So we left 40 degree Dublin and after spending a night in Rome we got on a plane to go to Malaga Spain which at our time of arrival was about 75 degrees and sunny. We did a lot of relaxing during our stay as we frequented the beaches during a majority of the day. Apparently 75 degrees wasn’t warm enough for the Spaniards to go to the beach as it was mostly bare for the first couple days, however when the weather heated up to around 80 and 85 the beach began to get filled with swimmers, joggers, and exhibitionists. It was a rather lazy vacation as we spent most of the time on the beach and walking through the streets and one day as we were walking in the streets we ran into the Picasso museum, being that it was only 4 euro and we really had nothing else to do we decided to check it out. I was very unimpressed with Picasso, however I thought Picasso lived in like the 16th century and completely unaware that he died like 40 years ago. But anyway I know sometimes people look at famous pieces of art and can claim that they can draw them and most of the time this is not the case but I am pretty confident I can draw what Picasso did, I have no idea why he’s famous let alone me knowing who he actually is. The food and citizens of Malaga were all very pleasant and it was definitely an enjoyable stay. Also, there were 2 for 1 Big Macs at all the McDonald’s in Spain as they celebrated their 25th anniversary of the introduction of Big Mac’s to the Spanish World.


Next Stop: London, this weekend

After another visit to Assisi for a field trip in one of my classes, Guy, Mike, and I headed to Dublin for the weekend. Dublin, although not as green as I had envisioned, basically lived up to what my expectations of Dublin to be. We missed the parade by a day, but on Saturday night Ireland played England in Rugby’s version of the Super Bowl, this only intensified the drinking that the Irish partook in. Ireland eventually was victorious due to what appeared to be something equivalent to a last second field goal, but the win insured Saturday night would be crazy in the streets and bars of Dublin. Every bar we went in was packed and that says something because similar to pizzerias on every block in Perugia, there are pubs on every block in Dublin. We decided to go check out the most famous part of Dublin, the Temple Bar area. The area was named after the first bar located there, Temple Bar. With the big win against England and it being St. Patrick’s Day weekend every bar; probably about 20 in a 3-block radius were packed. These bars were unlike any American bar that I had read about in books or seen on TV. These bars were basically buildings, three stories high and encompassed probably about 10 different rooms, each room in which had it’s own bar. Being that I was in Dublin, and the drink of course is Guinness, I decided to try one even though I was never a real big fan but being I was in Ireland I had to. Before I went to Dublin I had told my teacher where I was going and he said that even if I didn’t like Guinness I was to try one because they taste different in Ireland then anywhere else you can drink one. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that to me and everyone else that had one, Guinness was actually a lot better in Ireland (it was a lot lighter and didn’t overwhelmingly taste like coffee). Another thing we were told before we went was that the Irish don’t like tourists coming to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. I’m not sure what this person was talking about because the Irish were extremely friendly and social with us, I was a big fan of the Irish. The Irish acted exactly how I would envision the Irish to act. For instance I was walking by a group of guys and I heard one of them go in an Irish accent, “Cheers to Drinking!” this was followed by the rest of the group repeating that cheers. As I walked back to the table I said to myself, “The Irish would cheers to that.” After getting a late start on Saturday we decided to head down to the Guinness factory to see how Guinness is made. Although I was a little disappointed to see that Guinness wasn’t actually brewed there I did learn some interesting facts such as there is one pub for every 150 people in Ireland. What made the factory worthwhile to me was the skybar at the top of the factory with glass walls all around it enabling you to get a good view of the surrounding city while drinking your complimentary pint of Guinness. After a similar night of barhopping and sightseeing on Sunday we headed to Malaga Spain for spring break.

Ok so I haven't really updated my blog with any pictures or eloquent passages but I haven't really done anything too extraordinary, just lived the daily life of a Perugian. However, in the next month will travel endlessly to all corners of the EU. In the next 21 days I will travel to Dublin for St. Patricks Day, Malagaga (beach in Southern Spain) as well as other coastal towns in Spain for spring break. I choose malaga not for the beaches or the sand bars but rather because it was the birthplace of Picasso. After Malaga I will be headed to London and the following weekend Amsterdam. So over the next month there will be many more pictures and more exciting posts to come.

Interesting fact about Perugia, in 100 years spanning parts of the 13th and 14th century 4 popes were killed in Perugia. Three by poisoning and one due to a surfeit of eels(?) not sure what that means but there ya go.

Picture of us in Paris I just found.

Here is a couple pictures from carnivale in venice with some creepy individuals and the other is of the duomo in florence, which looked really fake but it wasn't. Also in the one picture you can see Guy trying to make up for the fact that he was wearing a girl's mask by drinking wine straight from the bottle. I however began my lenten promise early and decided to pass on the libations for the weekend.











I was going into carnivale expecting an Italian version of mardi gras, but that is not what I got. Carnivale was much more sophisticated and mature then I had hoped, but it was still enjoyable being in Venice. Our hotel was on an island, Lido, which was about a 15 minture boat ride from Venice so it made for some interesting rides home at night. Apparently, people in Lido are not very fond of foreigners as many hostess' claimed we'd have to wait 15 mintues to be seated while there were several empty tables not being used, but you'll have that eventually. We contimplated going on a gondola however it was about 25 degrees and it would have cost us about 35 euro. This weekend I will appease my mother and I will attempt to conserve my money and not travel this weekend, I believe the first weekend since I have been here that I have not gone anywhere on the weekend. We have some big weekends coming up as I plan on going to Dublin for St. Patty's day then hopefully either spain or greece for spring break, who knows where I'll venture next. I may wake up tomorrow and decide to go to milan tomorrow, well see.