in search of craic and cheese.

Hey guys -

So yeah, I missed a couple 3:46s in the last couple days. I do have a picture of me on the plane from Dublin to JFK, but I can’t find my camera. Now that I’m home (oh, did I mention I’m home!?) everything is a mess, and I have yet to tackle the cleaning. Then I was going to take another yesterday but I was taking a nap. This jet lag is killing me - I got up at 6 am yesterday … by choice! Unbelievable.

Anyway, it’s been fun. It was a crazy 5 months. It’s hard to remind myself that I was gone at all, which is a really odd feeling. But then I’ll start craving tea or I’ll feel the shaved part of my head (did I tell you about that one?) and it’ll all come back to me. I can’t believe the time flew by so quickly. I wish I could do it all over again and remind myself to slow down and appreciate it more.

Only home for another 3 or 4 days, though, and then off to another adventure in Maine! The blog will be abandoned for a while, but maybe in a year or so when it’s time for another grand adventure, I’ll pull it out of retirement.

Thanks to everyone for reading/just looking at pictures/sending love and support. Hope you enjoyed the show!

Love,
Megan

So I’ve returned to Ireland! Let me just tell you what I did on June 14th, and then maybe you can find it in your heart(s) to forgive me for missing the 3:46 picture. At 1:30 am (Spain time) I got on a bus in Bilbao, Spain for Madrid. I arrived at the Madrid airport at about 6:15 am, where I checked in and then had lots of time to hang out. The Madrid airport is not very easy to sleep in (no padded seats, no seats without armrests) but I set up camp on the tile floor for a few hours and wasn’t bothered at all. At about 11:30 am, I started to worry that my departure gate hadn’t been posted yet. I walked from the H-gates section to the K-gates section, back to the H-gates section, got on a bus to get to the plane, got on the plane, and flew to Dublin. Then I went through immigration (they’ve stamped my passport saying that I must be out of the country by June 17th, so hopefully all goes well with the flight home), got my bag, got on the city bus to O’Connell St. from the airport (which takes 45 minutes), and met Benny (from my study abroad program) on O’Connell. We then walked about 30 minutes to the apartment where Benny is staying for the summer. At some point in this mess of walking and sweating and being sore from sleeping on the floor, the 3:46 opportunity passed me by. So sorry about that one. Only a couple more days until I’m home (in fact, by the time this posts I probably will already be home)!

Sleeping on the floor in the Madrid Airport, waiting and waiting for my flight back to Dublin. Yes, I was so bored that I started taking self-timer pictures of myself on the floor.

Almost 4 pm, June 13, finishing up an excellent lunch. I’m sorry, but at 3:46 I was way too distracted by the delicious food I was eating (two courses! and dessert!) to remember to take a picture.

We went to this church near Bilbao that has 216 stairs leading up to it. We’re visiting Michelle’s friend here, and he really liked the big fancy camera I have so he just held onto it all day. So today he helped us make up for the lack of pictures of the two of us from this trip. This is us before we climbed the deathly stairs!

3:46, June 12, on a train from Barcelona to Bilbao. Last stop on the Grand European Adventure before I return to Ireland!!

3:46, June 11, making the long trek up to Parque Güell, which is just a really cool park in Barcelona.

Free tour in Barcelona!!! We love the free tours. We did one in Rome and then we did one here. This was our guide, who was (of course) very energetic and friendly and entertaining. And it didn’t rain at all on Saturday!!

A view of Barcelona from the giant hill that our hostel is on. It’s a really annoying trek from the center of the city, but it’s on the metro and it’s a really cool place so it’s not that bad. But every time we come back, tired from the day, we have to conquer these stairs.

There’s also a chocolate museum in Barcelona, so of course we went. Just read this little blurb, please, and then you’ll understand why I’ve decided I’m moving to Switzerland.

3:46, June 10, hiding from the rain in H&M. Today in Barcelona, it POURED. We can handle a bit of rain, but there was a continuous downpour from the time we left our hostel around 10:30 am, until around 5 pm. This was pretty unfortunate, as we were supposed to be perusing the city and doing a walking tour. We were “forced” to spend much of the day shopping on the big pedestrian-popular street in Barcelona. We do this kind of shopping a lot - hopping from one tourist store to the next. Unfortunately, in Barcelona (we didn’t encounter this anywhere else), there are about 8 people working in each tiny store and they follow you around and say “do you want anything?” “what can I find for you?” If you touch something, it’s “which one do you like?” “what size do you need?” It’s ridiculously annoying. So instead, we retreated to the familiar H&M to hide out from the rain for a while. And that’s where I was at 3:46.

And now we’re in Barcelona! And we went to see La Sagrada Familia, this big famous church in the city that was designed by Gaudi, a hugely famous architect. This is a picture from inside the church, looking up at the ceiling. The poles (there is surely a more architecturally correct word for that) holding up the ceiling are designed to look like trees, with the tops like leaves with spaces between them to let the light in.

3:46, June 9, a view out the window of the place we were staying in Toulouse.

OK this time I actually did forget … but I can tell you I was on a train from Marseille to Toulouse! Probably reading (a book that I finished and was rather disappointed by) or listening to the ipod … or possibly watching a movie on the computer with Michelle. Who knows.

I will admit that I was perfectly aware of the time at 3:46, just way too lazy to get out my camera. And come on, how many pictures of us on trains do you really need to see?