Madrid or Barcelona?



Oldest restaurant in the world

A shot of the national berry

The city on water was Madrid, Spain! I was told about this little fact while doing my favorite kind of tour through a city, a  walking tour. The best kind. Madrid is a truly one of a kind of city full of great food, people, buildings, scenery and just everything. I was only in Madrid two days and I treasured every moment. The first day I did a walking tour and met about 10 other great people around my age and afterwards we all went out for tapas and sangria's. During the walking tour we offered a chance to take a shot. The shot see to the left is a type of alcohol made of the national berry and it's poured into a waffle shot glass coated in chocolate (who could say no). It didn't taste too bad and it's supposed to get rid of any demons inside of your body so at least I'm demon free! Spain is pretty superstitious and people have garlic hanging in all of the buildings. After the tour we went out for tapas and sangrias. I did not like the sangria so I happily gave it to someone else and the tapas would have been good had I not been such a picky eater! The tapas consisted of pieces of toasted bread like with brushetta and topped with various types of meats, there were fried dough balls with diced ham in it and then there was some chicken paella I'm sure there was more but every drink got about 1-2  nice sized plates of tapas and since there was 10 of us you can imagine the amount of food we were getting. I did try one of each but I was not a fan. Tapas is a huge thing in Spain so I think everyone should try it and its different everywhere! So many options! We were told to go to this chocolate place to try churros (yum) dipped in chocolate. I was so excited for this all day and I got there only to be sooooo disappointed. Maybe because I like cinnamon sugar on my churros. These were just fried pieces of bread that you dipped in some chocolate solution and it was very sad but the others seemed to enjoy it at least! I blame on me living on the border of mexico, I'm used to those.

The Town Hall in Madrid looks like a painting!

I just like that it's called super mercat

Madrid has some beautiful architecture and it is literally like the epitome of Spain to me. It was so beautiful and old that I couldn't help but fall in complete love with it. There were tons of cute little shops that I loved as well and it was truly wonderful, maybe one day I'll go back. I spent my days walking around and absorbing the Spanish influence and seeing all the sights I possibly could as well as playing on a playground with a few of my friends and it was a weird seesaw type deal that went high in the air and spun around at the same time, it was pretty great.

 

Sagrada Familia

The beach!

After my two days in Madrid I headed to Barcelona! I always hear so many great things about Barcelona and its always raved about. I spent 2 days here and the first day I just walked around a little bit and grabbed some dinner, I didn't arrive until later in the day about 11pm. It was surprisingly really busy on the street and full of people which made me feel a little bit more safe. My first day there I grabbed a map and found my way around the town. My hostel was close to many of Gaudis buildings and they were all really cool in person and I got to see Sagrada Familia and Casa Milo and a few other places, I can't think of their names at moment. I tend to write these posts while I'm travelling from one point to another which I'm doing now and this darn train keeps going through tunnels so I have to pop my ears literally every 30 seconds and I'm slowly going crazy. My second day in Barcelona I aimlessly walked around some more and went to the beach! I haven't been to a beach in 6 years? I was so happy to get there I literally sat about 6 inches from where the waves touched and I buried myself in the sand and it was wonderful, it was even sprinkling at some point and I would not give up. Nothing will ruin my beach time, its mine. I went to great restaurant the night before I left and the next day I was gone. I have to admit this though, I like Madrid so much more than Barcelona.

 

Now I'm on my way to a country that is said to be a pro with dough!

Live like a Parisian

The Eiffel Tower!

When I said I was rolling through the countryside I was working my way through France to Paris! I was there roughly 4 to 5 days, I'm pretty far in my trip now despite my blog posts being behind (can't blame me can you), so all of time kinda merges together into the days of the week being cities and countries. I can only tell the weekends by prices being more expensive!

     France was quite the experience and the host I had made it rather wonderful, we explored about on my first day getting there and walked along the river that runs through the city and went to a local bakery, it was a relaxing day. The second day her family who doesn't speak much English took me on a picnic which was wonderful and her brother and I were feeding swans until one of them hissed at me and I retreated back to the picnic blanket where then they chose to follow and hung around a little bit too close for comfort. I have come to the conclusion that geese and swans are equally mean. Later on that day I went to a good rock concert to support her best friends band and just hung around until around 1am. The next day her and her friend offered to bring me to the Renaissance festival and that was pretty cool, way better than the one in my state and it had so many cool actors, people and music it was truly wonderful! We spent the whole day there and the next day I was to head into heart of Paris for my touristic activities. The day I headed into Paris I was only in for about 6 hours and I really only got to see the Eiffel tower even though I wanted to do much more and I had a good dinner while in town. Turns out me not seeing everything was a good idea because a good friend of mine wants to revisit there with me within the next few years so it'll be great for both of us!

Photo of the Seine River

Photo from a cave we climbed
in France

    Now I know you're dying to hear about the food. Well basically for breakfast, lunch and dinner there is tons of sweets, my Nana would be so happy! Crêpes are truly great and they are so much for different than what you would get in the US. I tried a cheese platter and didn't like much of it, but also I hate cold cheese so if you love cheese obviously go to France because its everywhere. Another funny thing that is sold EVERYWHERE is waffles. They sell waffles with powdered sugar, with nutella or pretty much anything sweet, I saw no pancakes though! I did not try any wine while in France because I'm not much a drinker but to make up for it I ate extra crêpes and bakery delights. I have a new favorite sweet that I can't find anywhere else now and its truly heart breaking, my beloved pan au chocolat, the love of my life. Maybe I'll find some good ones in the US but I don't have my hopes too high. Needless to say everything in France is pretty much dessert, so if that's your favorite meal go there!

     I really did enjoy France even though I didn't get to see more but it was a good country and pretty fun to see, can't wait to go back and see more of it later on!

The next place I headed off to was a city on water and another city near by and I'm here to solve the never ending debate of which is better.

One of the only photos I have from the Renaissance Festival taken by my hosts friend!

 Onwards to place that is known for many things, pizza being one of them!

 

I am Irish?

Giraffes from the Zoo!

If the title doesn't tell you where I was next, I don't know what to tell you! Current writing this post coasting along the river of somewhere, very pretty. Well recently I was in Ireland! I left from the UK to Dublin by the railsail and it took me about 13ish hours. I took some trains from London to Wales to catch my ferry which I paid almost nothing for and it was just about the height of luxury. I made two friends along the way and we boarded the ferry anxiously thinking it was going to be rinky dink and well it was huge and great. After arriving in Dublin we settled in and went out for dinner.

 

Guinness Store House

Now for the fun stuff! My first day there I did a walking tour of the city which took about 3 hours and we experienced 3 seasons, winter, fall and summer. It was a great experience and I got to see Dublin Castle and some other great places and I learned where everything was which was useful in the days to come! The next day I ventured out on my own to the Dublin Zoo and Phoenix Park which was quite the experience and I remained trapped in the zoo for about 2 hours. After leaving the zoo I opted to walk around and after walked probably 2 miles found the Guinness Storehouse where you can tour it but I opted out because I didn't want to spend the €20. After finding my way back to the tram I made it back to the hostel where I planned what I would do next. In case you're wondering how I see what I see in all of my blog posts because I am great at getting lost, I do a free walking tour in every city and country that I go to because you see so much since they are not paid ahead of time you pay them what you feel they should be paid at the end of the tour which I really like and you get a really good insiders view because they show you what they think you should sew while you're in their city and they always give you really good recommendations as well.

The incredibly famous Temple bar and incredibly over-priced

     I'm operating on an open itinerary and pretty much doing whatever I want, whenever I want and staying as long as I want in every city or country. The next day I lounged around and did my classic shopping and hunting down my favorite drink Sprite, which I found. The day before I left I was moved rooms and ended up with 4 mates to hang out with, 2 of which were nice. We went out to eat and then resigned to a pub downstairs for live music and a beer. I'm definitely not much of a drinker (maybe because I'm 20, so its a no no in the US) but I tried a sip of everyone's beer and hated it all and resigned to having an Apple Orchard Cider beer which I didn't like but hated less than the others. I drank about a 1/4 of it and went back to the hostel. It was a great experience and now I have the excuse to say I had beer in Ireland and that's why I won't drink anywhere else! Ireland remained a temperature of around 60F and was just cloudy and basically I loved everything from the people to the weather to the food even though I experienced all 4 seasons in about 3 hours. Except Spanish food I ordered some and let's just say it was not Spanish food at all, or anything related to anything Spanish.

Photo of one of the bridges in Dublin,
this one is across from the Ha'Penny Bridge

Here's a good story I heard while I was in Ireland because in Irelands history something really awesome happens and then something terrible happens right after, however this isn't terrible, It's hilarious. Back in the 1990's Dublin submerged a giant clock to count down to the millennium in the Liffey River, great idea right? Nah. The clock stopped working and they had installed a huge plaque in the O'Connell bridge and had to remove the plaque. Well one day another plaque showed up in that spot and everyone wanted to know whose it was because the story it told wasn't true! It stated
'THIS PLAQUE COMMEMORATES
FR. PAT NOISE
ADVISOR TO PEADAR CLANCEY.
HE DIED UNDER SUSPICIOUS
CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN HIS
CARRIAGE PLUNGED INTO THE
LIFFEY ON AUGUST 10TH 1919.'
However this plaque tells an imaginary tale and after threatening to remove, two brothers came forth and claimed it was theirs in order to commemorate their late father and that was just oh so sweet so the authorities chose to leave it there. Way to have a heart Ireland!

 

Dublin Castle and Crypt underneath

So basically I would totally move to Dublin in a heart beat I love it so much there.


I anticipated leaving the next day around 10am but my plans backfired miserably and I ended up not leaving until about 6pm and I got lost and then it took me 36 hours to get to my next destination!

 

I am sure you are also wondering why the title is 'I am Irish' well while I was in Ireland my grandmother told me that part of my family is actually orginated from Ireland! How cool is that!?

Well my next vacation destination starts with a P!

Languid London

The guards practicing.

 

Big Ben!

 

The London Eye

 The title tells you a lot about where I was and how i felt about it and if you don't know the definition of languid you can go on ahead and look it up because it really shows that I didn't personally like London all that much. Anyhow, I landed in London around 6am and was out and about in the city by 8am. \it was dark and cloudy much like how I felt about the day I was there. I have to admit that I have never been overly excited or fascinated with the thought of going to London. So this will be a somewhat short post. I walked around the city for about 5-6 hours and pretty much saw everything in the city that I was interested in seeing and boy was I un-impressed. All the buildings are boring shades of pales and tans. They have no overly unique architecture or anything that called me name. The only two places that I enjoyed was Big Ben and Westminster Abby. I got some good photos and had the chance to see the guards practicing outside of Buckingham palace getting ready for the last time before the queen came out the next week. That is pretty much the extent of my London post and here are some of the photos!

It was a nice day!

 Here's a little hint at where I went to next!

 

Second Saga of South Africa

Part of my current view

Annabel the Cheetah

Here's the second part I've already told you guys was coming! In case you were wondering where I'm hiding out at I am currently riding a train along the countryside of some country somewhere in Europe and it is very beautiful and refreshing to be away from the city and airports. Now that I'm done bragging about how great my day is you might also notice my photos are not as wonderfully placed as usual and that's because I'm on my phone and I don't have a laptop to make them look pretty, if you're seeing this and they look pretty, I was able to get to a laptop! Anyway, Do you want to hear about the rest of my beloved Jo'burg? I'm sure you do. Here you go!

They have 11 white lions!

About three days before I flew out I decided to go to a Rhino and Lion Reserve! Talk about exciting, Rhions, Linos, and Ashley oh my! (I know I typed them wrong, its for fun, also I said it that way about 5 times every time I was tired I would say it wrong). So after about an hour Uber drive out of the city I got to the reserve at about 9amish and I'm glad the driver was so sweet because I didn't realize there was no walking around allowed on the grounds unless you were in a specific area because there are literally animals just roaming around everywhere from Rhinos, zebras to various breeds of antelope and large birds. So he drove me into the walking part of the reserve and happily dropped me off and even gave me his number so he could come back and pick me up and I just think he really wanted to stay and do the tour with me but after it all he said he would be going out there soon to see it.



4 of the lion cubs

One of the whacky leopards

I bought about a $7 ticket so I could get into 3 enclosures with baby big cats. The first one was a 3 year old cheetah and she was a cutie but I didn't want to bother her too much, the whole able to kill me in 60 seconds thing if I annoyed  her was too nerve wracking for me. I did kiss her head and take some selfies. The next enclosure was 3 baby leopards. 2 black ones and one spotted one and they were perfect. My host told me not to pick them up and stuff because its unnatural for them so I didn't but they did climb all over me. I was told I had 5 minutes in every enclosure but the lady showing me happily let me stay about 20 minutesish in each. As soon as I sat down they climbed ALL over me and jumped on my head and it was so wonderful. I did get a few scratches, but now when I get back home I can saw I was attacked by a leopard. How cool is that? The last enclosure was a lion enclosure with 4 cubs and they were already in a cute little pack and didn't trust me one bit until I started playing with an old soda bottle and slowly one by one they came to me. They would all be so interested in biting me and if they did you just lightly tap them on the nose. 'Hey look its little old me bopping a lion the nose, the king of the jungle. And I'm telling him to stop it'. It was a great experience. Now I'm going past the ocean, talk about beautiful. After disinfecting my wounds I went on to start the safari after getting chased by a stork and ground squirrel. The safari went one for about 3 hours and we were able to openly cruise through enclosures of Rhinos, Zebras, 11 White lions, 9 brown lions, some number of cheetahs and various other animals. The big cats had no interest in us because they see the truck we are in as a whole and know they'll lose if they try, however if you get out, yeah you're going to get eaten. There was some safari in South Africa where some lady thought the big lion rubbing against her window was trying to be friendly and she rolled down her window and was killed. Also Lions are the worst hunters. They only catch about 30% of things they hunt. So the safari was by far the best thing.



The 80 stairs at 45 degrees

Inside of the cave

After the safari I was interested in seeing the wonder cave! The Wonder cave is a part of a thing called the Cradle of Humankind where people believe we all originated from. Which is funny because one of the biggest themes in Africa is that everyone is African 'We are all African' is on a lot of paintings. Not saying I agree with it, just a little insight for you guys. The wonder cave is about 5-10 million years old and was pretty exciting to go into despite to scary elevator and 80 stairs at a 45 degree decline. We got told the story behind the cave and how it was used to mine for gold and how they think there could be more 'human' fossils down there but they start excavating and find something the government will take it over, so they stopped. Anyway it was dark and really cool and I didn't get to see any bats which sucks because I love bats but it was still cool. After climbing the stairs and almost dying I went home to take a shower and rest up for the days to come.

Oh Ashley, where could you possibly be now?

Well I am in or was in or somewhere in the United Kingdom!
 

Ashley & Jozi

Some local art work

Some signs outside of the market

I'm sure you just saw this title and thought 'Isn't she supposed to be backpacking across Europe by now?' Well truth is I probably am but these posts have to be spread out somehow and plus it gives me time to see everything and post afterwards or when I'm heading to bed or waiting around for whatever. You are also probably wondering what Jozi is. Well I was or still am in Johannesburg, South Africa! Johannesburg is a very diverse community and full of surprises around every corner. Johannesburg also goes by numerous names such as Johannesburg, Joburg, Jozi, J-burg and many others i'm sure I haven't heard of yet. I have to break this blog post up into two posts because I've done so much! I'm only here about a week and I have treasured every moment and embraced everything from the culture to the people. It's pretty exciting because this is a new continent for me, and even a new hemisphere! Which if you guessed it good job, means it's freezing here. Well not freezing but it's about 15C or around 50-60F which is insanely cold considering I come from the desert so i'm typing this now with very cold hands because I most certainly did not dress for winter at all.

 

Some wooden spoons



Soft stone figures

Soft stone bowls

Now on to the fun stuff! My first few days here my lovely host took me out for food and we went to some neighborhood markets that were absolutely delightful and I was able to purchase some souvenirs and just walk around and meet and greet people. We went to two markets that were near by each other I believe (I don't know where anything is), The first market was more artsy (which a lot of Jo-burg is) and had more food than the second market. We walked around the first one for a few hours and then moved onto the second one which I just adored. There was so much stuff to see from people cooking things, to selling items and even live music! It was so vibrant and I enjoyed every moment of it, too bad I arrived on a Sunday and we could only see it that day and I flight out on a Friday and it's only a weekend market. It was wonderful and one day I hope to come back here and see it again. Later on that day we went to another market that was more of a store, well it had a store front and on the second level there was roughly 20+ merchants selling their wares and i'm a pretty good bargainer so I got some killer deals. I bought some wooden items and went to the post office to ship them only to discover they have to be fumigated in order to be shipped? How about I just won't ship it. The underground shops were my favorite to shop in because they had everything from various hand crafted dishes, elephant hair jewelry, clothing, key-chains and pretty much a little bit of everything. One stall could have the same item as the next and they would be different prices such as a key-chain here can be 45 rand and across the market it could be 20 rand. Right now the exchange rate between the rand and US dollar is about 16 rand to every dollar.
 

Later on in the week I did a hop on - hop off bus tour which i'm sure you've seen or heard of by now. They are the big red buses with seats up top full of tourists going around town. It was pretty fun, of course I had to sit up top and I only put one head phone in my ear so I could still hear the city noises. It had about 7 stops from the apartheid museum, constitution hall, and few other places and I chose to go to the Gold Reef City and Theme Park. In case you didn't know the reason most stuff in Jo'burg revolves around gold and mining is because they are a mining town and that is pretty much how they started. They acutually tell you on the tour that they shouldn't even be a city because it is so inconviently placed 1700m above sea level one of the highest cities in Africa if not the world. So the theme park had old mining equipment placed around and had a few rides named after some various gold related things. It was a total blast and I loved every moment of it, espically all the crazy rollercoasters I went on. 

Now this is only part I of II for this beautiful city and beautiful culture!  

What's up Qatar?

Doha Skyline

One of my many plane tickets

So my trip has finally started! My exciting trip of various long stop overs and backpacking across Europe! Haven't you been dying to find out where i'm at? Well it's in the title now. Now you may be thinking what is Qatar? Where is Qatar? Why Qatar? Well my dear readers Qatar is in the middle east and it is a tiny tiny speck next to Saudi Arabia. Why Qatar? Well it happened to be apart of my flight and I just oh so happened to have a 13 hour layover there. I've always wanted to go to the middle east even with all the turbulence that goes on over there and plus it's not in every country only a few. So I decided to look up what's up in Qatar. Well first it is only 10% the native population and the rest are all foreigners that go there to work. Why? because almost everyone who lives there is insanely rich. There is an unemployment rate and crime of less than 1%! Isn't that crazy?
I was there from roughly 6pm-4am give or take and it was very humid and about 90F. Throughout the day, well four times a day they offer a complimentary tour of their capital city Doha and provide you with a Visa and a free bottle of mineral water! As soon as I got off of the plane after going through customs for the thousandth time I rushed around the airport asking the many people where I can go to find the tour desk and I was told about 3 times I had missed the time frame, did that detour me? Of course not! After finally finding the desk I was greeted by a man who said I was not on time and could only board the bus if some people didn't show up. Guess what? 6 PEOPLE DIDN'T SHOW UP! So I got my ticket and I held onto it like a child at the fair I was so happy!



Museum of Islamic Arts



The Pearl

After going through customs AGAIN and immigration (They had some crazy cameras) we were able to board the bus and we were given the itinerary of what we were going to see which included the Islamic Arts Museum, The Pearl, A near by village called Katara Cultural Village and Souq Waqif. As we took off the tour guide started telling us the basics about the currency they use and how they have the youngest leader of all time at 36. It was pretty interesting and soon we saw the traffic. Oh lord is it bad. Do you think California is bad? Well it's freaking wonderful after the traffic we saw. Our first stop was the Doha skyline, where we sat across the open water (can you believe Doha is a peninsula) and off to the right we were able to see the Islamic Arts Museum, which we didn't get to go into sadly, but our tour was only 3 hours. The Skyline was amazing and the museum from the outside was stunning as well. The architecture there is pretty wonderful. As we all tried to stop and take good photos without boats passing through our photos, I made sure I took the time to stop and breathe in the air and remember the smells and sounds so I can recall them every so often. After that we went on our way to the village and prior to that I was told I didn't need the local currency, the Qatar Riyal, that most people take cards. So wrong! We got there a bit late so only had 25 minutes to shop and I love souvenirs so much so that was time for me to pick up the pace. After seeing four vendors shoot me down for a card I ran to an ATM and got about 100 Qatar Riyals which turned out to be enough. The exchange rate was about 1 USD to 3 Qatari Riyals I believe. So then I went about to find a shot glass, key-chains, magnets and postcards.  I quickly found tons of shot glasses (which is funny considering how strict the alcohol laws are there with it being an Islamic state), tons of key-chains, magnets but no post cards! So I bought my stuff quickly and made sure to save a 10 bill for my international wall when I get home and I hurried back to meeting point. After we left there we were able to see The Pearl and the story behind that is Qatar used to have quite the fishing scene because they had so many pearls so it's a monument to the people and history of how Qatar came to be. We didn't have time to see the cultural village due to traffic which is very depressing but I must be grateful for what I did see.

The quiet room in which I
slept for a few hours

Now if you're wondering what I did for the rest of my time there minus that 3 hours you know, the other 10 hours. Well luckily they had burger king and some other various food places and some wonderful quiet rooms which were separated by genders as was most things. They also had prayer rooms which I found to be lovely because it was so considerate of those travelling in the airport. I grabbed a bite to eat and walked around the airport where everyone who worked there was dressed in purple suits, blouses and skirts (which was the color of the airways and national flag ((purple and white)). They were all incredibly welcoming and open to answering all of my questions. Also if you're wondering if they were wearing the regular Muslim clothing yes they were. 

                                                       Here's some info on that!

 Some women wore just the head scarf (Hijab) or the whole Abaya which covers the whole body. Some men wore a long white cloak that covered their whole body (Thobe) usually accompanied by a square scarf over a mans head called a Ghutra or Egal which comes in white or white and red checkers and we found out the red and white was more of a fashion statement! I found some of the Abayas to have intricate designs on them and some of the women wore some beautiful shoes! 

All in all I am very honored to have seen the beautiful city of Doha which is actually hosting the Olympics within (8? years) I don't remember the date exactly, but they were building the stadium while I was there. It is a beautiful city and it was really nice to be able to see inside and understand a civilization so different from my own. It was truly a life experience and I hope to go back soon!

My next stop is Jo- Just kidding i'm not telling you yet! Stay tuned!