Oh My God, We Kilkenny-ed!

Anna, Emily, and I hopped in a rental car and started cruising (on the wrong side of the road...) around the country! First stop: Kilkenny.  It's a quaint little old town where Smithwick's Beer is brewed! 

It's a nice little town to explore, since you can find cool things like this really intriguing shop window:

...too bad the interior was much less curious than the name suggested...

Plus there were cool old churches and abbeys,

And Kilkenny castle! Which, by the way, had a charter of some sort on the wall of one of the rooms that had William & Mary on it! 

We found our way to an old church with a cemetery right as it started to rain. We took shelter in the vestibule outside the main door, which was beautiful.

Still smiling, despite the dreary, raining Irish weather!

After the rain cleared, we stumbled on the graves of the actual Smithwick family!

The things you find in Ireland....

Ireland Really Looks Like the Movies...

After the cruise, Emily and I spent a night in Bergamo, at the lovely little B&B I stayed in back in December. Then we hopped a flight to Dublin where we met up with Anna Hayden!! We were received, hosted, and fed by the wonderful Rob McDermott and Clara Burke. After an epic traditional Irish breakfast, we headed out to see some really Irish things on the outskirts of Dublin. Like castles:

And coastal hillsides

No joke. There are some cool cliffs in Ireland.

Even Islands!

We hung out at a port for a while. There were boats there that were fun to photograph :)

Old boats too

Thus started a trend of me taking photos of old boats in Ireland...

and boat paraphernalia.

Good start to our week in Ireland!

Islands Are Pretty

Time for island hopping! First, Palma, the largest city on the island of Mallorca, Spain. 

A pretty great view greeted us when we got off the ship:

We checked out some old Turkish Baths. There was a lovely garden outside

Then we walked all over the city, found some cool things

And of course made our way to the beautiful beach

Beach hats!

After some peaceful swimming and a good bit of sunburn, we hopped back on the boat and sailed through the night to Corsica!

They have pretty things there too. Like flowers,

Pretty girls (oh wait, we brought her), and impressive views...

Everybody look left:

Everybody look right:

I found myself a little grassy spot in the shade (shielding my sunburn) and sat and read for a while. 

Doesn't get much better than that :)

The Coolest Church You'll Ever See

After pirating around Genova, Operation: RELAXAFTERACRAZYYEAR commenced as Emily and I hopped on a cruise ship out of Savona for a few days of island-/port-hopping and unlimited drinks ;)

First stop: Barcelona!

Let me just say, Barcelona is awesome. Really. 

Right off the boat we ran into a cool metal art thing. So out came the camera!

We stumbled on a massive covered open-air market which was full of stands selling pure fruit juices. They were delicious:

 

Barcelona was home to Antoni Gaudi, an incredible and fascinating architect. this was a house he designed (and I think lived in for a while). The line was too long to go inside, but the outside is pretty great:

Next, the Sagrada Familia. Ho. Ly. Shit. This church is cool.

There was construction covering most of the outside so I didn't get a good shot of it, but in the bottom portion you can see a bunch of scenes from Jesus's life/death in jagged sculpture.

But the inside...

(no words necessary...)

Spiral staircase? Yes please. 

pretty...

We exited on the other side, which was a completely different esthetic from the front, and showed images from Jesus's birth. This soldier caught my eye. Just, you know, killin babies..

Due to limited port-time, we had to cut our sight-seeing short, in favor of obligatory Tapas and Sangria.

Note: in Barcelona, the tapas plates are much bigger than tapas plates we have in the U.S. An afternoon snack turned out to be a very filling dinner. Totally worth it.

Barcelona, I'll be back!

Pirating in Genova!

After a long year of grad school and an exhausting 5 weeks in circus school, I was more than ready for vacation. Luckily my good friend Emily Rossi was willing to accompany me on some exciting travels. More than that, she's a real business-person-adult and got us a discount on a hotel. A REAL HOTEL. 

And that hotel had the most amazing breakfast.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. In addition to fruit, delicious bread, several kinds of delicious cheese, smoked salmon sausages, pastries, and mimosas, they had bacon. REAL BACON. I was so excited I had to start the post with that, even though it actually came after the next to photos (tricky me!)

We arrived in Genova in the evening, checked into our hotel, then wandered the streets getting a feel for the city and looking for dinner. It was strikingly deserted. Apparently Sunday nights aren't to hopping there. After staying close on several dark and empty streets, both large and small, we finally stumbled on a perfect, truly-Italian, neighborhood restaurant, and ate in peace and company. Then we ventured back out into deserted alleys and found our way to the port (which is very much like many American port areas - think Baltimore, but more Italian).

The port area was lovely and filled with large pieces of odd art. Like this tunnel.

Surprisingly, the sketchy, empty-street portion of our evening was finished well before this sketchy picture was taken.

Things got creepier/more awesome when we found THIS SHIP:

 Clearly we'd be returning in the daylight!

Then next morning, after the aforementioned amazing breakfast, we checked out what the hotel had to offer. Of course the roof provided lovely views of the city.

But clearly the most important feature of this hotel was the place that trained us for our inevitable return to the pirate ship we'd found the previous evening: PIRATE SHIP PLAYGROUND:

No seriously, it was really cool.

Emily tried to pull the ship.

It didn't turn out too well for her

After we felt sufficiently pirate-trained, we took to the streets again, finding them much more lively than before.

I don't know what these buildings are, but they're pretty.

Not half as awesome as the TIRE AND TRASH DINOSAUR

Right?!

Then we checked out Christopher Columbus's house. Because that's what you do in Genova, apparently.

However, rather than paying the 12 euro to tour the inside, we opted to pay the 5 euro it cost to climb around on the PIRATE SHIP!

You would have too. I mean seriously, there were a whole clan of guys like this dude on the outside...

and gigantic anchors inside!

And of course lots of ropes, masts, cannons, and all that. I started playing with camera settings

I like the way these two turned out :)

There were some really cool details all around the ship. I wish I knew more about the history of it. But I was more interested in playing and seeing all the awesome things.

and Emily...um...had a good time.