10 days, 3 counties...

Wow, what a trip. 10 days, 3 countries, all the sights, and a lot of fun.

I am now back from my trip to visit the fellow classmates and it is safe to say that we all had a blast. We all gave Nick a big hug for picking our meeting place in Dublin. It turned out to be one of the best places we had all visited in Europe so far. The majority of the population is under 25 and the economy has boomed over the last 10 years, so the whole city seems in high spirits.

One of the biggest impressions that Dublin had on us was that everyone was so nice.... I mean really nice. It was a little like the twilight zone.

There were at least three different occasions in which one of us was hugged and bought a pint for being American. The Irish love America. They would yell, "God bless the US Marines for WWII!" from across the bar or across the streets when they found out we were from the States. They would come over and shake our hands and buy us pints, it was unreal. They have not forgotten about the events of WWII and were quick to thank us at every turn.

It didn't stop there either. Walking down the street in downtown Dublin, Paul stopped and asked a local couple on the street for a light and the lady replied, "you mean you don't have a lighter???" At which point Paul said no, and she replied with, "oh, well then here, have mine." Ok???

Then at dinner one night I asked for soup to start and then the bowl of stew. The waitress then told me that the stew was pretty big and I probably didn't need the soup. I said ok, and took just the stew, which did turn out to be pretty big. However, for some reason, I burned through the stew and needed just a little more. When I called her over to order a little more she said, oh, I'm sorry don't worry about it and then proceeded to give me soup as well as a tray of bread at no charge. She insisted that she not charge us.

Needless to say, it was a great change from the American sediment that most of us have been experiencing in the rest of Europe.

Speaking of food, we were also all very very happy to get a change in food. No cheese, no cream, no tapas, just meat, potatos, and vegetables. I think we had stew two or three times. Of course the Guinness was great as well... it just seemed to taste better there.

Here are the pictures of Paris

And here are the pictures of Madrid and Dublin