Anna's Travels!

For those of you that don't know, Anna is traveling with a friend in Europe for a month. This came today and although it is long, I thought you might enjoy it. Especially the part about Glenda. As her mother, I just shake my head and hope for a safe return.

Patti

"Hey Everyone,
I suppose I should probably update before I get even further behind!
We are now in Madrid, Spain. The last time I wrote to most of you was
from Cork, so I´ll try and bring you up to speed. Do be warned this
will most likely get long (there really is no "short" version of
Glenda...). So I apologize. The important information is that we are
alive and will be in Madrid for 3 nights (with a day trip to Toledo),
and will move on to Barcelona on Thursday and Nice, France Friday for
the weekend before we head to Italy on Monday. And for those who
really care, Italy will be followed by Hungary, Austria, Germany,
Switzerland and Paris (did I lose you yet????) Needless to say, we are
having a great time.
Now for the Cork/Dublin/Santander Spain update....
We spent Tuesday-Thursday in Cork, Ireland before traveling back to
Dublin for Thursday night - Sunday. On Wednesday we took a bus from
Cork to visit the town of Blarney and kiss the Blarney stone. Despite
the rain, we explored every nook of the castle, managed to kiss the
stone (if you haven´t heard about this, they have you lay down and
lower your upper half of your body down to kiss the stone. Of course,
at this point you are at the top of the castle, and the only thing
below you is the grass on the ground. I wouldn´t recommend it if you
aren´t a fan of heights. But it was awesome). We decided to ignore the
rain and go explore the castle grounds which were beautiful (and do I
have to add very very green or is that just assumed since it is
Ireland after all???) The rest of our time in Cork was spent wandering
the streets to see various sights, getting lost trying to find those
sights and in the process seeing others. We adjusted to the getting
lost part of this trip, and have managed to do so several times a day.
Carl handles the worrying aspect of not knowing where we are and I
wander along figuring he´ll get us where we need to go eventually.
After all, no sense both of us worrying:)
Now for Dublin. Have I mentioned it rains a lot in Ireland? We saw the
sun briefly one evening in Cork when it cleared up in time for the
sunset. Otherwise, rain, rain and more rain (according to the locals,
this is the most rain they have had in years). So we weren´t surprised
when we returned to Dublin and it was still raining. We had a few
vague directions to take bus 10 to a church in Donnybrook to get to
where we were staying. Now it is 12:30 and we were hoping to be there
at 1:00 to get the key from Glenda. It took us about an hour to find
bus 10 from the station and as we road it we managed to miss our stop
past the church (there was more than 1 church passed on this route
btw...) so we found a phone in the middle of nowhere and called Glenda
for more specific directions. Sure enough, we had passed the church by
3 stops, so we picked up our packs and trekked back up the road in the
rain about 2 hours late... Now before I get into details about Glenda,
I should give you a few more details on how we connected with her.
Glenda was found on couchsurfing.com. A sight where people who are
willing to host travelers for free post their information. Carl sent
her an email and she gave us the OK to stay. All we knew is her home
is attached to a church, and that she wants to be a film director....
We managed to find her home, and knocked ready for just about
anything. She greeted us and ushered us into the kitchen for tea and
muffins. And the first thing we noticed was all the stuff. Books,
papers, bikes, boxes, clothing etc. covering everything, and piled
high to the ceiling. We talked with Glenda, trying not to make eye
contact with one another (since we knew we would start laughing) as we
drank the tea and eat the muffins she kept giving us as we slowly took
in our surroundings. She then took us for the tour, in which we saw
even more stuff. I tried to capture it with my camera later, but the
pictures don´t even do it justice! We were showed our beds located, as
promised, in the church. The church was freezing and we were
completely surrounded by STUFF! We quickly ditched our packs and
headed out, where once on the street we could only laugh. We tried to
stay out as long as possible walking the streets of Dublin, but since
we got little sleep the night before we headed in around 10, hoping
for a quiet escape to our beds. Glenda was still up and introduced us
to her partner Peter (who Carl and I both agreed is smoking something
other than just cigarettes!). She talked us into joining them in
watching the film Metropolis with more tea and muffins of course. We
gave in and managed to watch part of the film before we finally
escaped for bed. Now, at this point we can barely stop laughing. The
film is a silent film with every few scenes having the words of what
the actors are saying flashed. So basically you take a guess at what
is happening or just make up your own story line. We froze through the
night and hit the streets until dark the next day, walking all over
Dublin on Friday. We also met up with a friend of Carl´s grandpa´s who
took us out for drinks and pizza before we headed off to see the end
20minutes of a rugby game. While we would have liked to see more of
the game, who could pass up four free beers and pizza? Not to mention
he insisted I take his bottle of Coors light that he got for free with
me in the car to drink at the game. "That´s what pants are for, to
hide beer" he kept saying.
Glenda was asleep by the time we returned from the game so we luckily
didn´t have to finish Metropolis that night. Saturday we walked along
the Cliffs of Howth, saw the National Museum of Ireland and walked all
over Phoenix park which was gorgeous! And of course to make everything
better, it was actually sunny all day. When we returned to Glenda we
were introduced to the 4 new couch surfers she was hosting. She then
showed us her film she just finished, which of course was a horror
film dealing with an American Tourist who needed a place to stay and
came across her home (of course it wasn´t her in the film but her
house was used). And of course, the family the traveler was staying
with were serial killers, killing the people who stayed there. And to
make it even more funny, the place they stayed was in the same church
and beds that Carl and I were sleeping on. Needless to say by 2:45am
Sunday morning we were ready to say goodbye to Dublin and Glenda´s. We
made our way to the airport and caught our 6:00AM flight to Santander
Spain, where the beaches and mountains awaited us.
Now for Santander. Pretty uneventful in terms of seeing things. We
stayed in our cheapest hostel yet that we stumbled upon. It was
literally on the beach, so the view was amazing! We walked around a
bit to see everything on Monday and spent Tuesday morning sitting on
the beach enjoying the view. I won´t go into too much detail on
getting lost in Santander, but lets just say we went to the same
tourist station twice in less then 2 hours, during which we were given
a total of four maps.... I think the guy was trying to tell us that we
should actually consider using maps for a change....
And now, today (Tuesday) we left Santander for Madrid, and continue to
expand our Spanish vocabulary (we are maybe up to 10 words between the
two of us???).
I wish I could send you pictures of Glenda´s, but those will have to
wait a month. And of course I know it is also one of those "you have
to be there" moments, but hopefully it gives you somewhat of an idea
of our adventures thus far.
So that is a very very long update and I must go get to bed.
Keep in touch!
Anna"