morning we got up pretty early and with the program went on a 2 hour walking tour of Dublin, the guide was really fun and we learned some Irish history. I usually try and do a free walking tour wherever I go because they teach you some interesting things and its always a good way to see the city. After the walking tour we went to an Irish pub/restaurant and I got the fish and chips; they were delicious! We had some free time after lunch to wander around a bit, we saw Grafton Street and St. Stephan’s Green (a little park) before we met back up with the program for the Guinness Storehouse tour. That was a really cool building, designed inside to look like a tall glass of beer with circular floors and a bar on the top with a lookout of Dublin. I liked the tour but I didn’t like the dark Guinness beer, way too strong for me. The tour took quite a while so after that we walked back to the hostel where we grabbed a quick dinner, nachos for me, and then the program offered a pub crawl. I didn’t do the pub crawl because I’m not really a bar or beer type of person and I knew I probably wouldn’t like being in a bunch of loud bars so while the girls I was hanging out with did that I went to a cat lounge across from the hostel. I paid like 10 euros to play with a bunch of cats for as long as I wanted, I stayed about an hour and a half. There were a lot of cats and all were super adorable, the cutest though was a little black kitten that was only 6 months old! I didn’t do anything after playing with cats, just went to bed since the next day was an early start.
Day 2 with the program was a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, both of which I really loved. The Cliffs of Moher were super cool and we got really lucky with the weather, it wasn’t even cold or windy as predicted. Our bus driver for the journey was really funny and told us a little about Ireland and told a lot of silly jokes, he even stopped at some bonus places for us to see and take pictures. We stopped at the Ardnacraa Well which is believed to be a portal to the underworld/after life and the cave around it is covered in pictures and gifts that people have left for their loved ones, some from hundreds of years ago. It was an interesting and unexpected stop. We also stopped really briefly at a lookout point for a few pictures which was nice of our driver to be so accommodating. While we were driving through some of the small towns on the way to Galway we got stuck behind some farmers herding their cows up the road. It was a funny traffic jam caused by cows! Once we reached Galway we went for lunch and once again I got fish and chips, what can I say they are delicious! We browsed some shops and walked the main streets, listening to the street performers before visiting the cathedral that oddly enough has a mosaic of JFK next to Jesus on one of the walls. Then it was a bus ride back to Dublin. That night I agreed to go to a pub with live music to get dinner and hang out for a bit, I got a salad and a beer for dinner but wasn’t really a fan of the beer (not a huge surprise for me there). The music at the bar was traditional Irish music and was interesting to hear and fun to see, but it was really loud and we couldn’t really talk or hear anything. We only stayed for a little bit before we went back to the hostel for the night.
The next day everyone left at different times but I got breakfast with two of the girls and went to see the Spire with one of them before she had to leave. The Spire is a pretty pointless landmark that the Irish built because at the time they had the money to do so and they wanted a tall building. It’s really just a big stick in the middle of a street with no real purpose. After my friend left I went to the National Leprechaun Museum which is a neat museum where they tell you the history of Leprechauns and some stories about them. I wandered around the Temple Bar area and saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Park before wandering aimlessly for lunch. Up to this point I hadn’t really had any issues with my anxiety but when I was looking for lunch for some reason I was really struggling to find somewhere that I wanted to go and because I was hungry I got frustrated, but I ended up finding a indoor market area with various stalls some with things to buy and others with food. I got a vegetable soup that was pretty good. From there I wandered around for a few more hours, looking in shops and walking around until I had to take the bus to the airport. My flight was meant to leave Dublin at 8:20 pm but ended up delayed until 9:45 and didn’t take off until a little past 10 which caused a bit of an issue for me since I flew into Southend Airport in London which is the furthest one from the city center. By the time we got there it was past 11 and the last bus and train to the city were gone meaning I had to take a taxi. Fortunately I was able to share with a group of college kids studying in London so the fare only ended up being 20 pounds versus the 120 pounds it would have been if I had taken a taxi alone. However the taxi dropped us off at a random place in the city because it was flat rate price and while I tried to take a bus from there every bus stop I found was out of service. I was a little upset and nervous and tired of trying to figure out the bus situation so I ended up taking an Uber to my hostel and it wasn’t too expensive. I got into my hostel pretty late and just went right to bed.
Monday morning started my London portion of the trip and with hostels there is no knowing who will end up in a room with you or how they will be and unlucky for me alarms started going off at 6:30 am and didn’t really stop until 9 am when I got up. It was rough with not a lot of good sleep but I had a lot to pack into my days so I set out at 9:30 in the direction of Kings Cross hoping to find a breakfast place along the way. I was using my phone to look up places but wasn’t finding a lot and there were a lot of people on the streets which made me a bit stressed out and overwhelmed but I settled on a small restaurant and got some porridge and orange juice. After breakfast I went into the Kings Cross station to see the Harry Potter cart at platform 9 3/4 then took the tube to London Bridge. My GPS kept leading me in circles after I got off the tube and I was stressing out and annoyed but I saw the bridge that went to the HMS Belfast, a WWII ship. It was a cool ship and way bigger inside than it seemed from the outside but smelled awful everywhere on board so I didn’t spend a lot of time there before going to the Tower Bridge. I liked the Tower Bridge a lot, the museum part tells you about its creation and other interesting bridges around the world as well as lets you walk over a glass floor looking down on the road below. Then I went to the Tower of London. It was really interesting to read about all the animals the Kings used to keep there and how the citizens would come to see them and get attacked since they are wild dangerous animals. I saw the crowns and the old tower where they kept prisoners with carvings from the prisoners still on the walls. One of my friends from school in Granada was in London at the same time as me so I met up with him after the Tower of London and we went to Buckingham Palace and the Horse Garden Parade before we split up and I went to look at Westminster Abbey, the Parliament Building and what you could see of Big Ben. There wasn’t much of Big Ben to actually see, mostly just black scaffolding on all sides as it is being renovated. Then I met up with the girl I met in Dublin who studies in London. We went to a pub called the Rocket and I got mac and cheese which I was very excited about since its my favorite food and I hadn’t had it since I was home in the US for Christmas. We spent a long time just hanging out at the pub and talking, I’m really glad I got to meet her and was able to see her while I was in London. I went back to my hostel after the dinner and hung out for a little while before going to bed.
The same thing with alarms happened again my second morning but there was nothing I could do since it was a hostel and that’s just how it is. I got breakfast at a cafe around the corner from my hostel and got a really good warm banana bread topped with bananas, yogurt and honey, it was honestly one of the best things I ate all trip! Then I got the hop on hop off bus to the Churchill War Rooms and saw there was a huge line so I went inside the Westminster Abbey first, they are right around the corner from one another. The Westminster Abbey was really an amazing building and has incredible architecture inside but there are a lot of tombs and a lot in the floor that you are walking over which felt weird and disrespectful to me. Then I went back and waited in the very long line for the Churchill War Rooms and it was certainly worth the wait. It was cool to see where the war efforts were based and how everything was set up for all the people working with Churchill in WWII. The second part of the Museum is all about Churchill and his life which I really enjoyed and I learned a lot about him that I never would have learned otherwise. Afterwards I got back on the hop on hop off bus to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I didn’t go in the Cathedral but just saw in from the outside and walked over the millennium bridge to The Globe. The Globe was really neat to see and was constructed to be as similar to the original Shakespeare globe as possible including the open roof and thatched top. I stopped in the Tate Modern very quickly since it was right next door but only spent enough time inside to see one exhibition before going to the Shard. I really loved the Shard and think it was a better lookout of London than the London eye. The day I went was also really clear and you could see so much of the city. I really like city overlook points in general so it wasn’t a big surprise I enjoyed it. It was not very crowded and there is a bar at the top selling drinks and snacks which is a nice place to hang out for a bit and see the city. I was lucky enough that night that my old host sisters from when I was on exchange in New Zealand were available for dinner. They both work in London and met me at an Asian restaurant where we ate and caught up, it was great being able to see them after 4 years! The place we got dinner was in Piccadilly Circus so I wandered around that area a bit after dinner to check it out. It’s very Times Square-ish and has a small China town area. It was very busy and so many people with so much going on so after that I was worn out and went back to the hostel for the night.
My third and final day in London I got up early again and this time took the bus to the stop closest to the London Eye, I wanted to get there when it opened so I wouldn’t have to wait in a super long line, so I went to a cafe nearby to get breakfast while I waited for it to open. The cafe I chose was really good and I got an amazing Nutella and banana crepe. After breakfast I went to the London Eye and hardly had to wait in line which was perfect. The ticket included a 4D movie which was really good and the effects were very cool. Unfortunately the London Eye itself wasn’t that amazing and the views were not the best, it wasn’t high enough to see everything you can see from the Shard and the day I went it was raining so it was harder to see and pictures didn’t turn out that well, but it was still good to do and a must do London experience. It was getting close to lunch time so I took another bus to Camden Market, the bus ride was almost an hour but worth it. Camden Market was really cool and had lots of interesting shops and good food vendors, it was hard to decide where to eat but I picked a fish and chips place for my last London meal and resisted the urge to buy every cool thing that I saw. It was getting closer to the time I needed to get going to the airport but I took a quick bus to the British Museum since it was close to my hostel and free, so I went in pretty quickly and saw some of the highlights before getting back to my hostel to get my bags. From my hostel the metro was supposed to take me to a train station where I would be able to get a train to the airport but something was wrong with the tube tracks so I ended up having to walk about 25-30 minutes to the train station with my bags and that kinda sucked but since I left with plenty of time to spare I didn’t have anything to worry about. I made it to the airport with time to spare and flew to Luxembourg, where I met with my old high school Spanish teacher who is now living in Luxembourg. It was really great to be able to see her and have someone to show me around. She picked me up from the airport and we talked at her house for a few hours before everyone was tired and we went to bed.
I got to sleep in Thursday morning, until 9:30! It was the best night of sleep I got since the beginning of my trip. Once we were up we had a simple breakfast of toast and peanut butter, made some hummus and cucumber sandwiches and caught a bus then train into Luxembourg City, only about 20 minutes away. We walked through the old town of Luxembourg which was really cool and I didn’t know much about it before visiting so I wasn’t expecting the huge cliffs with caves in the side, it was really pretty and with a river running below the cliff it was very peaceful. There are not many people at all in Luxembourg and in the old town there was hardly anyone around, we walked up the hill to a lookout point and ate our sandwiches before going into the city center where the Dukes Palace is, we saw the changing of guards and went to a chocolate store/cafe across the street where the Duke is said to buy his chocolate. I got a spoon with dark mint chocolate and hot milk that you melt the chocolate in and turn into hot chocolate, that was very unique and really yummy. We also got a chocolate and caramel cake and an apple pie that were delicious! Afterwards we walked the main shopping streets, peaked into the main Cathedral and a smaller church, saw the WWII memorial but mainly we just talked and caught up. We spoke in Spanish pretty much the whole time and although it was hard it was really good practice and talking with her helped me gain some confidence in my Spanish speaking abilities. Around 5:30 Luis, her husband, picked us up and we drove back to their house where we hung out and talked more until we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The owner shook our hands when we walked in and greeted us in Italian which both my Spanish teacher and her husband were able to understand and speak a little of while I was completely lost. We ordered two pizzas and a salad to share, a four cheese and a veggie pizza, both were really good and the salad was interesting but good, it came with bread cracker type things with goat cheese and honey on top and those were really tasty. After dinner we didn’t really do anything just went back to the house, talked a little more while munching on chocolate, then went to bed.
Friday morning we got up early again, 7:30am, to get the train to the main station in Luxembourg where I had a train to Brussels. The train was only 3 hours and although I tried to sleep a bit it didn’t really work because I was too nervous I would somehow miss my stop even though I had set an alarm for 30 minutes before the train would reach my stop…oh well. Once I got to Brussels I just had a short walk to my hostel, dropped off my bags and my timing was perfect so that I was able to eat the sandwich Silvia was kind enough to make for me before the free walking tour met in the lobby. The tour was about 2 hours and went all over the main center of the city. It started in the Grand Place which had some of the most incredible buildings I have ever seen, old gothic architecture and just beautiful buildings. We saw the Manneken Pis, which is the statue of a little boy peeing, kinda of strange but it’s become a staple of Brussels. We walked through the Galerie de la Reine, an indoor shopping street, went past the old stock market exchange building, Brussels Park, The Royal Palace, Parliament, The Museum of Musical Instruments, the Royal Square and the Cathedral of St. Michael and St Gudula. All of the buildings, new and old were very interesting and I really liked the walk around the city and seeing everything there was to see. There are various Tin Tin murals and other cartoons through out and street performers, a great atmosphere. After the walking tour I went to one of the many waffle places for an amazing waffle covered with chocolate, strawberries and whipped cream. The fries in Belgium are also suppose to be really good so I went to a fries place as well, even though I don’t really like fries, I thought I would give them a try but they weren’t really my thing and I couldn’t eat the whole basket. I went back to the hostel after that and hung out the rest of the night.
My last real day of spring break I took the metro to the north of Brussels to see the Atomium which is the atom shaped building built originally for the world expo in the 1960’s. Inside at the very top is a lookout of Brussels and there isn’t a whole lot to see, its too far from the main city center to be able to see any of the main attractions but it gave a good view none the less. Then there are two floors with information about the structure itself and how it was built and another two floors with a temporary art exhibit by Magritte. The pieces were really cool and I was lucky the temporary exhibit was something that interested me. After the Atomium I went to Mini Europe that was right next door, Mini Europe is just a bunch of models of the various highlights in the countries of Europe, Big Ben, Eiffel Tour, Leaning Tower of Pisa. All the models were done with lots of details and most had a song or something moving to go along with it which made it more interactive and fun. Afterwards I took the metro back into the city and walked through the Royal Park before going to the central train station where I met with my Belgian friend I met in New Zealand. We walked around the city together and got a Belgian beer and talked. It was great being able to see her and I was glad she was able to come to the city to meet me. Once she left I went to the hostel to get my bags and took a train to the airport.
I flew from Brussels to London Heathrow and my phone was telling me various buses I could try to the hotel I was staying at near by and on the hotel booking page it told me the same buses so when I left the terminal I went to the bus area to wait for the bus but after waiting for a while and the time it was suppose to come had passed I realized it wasn’t coming. I was a bit stressed and annoyed that it never came but I went to the bus station near by and asked the worker about the bus I was looking for, she wasn’t very helpful and told me it should come but she doesn’t really know anything. On the papers I saw at the station it seemed like the bus I wanted wouldn’t be coming so I got on a different bus and asked the driver if it would go where I wanted and he said it would get me close enough to walk. However when I got off at the stop he told me it was a 35 minute walk and I wasn’t gonna do that at 11 pm so I called an Uber to take me to the hotel and since I was no longer at the airport it was much cheaper and not very far at all. I was annoyed about the bus situation but it didn’t really ruin anything, I checked into the hotel and although it was cheap and smelled like cigarettes in the hallway the room wasn’t bad. I had to get up at 7:30 am the next day and get a bus back to the airport and thankfully the bus actually showed up. The rest of my day Sunday was just the airplane ride from London to Madrid, where I some how ended up in first class which was amazing and I got a free breakfast of an omelet, croissant and fruit. Then the airplane from Madrid to Granada and last the bus from the airport home.
Breakfast on the plane back to Madrid
It was quite the journey and all the travel between countries was solo, which I am proud of myself for managing pretty well without many bumps in the road. I didn’t have any panic attacks during my trip which was great progress for me and although I had a few times where I was close to tears I was able to keep myself from completely losing control. Overall it was a great trip and I have no regrets.
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