Arrived in Frankfurt

We are in Frankfurt. First step of our journey lies behind us and I'm really tired. The flight was good, we had some breakfast on board. It was way better than the breakfast Economy got. I wanted to relax during the flight but even before we got in the air the woman next to me fell asleep and was snoring, really loud! I even heard it with my music on! That wasn't really relaxing and it wasn't helping with falling asleep. I must admit I was a bit jealous because she could sleep everywhere, obviously. Maybe I get a little sleep on the long flight after I had my champagne of course. Champagne at 10 am. That's what I'm talking about (although I don't like champagne). 1 hour 40minutes to our departure and 13 more hours to get to San Francisco. Plus the time we need to get thru security and the drive to Santa Cruz. We still got some way ahead of us. But it's going to be a great vacation!
Next update comes from California.

not enough sleep

It's almost time. At 5 something is our first flight to Frankfurt and I couldn't sleep. My cats were sleeping right next to my legs so I couldn't move a bit. I slept an hour maybe two but thats it. Not a lot. I hope I can sleep when I'm on the plane. Really excited. I still got to back some stuff for the plane. Like my laptop and a few other things but than I'm ready to go! Back to America. I'm excited and can't wait. 19 more hours or something like that and I'm there. Countdown started!
So I'm going to get ready and wait for the Taxi to pick us up. California here we come!

The journey in a few pictures

Ok I tried to put the pictures in the entrys but that would be kinda weird. Random pictures in some text. So I'm going to put some pictures up here. Lets start with Tuesday and the Free-Walking Tour. One of the first stops was the Dublin Castle where there were some sand sculpteres. Impressiv!

 A giant head! I think it looks really great! It is really impressiv what you can build out of sand!

A human heart!? I thought it was one of the coolest things I ever saw! There were two more sand sculptreres in the middle of Dublin castle. But these two were the best for me.












I'm not really good with taking pictures. And my camera is not really good. Most of the pictures are not good. The next stop (on the next day) was the Archeology Museum.

And they had some dead bodies (I'm not posting the pictures of those if you want to see them you can ask me), a skelleton, gold stuff and bone carvings which I found pretty cool. In Galway is even a class you can take to carve your own jewlery from cow bone. I guess it is a thing I'm going to do next time I'm over there.









That was in the Guinness Storehouse. It was away to demonstrate that you need a lot of water to brew Guinness. It was cool. And I like the green light in this picture.

 And finally Galway! It is a bench with Oscar Wilde and another author. I forgot which one it was! It was a great day and I sat almost on his lap.

 Spanish Arch right at Galway Bay of course with two musicians. Street artist are everywhere in Ireland and I love it!

This is the river in Galway Corrib. I think it is just beautiful. And some more information about Galway. Land: 50,8 km² (where I live: 58,1 km²), Population: 75.414 (74.574).
 So it is almost the same but Galway is way better! I love the city!
I got some more pictures but most of them not good. If you want to see some more pictures just ask!

Back home

We made it. We are back in Germany. Yesterday we had to get up at 4 am to catch the plane but of course I was awake at 3 am. And I couldn't fall asleep because two guys in our room were snoring (really really loud) and one girl was talking in her sleep (she said 'That's an Irish Men'). Even with earplugs I could hear them snoring. So no more sleep for me. But I don't need sleep! I can go all night long (at least in Ireland) I waited for my alarm to go off before I woke Joana up so we could get ready. We paked our stuff the night before so we got our things to leave the room. We did't want to disturb the other people. We took a Taxi to get to the airport for 25 € including tips but we were a little disappointed because our tourguide from the Free-Walking Tour told us about Taxis in Dublin. He told us that Taxi driver in Dublin tell you either some bullshit or they share some wisdom with you. But our Taxi Driver did neither. We just learned when the flight from New York arrives in Dublin every morning. Thats it. But it was really early (around 4:30) so maybe he was tired or he thought we were tired. I don't know. At the Airport we asked a guy where the security is and instead of answering he first asked us where we were going and he asked us if we had some room for him because he wanted to come too. It was kinda funny. You gotta love irish people! The flight was good and way better than the crappy Airline we took to Dublin. We arrived safley in Frankfurt. It is a huge Airport so we had to ask twice how to get to the Central Station! The tickets to use the public transportation were really expansive. 4,25 € for one way? That's a lot! We arrived at the central station. Because we both were really hungry we started looking for a place to eat. We wanted some Vietnamese food (I LOVE Vietnamese food) but Google Maps showed us places too far away. Once we were out of the station we almost immidiatley saw a vietnamese place. Thank you Google Maps for not helping! We ate there. We ate both Vegetarian phở even though it was not on the menu but I asked and he said it wouldn't be a problem. Really nice! The soup was Ok not as good as in Hamburg but that was fine. I didn't expect that anyway. We had a couple more hours to kill so we walked a little around looking for an ATM but we only found some where we had to pay 3,99€ to get some money. Without any money, water or food we wanted to take the Bus home to Hamburg (it is an 6:45 hour drive). The Bus came from Zurich and we just sat down (we did buy some food and water and paid with debit card). I tried to sleep and it did work a little. The bus journey is not really interesting. We arrived safley in Hamburg and agreed on how beautiful the city is! I love coming home to Hamburg because I see the city with other eyes. My mom picked us up from the Central Station in Hamburg (I was a little, maybe a little more, bitchy) and she took us home.

For me the vacation in Ireland was great! I love the country even more now (if that is even possible) and the people there. We met really nice people I will never forget. I'm not going to see most of them again but I will remember them for the rest of my life! I had lots of fun and learned a lot. It was great speaking English the whole time especially because people told me that I make hardly any mistakes and I have a slight american accent. I love hearing that :). I would love to use more English. But I get my next chance in 6 weeks because I'm going to California. Can't wait for that. More English!

For the future of this Blog: Like I said the blog is going to be my travel blog. Everything about travelling is coming up here. When I plan my next trip I'm going to write more entrys and when I'm on my next trip (in 6 weeks CA) you can hear everything about it right here. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. And it is a good thing for me because I can revisit my travels now in my Blog.
See you soon with the next enry! The pictures will be up soon (hopefully today or tomorrow)
Life long and Prosper!

Hurling

So yeah today was the Hurling Semi-finale. Clare vs. Limmerick. But before I get started on the game review (because thats going to happen) I'll tell you what happened. We walked around because the game was supposed to start at 3 pm. We walked somewhere we haven't been before. It seemed to be the asian part of the city. Less tourists everywhere and asian restaurants. Even a Vietnamese place so we decided to get some Vietnamese Soup. I was curious how the Vietnamese Noddle Soup is in Dublin. We took the soup to got and sat down at a playground. A lot of Asian (most of them vietnamese) women were there with their children. They played hide and seek and stuff like that. It was really cute. So we sat down and started eating. I have to say I like the Vietnamese Soup in Hamburg better. But it was fine. After that we walked around again because we had a lot of time left (we had no idea that there was already a game on: Limmerick vs. Galway Galway won YEAH). We sat a while at the river across from Forbidden Planet a Comicshop. I really wanted to go there so we did. I prefer my comic dealer in Germany! It is the best shop I've been to and I tried a couple. It was almost three so we decided to go back to the Poets Corner to watch the game. But the Clare/Limmerick game wasn't on till 3:30.  We saw the last 20 minutes of the Limmerick Galway game which was pretty cool and than the second game was on. Hurling is a nice, sometimes brutal, chaotic game. I don't get all the rules but it is fun to watch because a lot is happening. In the game Clare vs. Limmerick was a lot of fighting going on. I guess the players didn't like each other or something like that. They were hitting each other witch their Hurleys and stuff. Some players got injured. But it was still a good game. Did you know (probably not) that in the beginning of the game (1400 B.C) it was OK to kill? I had no clue but a couple days ago Ciaràn told us. And today I saw that it is good that killing is forbidden. Sometimes during the game it seemed like the player hated each other. But maybe that is totally normal in that game?
If you never watched a Hurling game you should watch at least 10 minutes. It is way more fun to watch than football/soccer. 7 years ago I watched some Hurling games and I liked it back than and I still like it.

Tomorrow our journey back home starts. I don't want to go but I really want to go back to my cats. We have to get up at 4 am and take a Taxi to the Airport. A two hour flight to Frankfurt 4 hours waiting in Frankfurt and 6 hours bus drive back home. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm going to be exhausted but maybe I can sleep on the bus this time. That would be nice. There is going to be another entry tomorrow night or Tuesday with a summery about our way home and a short conclusion. And the next journey is in 7 weeks so it will start again. Maybe I will update the blog sometimes inbetween. There is always stuff about travelling. I'm defintley going to continue this blog and it will be a travel blog and stay that way. I hope you like it :)

Saturday

There is not much to tell about yesterday because nothing really happened. We had something planned but in the end we did something else. But that was fine, too. It all started in the basement of our Hostel where I can use my laptop to write this blog and stuff. I only wanted to do a little online. Like checking my e-mail account and facebook massage but than Ryan came so we sat down here talking. Later a woman (Clown, Storyteller, Childrenbook Author, Teacher) from California joined us and told us weird and fun storys of her and her daughters life. It was really fun to hear all the different storys and it was great to meet an author because thats what I want to be. She thought it was cool that I already wrote one childrenbook and one Youth book and I thought maybe I could learn something. So we sat in the Basement for a long time. A couple hours but some of us got really hungry and we went to eat in a Pub. There was a Football game on the TV nothing really important. After that I wanted to buy myself a Hoodie and a T-Shirt and a T-Shirt for my brother as a suprise. I hope he likes it! I have the same in a smaller size and different colour. Hope he doesn't mind otherwise I have to wear both of them. Ryan, Joana and I sat in a Park for a while and it started to rain (we had a lot of luck with the weather here) while everyone was getting up sitting somewhere dry we just stayed where we were. It was just a little rain no reason to move. Ryan had to catch his flight (and he was pretty tired) so we went back to the Hostel where he had put his stuff in our locker. In the end we walked with him to the Busstop and waited with him. (Waiting alone sucks) Joana and I wanted to go out one last time because tomorrow we have to get up really early. This time we went to a different Pub. Called 'Poets Corner' the name is great and it was really nice there. Some live music and more irish people which I liked. We had a Guinness and went back to the hostel. That was the day yesterday. Today we are going to watch Hurlin in the Poets Corner and we have to pack our stuff, get ready for tomorrow. Maybe we will walk around one more time take some last pictures (we have some really good ones I think) and then go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long long day!

Guinness Storehouse & Galway

So first of all I decided to change the language to English. And now... Where should I begin. A lot happened since my last entry. So we went to the Guinness Storehouse. We walked there from our Hostel and it was pouring. It was the first time we had 'bad' weather since we arrived and it was pouring the whole way. We walked about 30 to 45 minutes. And I only wore flip flops. Not the best ideas I ever had. But we arrived safely not dry and walked right in (of course we got our tickets first) we learned a little about Guinness (did you know that there is water in Guinness?). On the top floor we got a free guinness but it was so crowded and I asked a couple if we could join them. They said yes and we started talking. Maybe you can guess which question was the first one. Where are you from... It was an older couple from Australia and really nice. We drank our Guinness and talked. I don't remember what we were talking about but it was a lot and really funny! They left after they finished their beer and we kept standing on the top floor with this beautiful wet view over the city. The couple told us about the Guinness Acadamy where you get a certificate for pouring your beer and they recommended it. After we finished our beer we went back downstairs to do that. My Guinness was delicious. Possibly the best Guinness I ever had! While we were sitting there and had our second beer two guys came up and asked us if they could join us. Of course they could and after a while we started talking with Ciaràn and Oliver. Two really nice teachers. Ciaràn from Cork and Oliver from France. We kept talking for a long time in the Storehouse and then they asked us if we would like to join them for something to eat. I had so much fun so I wanted to go and we went to a vegetarian restaurant somewhere in the city. It was really good and we kept talking and talking about everything! After the restaurant a pub came. We wanted to go to bed early but that wouldn't work out I knew that. But we went to a pub with them. Had some Guinness and a Whiskey from Cork. It was a really fun night. They took us to the hostel with a taxi. We were back at the hostel around 1. The bus we originally wanted to take was going at 8 am so we had to get up early. We decided that my inner clock would make the decision. I didn't set an alarm but when I am awake at 7 we would go. And of course I was awake at 7. I was awake at 5 and 6. We got ready but we knew we wouldn't make the bus at 8 so we had a breakfast got some money and took the bus at 9. It was a long drive and I fell almost asleep a couple times. Around 12:30 we arrived at the Busstop in Galway and I immediatly knew where we were and where we should go but we got a map. Just in case. We had something to eat and then wandered around the city. We saw the Museum, the bay, the St. Nicholas Church and (for me the second time) the cathedral. But this time the cathedral was more beautiful than last time. So impressiv. We decided to go back to the bus because we had no Idea when the busses are going, got Ice Cream on the way and walked back thru the city. We had 20 minutes left so we sat down in the park close to the busstation. The whole day it was beautiful with sun shining and everything but when we got ready to leave it started raining. Just a little bit. The weather was mirroring my feelings because I didn't want to leave the city. In the beginning I was scared. What if the city is different than I remember? What if my memories are not correct and I made it better in my imagination? But there was no reason. I still love the city. Maybe even more now because I saw way more! I definetley want to go back. And this time I'm not waiting 7 years to go back. Maybe next year? I would love that. But Cork, Limmerick and Kilkenny are also on my list of cities I want to visit. I am already sad when I think about leaving on monday but I miss my babys and I will come back.
So far we have no real plans for our last two days. On sunday is a Hurling game we are going to watch (at least part of it) but other than that? We will see.