Everything is perfect when I'm just along for the ride

This Ireland and UK trip was planned by my wonderful brother and his (equally wonderful) wife, so naturally it was a pretty seamless adventure, with the (very) few hiccups caused by your favorite blogger right here :P

We met up in Newark, before which, I naturally prepped with a bottomless brunch. After discussing the itinerary for the week over a beer (at this point all I knew was that we were doing castles and cliffs...), we all went our separate ways to our seats.

Needless to say, Julia slept the majority of the way... which if you ask me doesn't make sense. We left at 5pm and the flight was only 6 hours. How does she do it, you might ask? IT IS A MYSTERY. The rest of us did not sleep.

Upon our arrival in Bristol, I heroically held the bus to Bath while Julia and Phil grabbed some cash. The bus driver politely asked, "Ma'am, do you mind if I just go on without you?" After getting over my astonishment at his chivalry, I immediately took advantage of this strangely nice man and said, "Yeah, I actually would... please wait." AND THEN HE WAITED. Granted, he maybe waited two minutes tops, but the fact that he waited over one second blew my mind away, and I am extremely grateful to you nice bus driver, wherever you are!

Bath was GORGEOUS. Wandering around the city was a dream - the endless limestone throughout the city is unlike anything I've ever seen. The abbey in the center of town was exquisite, and the Roman baths were out of this world. Just the thought of people TWO MILLENNIA AGO bathing in those baths and walking on the same stone completely blew me away.

Next came the walking tour which I was so excited about! About thirty minutes into the tour, Phil turned and looked at me with a very simple question... "Are you gonna make it?" If you're wondering why he asked this, there is quite a simple explanation: I was wobbling around like I was drunk. Not five minutes into the tour, I could feel myself falling asleep STANDING UP. And I spent the next 25 minutes trying to stay awake. Don't get me wrong, the tour was incredible, but if you hadn't noticed, everyone but Julia had jumped into the day without a second of sleep, and I just could NOT hang anymore.

My response to Phil? "No - I'm going to lay down in this little park... come and get me when this is over? K. Thanks."

An hour and a half later, they came and got me, and I was super ready for the rest of the day. We had some great food, wandered around and they showed me all of the highlights of the tour.

Next stop? Cardiff. After some confusion as to where the city center actually was, we walked about five minutes and found the castle that was number one on everyone's list. Cardiff Castle was unique with its mix of history from the 1100's to the Victorian era to World War II. The rest of the day consisted of gin, a church, random ruins, some beer, a boat ride, missing a bus (still not sure exactly how that happened, but since we're all impatient, we sped walked back into town) and then finding the most amazing meal to end the day with. SUCCESS :)

Dublin day 1: Grabbed a taxi at 4:30am so that we could catch our 7am flight. Were in Dublin around 8am ready to start the day! Took another walking tour which I was actually able to stay awake for this time (yaaayyy!!). After this, Julia really wanted to see some library and this book at Trinity college (weirdly it was super famous... I guess Julia's not the only nerd in the world?!?!). So she did that while the rest of us went to enjoy the first Dublin Guinness outdoors. So everyone won! But we actually won...

This is Julia. Excited about library...

After this, we hurriedly taxied to the jail to get a tour before it closed... I put the blame for this mistake on Julia and I, we both thought we knew what we were talking about, and it turns out that you have to book ahead OOPS SORRY. After a quick browse of the annexed museum, we headed back into the town along the river, which ended up being our highlight of the day, we wandered across bridges, in and out of whiskey distilleries (you know, the usual).

After some delicious stew, we gathered for a literary pub tour, which is just as amazing as it sounds. Two actors led us around Dublin, pausing at different sites and pubs to perform excerpts from Ireland's best literature. A highlight of this? Watching Julia try to chug beer when we were only given 20 minutes in each pub :)

Julia flirting with the actors (can't figure out her type: one was super old, and one super young)

Dublin day 2: Cliffs of Moher! We had the weirdest tour guide for this trip... I've never before been lied to so many times in a row. Once we started fact checking him, we realized that NOTHING that he said was true.

When we left Dublin the sun was shining high in the sky. When we got to the cliffs, it was raining incessantly. I, of course, was wearing sandals and was slipping all over the place while walking along the edge of the cliff. (That was my low of the day.) Not the safest thing I've ever done per se, but worth every second of fright that I caused myself!

One of the muddy paths that I almost died on. I LEARNED MY LESSON.

After scrubbing all of the mud off (just me, everyone else was miraculously clean), we sauntered through the city and caught a lot of lovely live Irish music.

I took charge of our trip to Belfast. Booked our bus, figured out where it would pick us up - the whole nine yards! Long story short, even though I was sure it was a 3 minute walk from our hostel, we somehow ended up running up and down the main road in Dublin for over thirty minutes (when I say run, I mean RUN), as I tried to pinpoint the spot that we were supposed to leave from. With the help of a lovely Irish man, we flagged down the driver at the wrong spot and convinced him to let us on the bus. I was then cursed out incessantly for much longer than I thought was warranted BUT... WE MADE IT TO BELFAST :)

Belfast day 1: Belfast has my heart. To the core. I CANNOT WAIT to go back. I've never gone into a city so ignorant and left so educated. The people of Belfast (tour guides, taxi drivers and random bar folk alike) are sooo happy to talk to you about their history, whether it be from long ago or the past few years, the history of the city or their own time working for the IRA (Irish Republican Army). If you want to grab a beer with me so I can go into detail, I would LOVE that.

We did sooo much in Belfast, so here we go again with lots of highlights in the least amount of words possible. After a horrid breakfast experience, off to City Hall...

Tour here = amazing

GR8 lunch, then super cool black taxi tour. Essentially, a tour guide that lived through The Troubles (ask me about it over that beer), drove us around for a few hours, stopping at different sites to detail the triumphs and (mostly) troubles (get it?) of the city.

Julia flirting with tour guide again. He's old. Conclusion: that's her type?

There is a wall between the Catholic and Protestant sections of the city. Our tour guide convinced me this was a good thing. I signed the wall. And wrote.. "keep wall." No regrets.

We hopped into a couple of churches, had a stellar time at the Titanic museum, got caught in some rain, walked the city at night and landed in a couple grand bars (where the man I mentioned before, not only bought us all beer, but detailed his time working for the IRA, his time in jail for them, cried on Phil's shoulder and just so so much more in our one hour with him).

Belfast Day 2: This day was perfect in every way. We had a tour guide who didn't lie to us like our Dublin trip! We headed to Giant's Causeway (8th Wonder of the World - look it up), did some hiking, tasting at a distillery, visited a couple of castles, walked over the most insane bridge and got to watch Julia sleep a ton!!! AKA Perfect Day, duh.

On our final day, I spilled my coffee all over my last clean shirt. Could it have been a more typical ending?!

There's no other place I'd rather leave my tooth: Amsterdam

Amsterdam was bound to be an adventure before the trip was even planned. And if I'm being honest here, it never really was planned. A couple of texts back and forth with Scott and we knew that we were going on a trip - the "where" question wasn't really answered until we had a little rock, paper, scissors match a month before the trip date.

I have to admit something... I made a mistake when booking this flight. I booked my flight with a budget airline, and I am NEVER. DOING. THAT. AGAIN. Granted they're perfect for short flights, but when you could have a direct flight, leg room and free alcohol for seven hours, PAY THE EXTRA MONEY. It's a lesson in quality of life.

Instead of my normally relaxing, enlightening and carefree trip, I spent the flight convinced that I was going to miss my connecting flight (because some dumb family tried to travel on expired passports, and OF COURSE their luggage was already loaded onto the plane, so there goes an hour - positive side of this? I immediately took the empty row that the family would have sat in, resulting in looks of disdain but also admiration from the very full airplane).

So at this point, you're like "what is the issue," right? WELL, as I said, I thought I was going to be late and get this... I had to pay for water. WATER. I could dive into this more, but you're just wondering when I'm gonna start showing pictures of my f*%!ed up face, am I right? Scroll down if you need to see them right now.

I made my connecting flight; the pilot of course mysteriously got us there on time even though we left an hour late (my question, why can't we get in an hour early when we leave on time?). I arrived in Amsterdam extremely sore after my horrible night of dozing off in the most cramped space imaginable (no lucky extra space on that second flight). But I had made it to Amsterdam and could not for the life of me wipe the grin off of my face.

I seamlessly found Scott, and we proceeded to find our mode of transportation for the weekend: bicycles. I then began to direct Scott to all of my favorite spots around the city. Our first stop was the rows and rows of cheese shops along the canal, where we stepped in every single one for the best cheese samples imaginable. Stop two was Brouwerij't IJ - a personal favorite and must do when in Amsterdam!

Here, we ended up meeting this awesome American family, who we ended up sharing a beer with! They just stumbled on the place, but I think it may just be their favorite spot now too.

The adventure continued as we biked along the streets, canals and bridges, my smile as vibrant as ever.

And then, tragedy struck. Or rather, I struck... the curb. There was a roadblock up in the bike lane, the girl in front of me slammed to a halt. I too slammed to a halt, swerving to miss the person in front of me. And what did I swerve into but the wonderful sidewalk that was right next to me. And then I was on said sidewalk. 

A man ran over, already calling 911. Scott was still biking on ahead unaware. He eventually realized I was nowhere in sight. I told the man that I was NOT going in an ambulance OR a hospital at all for that matter, so he immediately hung up.

Then I realized something... it wasn't asphalt floating around in my mouth. IT WAS MY TOOTH. Scott promptly called an Uber (after locking our bikes up, of course!), and we were off to the ER.

And as always, the Dutch hospitality did not fail me. As we waited (which wasn't even for very long - there was just one man with a stubbed toe ahead of me), we had some delightful free espresso - a personal highlight of the visit.

And them came the stitches...

And then I was free to go! Scott was ready to bring me to the hostel for the night when I turned to him with a look of horror. It was Saturday night in Amsterdam... we were going out! (Although I did warn him that this was the end of making friends, as I now looked like a monster). The night consisted of super sweet bartenders showing me their scars from their own bike accidents and Scott and I laughing nonstop about the fact that I had actually gotten into a bike accident on the first day in Amsterdam. WHO DOES THAT.

Day two. (I have to warn you that the rest of the trip was quite perfect, so if you only read this to laugh about all of the dumb things that I do while traveling, then your part is over, and I'm not mad at you for stopping). I woke up realizing that I had to get back on my bike. It was either that or spend the next ten years of my life terrified of bikes. Sooo off we went for the bikes!!

Stop one of the day was The Avocado Show. For some reason, we decided to order the nachos with guacamole. I bit into the first one, immediately realizing that it was a very huge mistake (my jaw was also in a lot of pain from the crash sooo chewing was a bit of an issue). The alternative? Avocado Sorbet: NOT BAD.

Then, on to Museumplein, a drink on the canal (where Scott had his first bitterballen) and then relaxing, eating, napping in one of the best parks ever: Vondelpark. 

Then, on to Rembrandtplein and watching the sunset over the canals (at about 10pm - if not later). 

Having only had snacks at the park (albeit, we did have quite a lot of cheese), the munchies hit us late at night. Where better to have that than Amsterdam, where you can have frites and kroket in your hands with the snap of a finger.

Next Day! Breakfast came in the form of Poffertjes (a delectable miniature doughy Dutch pancake). 

And then after some ultra necessary cheese tasting, we headed to what was inevitably the highlight of our day: a canal cruise. In my past experiences in Amsterdam, I've done the super touristy boat cruise, which is, of course, never a disappointment. BUT Scott found us a better option this time around - a small, open top boat that you can bring champagne onto... DONE.

And then, we made the obvious choice of biking to the park for some more napping...

Our final evening consisted of wandering, having our first sit-down dinner, getting caught in the rain, receiving a free umbrella from the nicest bar owner ever, and finding a nice random nook in a cute little bar where we could spend our last evening reminiscing about the good, the bad and the ugly (me).

Hope you enjoyed the tale of Snaggletooth Mary!!! 

How To: fly to Puerto Rico with nothing but your internet bill

Fridays at work are hard. Fridays at work when a weekend getaway is on the horizon are harder. But I made it through. I was finally on my way to the airport - in my own little podcast world, putting all of my troubles behind me.

Newark Liberty International Airport was the next stop, so I gathered all of my things (or so I thought). Moments after stepping onto the train platform, I felt like something was missing... OH. RIGHT. MY WALLET.

I turned around in horror as the train slowly inched away from the station with every single piece of identification that I possess. No time to mourn. Off to TSA to plead my case!

I grabbed the first TSA agent that I saw, frantically telling her that I had pictures of all of my IDs. She told me to get in line and hope for the best. At this point, I finally had time to report that my wallet was lost.

Side note: Police don't care when you call them and tell them you left your wallet on the train, although they are very nice in telling you so.

Plan B: call my ever-understanding sister and have her fill out the Lost and Found form since the mobile version of the form was entirely dysfunctional.

I finally made it to the front of the security line, only to find out that they do not accept pictures of identification. He asked me if I had ANYTHING official with my name on it. I racked my brain for anything that I could have possibly brought with me... and this is when my terrible habit of procrastination became my salvation. I had grabbed my internet bill on the way out the door because payment was due that day, and I had been ignoring the bill on my dresser all week.

I dug the bill out of my bag and presented it with pride. The experts were called over, and after thorough examination, it was authenticated, and I proceeded through security with an armed escort. 

The next step was searching my bag. I was filled with fear as they searched through my bag - not because I was smuggling contraband, but because I had a sudden fear that my wallet was actually in my bag, and I would become the laughingstock of Newark airport. 

My wallet was not in my bag, and I continued on to the gate with nothing but a mobile Starbucks gift card to my name. Sooo Starbucks for dinner it was! Could be worse.

I FINALLY made it to the plane, caught my breath and settled in - leaving all of my misadventures behind me... Or so I thought.

Upon arrival in Puerto Rico, my only option for transportation was a taxi, and in my experience, Starbucks gift cards are not a widely accepted form of payment. So, I climbed into a taxi and pretended to not be a dumb blonde that was traveling with absolutely no money. 

When we got to the address that I had given the man, I told him to just wait a moment for my friend who would pay him. This called into play a slew of Spanish words which I am fairly certain were not compliments. 

He started driving again, and I yelled to pull over, promising vehemently that my friend was right around the corner. He pulled over, took another look at me through the rear view mirror, got really mad again and then declared, " BACK TO THE AIRPORT!!!"

I, in turn, began yelling "you're capturing me, you have to let me out, this is illegal, YOU CAN'T CAPTURE ME!!!" 

This outburst struck a chord of some sort with the driver, and with a string of curses, he told me to GET OUT. Which I did rather quickly. If you are reading this, Mr. Taxi Driver, I really am sorry...

The place that my friends had me meet them at was called La Placita, and I hadn't been lying, Eli was really right around the corner. He greeted me with a drink, which some random Canadians had bought him, and the world felt like a safe place again.

The rest of the trip was pretty much perfect, which I know is boring to read about, so I'll give you the highlights...

And I say "pretty much" because of the way we were woken up each morning. One of the first things that Ross said to me was to prepare myself to be awoken by the most unusual things. I laughed because it was a stupid story, BUT he was right. My first morning, we were woken up by the Airbnb hostess sneezing AT LEAST 40 times in a row. The next morning it was someone wrapping enormous packages with packing tape for at least 15 minutes. And my last morning? The lovely combination of a weedwacker and dogs barking. Okay, so maybe you think this is a stupid story like I first did, but it was freakin WEIRD.

Anyway, about my first day... We started the day with a (rather muddy) hike through the rain forest, where we encountered water falls, streams and essentially anything else that you would expect from a rain forest. 

Next stop? BEACH. After some drinks and some waves, we headed out for the evening. 

While I am very thankful that they don't card in Puerto Rico (seeing as I would not have been allowed anywhere), it meant there was a plethora of teenagers out in the area which we had chosen - which prompted us to get the hell out of there and find some people our own age. We ended up at a bar with a balcony, where we were able to lounge and stare at the stars: something that we sorely miss doing in NYC.

Day 2 consisted of even more beach. We discovered this awesome place called Pizza City (I think?), which was a perfect place to hop back and forth to from the beach. We had a super intriguing conversation with our Airbnb hostess all about how Puerto Ricans feel about their relationship with the United States. We were actually able to talk to several different people about this topic, which if you don't know much about, is super interesting to read about. 

That night we went back to La Placita, met several interesting people (including a girl who not only had armpit hair, but had dyed it red - be mad at me for saying this... but it was disgusting). We thankfully avoided getting into a car with 8 people and a surf board, and instead ran down the street to what ended up being the favorite bar of the evening (and where I learned to play maracas)! 

Day 3 was more beach: tanning, walks and talks - everything the last day of a vacation should entail. The crew graciously went out for dinner and drinks with me (despite being utterly exhausted) before I had to catch my plane back to NYC! 

Definitely a whirlwind trip, but man did I need it! Shout out to these amazing travel buddies!!!