Student Blogs

London and Paris: We found Kanye

October 19th, 2014 rpghiz16

Hi all,
It’s been a busy couple weeks so I haven’t updated in a while but I’m here to fill you in. Two weekends ago I visited London with Won-Ki. The city was pretty incredible, its gives off New York city vibes but has unique architecture that makes it more distinct. London is much larger than we had realized but we tried to see as much as possible, the tube(metro system) is very reliable and can get your pretty much anywhere you need to go in London. The food was incredible, we ate at Southbridge market for lunch Saturday and Sunday and the night life was awesome too. We had three different friends who were studying there so it was definitely nice to have them show us some of the good spots. I had a really cool conversation with a vendor who was a big De La Soul fan and collected all their vinyl, not something I expected to experience there. Here are some pictures from that weekend.

Big Ben and I

Tower Bridge

Tottenham Game

The following weekend was Paris, my first trip to a non-English speaking country. Contrary to what I had heard, the people there were pretty nice to us. Right when we arrived, my friend Alex and I got lost looking for the metro and a girl pointed us in the right direction without us even asking. It helps to start conversations in French if you’re looking for help, the locals appreciate that from what I can garner. I had one go to phrase, “Parlez-vous anglais?”(Do you speak English) and most said yes and proceeded to help me. It’s important to greet store clerks when you enter shops there, it’s just a custom there and the polite thing to do. This trip was also my first hostel stay experience, which didn’t end up being bad. When we walked in their was a long hallway and staircase which wasn’t lit well and smelled a tad funky so I was nervous. But after we settled in it wasn’t bad at all. There was a French guy who stayed in our section of the room(there were 5 of us and 6 beds). The first night was weird, he was really itchy for some reason and it was just kind of an awkward night. But we talked to him as best as we could the second night and he seemed like a cool dude who wouldn’t steal our passports when we left. We offered him a swig from our bottle and he took two gulps without any hesitation! The pastries and food was amazing, steak frites is the way to go. The second night we just drank cheap wine by the river and hung out under the Eiffel tower. The night life wasn’t great but I would have no problem doing that every night. We also visited the Louvre for our dose of high class art, and apparently Jay Z and Beyonce were there that afternoon so we might have just missed them! All in all, the trips were great but I was happy to go back to Dublin which has become a second home for me. Here are some more pictures:
View from the top of the Eiffel

Eiffel Tower

Sorry for the delay here, I’ll keep everyone posted more frequently from here on out! Cheers!

Ryan

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