No Sleep in London...

Greetings from London! (August 9-11)

So i know this blog is really out of date since we left london a week ago but it is really hard to get a computer around here in order to do this blog. and the fact that i am tired at the end of the day and all i want to do is sleep :) And I apologize to all those families and friends that were hoping to hear from the other girls but it looks like it may just be me writing this. Sorry if you see a lot of pictures of me on here but just embrace it. 

well thursday we woke up and went to tour london! we checked out of the hotel from hell and went over to the walrus hostel which was located about a 5 minute walk from the london bridge. the hostel was nice (for what we were paying) and was located above a bar. we had to stay in an 8 bed mixed room again so it was going to be an interesting night. the first thing we see when we walked into our room was a random guy sleeping with his blanket over his head at like 3 in the afternoon. it looked like from all the bags in the room that we were going to be staying with all guys. perfect. smelly guys in a stuffy room...couldnt have asked for anything better. 

We obviously went and saw all the touristy attractions in London, had some lunch in a ranom park where you had to pay to sit in the lawn chairs and then headed off to walk across Abbey Road. It took us forever to get there and it was cool but probably not worth the trek over there. well you live and you learn (the motto of this trip)!

the london eye

such a beautiful day!

i was hoping to see the queen...didnt happen :(

Abbey Road...felt like a big deal

 So we stumbled upon Hyde Park and decided to see what was going on because there was thousands of people around headed to some event. The Olympic workers told us that they show the Olympics on the big screens in Hyde Park for free. I wish I would have know that earlier! Well apparently we made it just in time to see the fastest man alive race. I cant remember his name or what event it was but EVERYONE was dying to see it. I didnt even know it was going on. It was literally minutes away from happening and we were stuck in line. I was just going in because I wanted to watch the women's soccer final where US won! So we are in line using some guys phone for their internet (as we most often found ourselves doing since we as americans can't live without our social media) and they were freaking out about possibly not making it in time. Right as we passed through security literally hundreds of people ran over to the big screens to watch the race since it was seconds from starting and no one wanted to miss it. It was mass chaos and I loved every second of it! We stayed and watched the race and then stayed longer to watch the US women's soccer team dominate :)

Olympics in Hyde Park

 On our way back to our hotel we decided to pick up my cousin Santiago from his hotel so he could go experience the London night life with us. He was in for a treat. I hope I didn't corrupt that 19 year old boy. We headed back to our hostel, changed, picked up our random friend we made at the hostel who is from boston and hit the clubs! Once we arrived it was like a circus. There was all these club promoters following us around telling us they were going to get us a really good deal on a package of clubs and all we needed to do was go around the corner to the ticket office. It sounded super sketch and they kept pressuring us. It was out of control. At one point we ran into these guys from who knows where and in the middle of their conversation they just straight up offered us Coke and then continued on with the rest of their conversation. It was so fast that I had to think about it after we had walked away and finally realized what happened. Well we ended up following one of these promoters and he was actually telling the truth so we bought the entrance to the club and went over to the club. The club was definitely not the classiest but they had some pretty good music. It was hip hop based with some latin flava...so right up my alley :) We only stayed for about an hour because we literally had a swarm of guys around us just staring and hovering so we were too creeped out to stay any longer. One guy even grabbed my hand and kissed it...it was weird...i wanted to wash my hand immediately after. The girls went back to their hostel and I headed back to the hotel with Santiago. I ended up staying the night at the hotel with my family because the taxi ride back was $30...no thanks.Woke up early and headed back to the hostel but decided to ditch out on the girls since I had been sick all week and just keep it low key with my family that day. There was a bit of miss communication with the fam bam so I spent the majority of Friday by myself which was okay with me. I had my own picnic in the park and walked around London just taking it all in.

with Santiago being your typical London tourist

Such a Diva ;)

Off to our next hostel...The Dictionary!

 So we were off to our new hostel. It was more on the outside of London in this really great Hipster neighborhood. We finally found it after trying to figure out where it was since there was no sign. The hostel was only weeks old and it was great! The best hostel we've stayed in for sure. Everything was new, freshly painted, and all the plumbing worked! The beds were incredibly comfortable and the staff was super helpful. We went and enjoyed Les Miserables at the Queen's Theater and I couldn't have been happier!!! I loved it! It was another thing that I have been wanting to cross off my bucket list. After the show we headed back to the hostel but it was pretty late and we needed to catch a train to the airport super early. We had to wake up at 4am and it was past midnight by the time we got back. So what did we do? I made Christy stay up with me again to help me update our blog :) I swear I'm not high maintenance. It was actually great fun because we had the night worker there to entertain us...I personally think we entertained him more than anything with the stupid things we were saying. We hadn't slept that much the whole week so we can't be held accountable for the idiocies that come out of our mouths. We finally went to bed at 2am and took a 2 hour nap. I wish we had stayed at that hostel the whole time because it was so much nice than all of our other ones. When we went back to our room we actually found some random guy sleeping in one of the beds that we had claimed. I guess he didn't realize that all of our stuff was locked in the 2 cages underneath the bunkbeds which meant those beds were taken? Anyways, his hand was hovering over the side of the bed so I somehow had to figure out a way to open my cage with all my stuff in it without touching his hand and waking him up...at 2am with barely and sleep. I had to hold in my laughter because it was just too ridiculous of a situation.

Well I was able to get my stuff and we made our train to our plane ride to Madrid to meet up with Kim. Erin didn't make her flight so we would have to pick her up on Sunday morning instead. London was great, but it definitely wasn't one of my favorite cities. It was great to tour around and see all the sites but I'm not sure I would want to vacation there again.

Our room at The Dictionary. The most comfortable hostel we've stayed in yet

Crossing another thing off my bucket list...Les Mis. I was obsessed!

Madrid is next and will finally include all 4 girls that make up CAKE!!!

Alejandra

Ireland to London, It Was Hard to Say Goodbye!

On our last day in Ireland we decided to just walk around and buy some souvenirs. We randomly ran into missionaries on the street so thought we would take a picture with them. Christy and I have made it our mission to find missionaries in every city we visit but so far Dublin was the only place we've found them in. :(

The Missionaries!

Then we went back to our hostel and said goodbye to Natalee as she had an earlier flight to London. So we decided to just chill with some of the local hostel mates Dioni and Geanluca! We went for a walk in the park by our hostel. Not really sure what it was called but it was fun! we took a stroll, had a good laugh, and took lots of pictures! We went back to the hostel, forced them to be our facebook friends, and then convinced them that they were nothing before they met us. I think it worked.

Dioni and Geanluca! We miss you guys!

We were soooo incredibly sad to leave Dublin because we had some great adventures there! Shout out to Andy, David, and Boppers! haha. You guys totally made it memorable :)

Notice how much bigger my backpack is. This is how high maintenance I am. 

We headed to London ready for some Olympic adventures. We were excited to see the sites of London. We got to the train station somehow figured out how to get on the Tube and head to the hotel. We found the Clearlake hotel and it was legitimately straight out of a horror movie. With the creep front desk old guy and everything. The room probably hasn't been updated since 1857 and there was weird pictures on the wall. There was nothing about this room that didn't scream, "You're going to be murdered in your sleep by the ghost of the last tenant that was here." We all decided that we couldn't shower or go to the bathroom without each other and even slept with the light on. Let's just say between the snoring and the old hotel noises I think I slept an hour.

We made it! First ride on the Tube!

The Olympics!

When we stepped out in London from the Tube I randomly started chatting it up with a Canadian boxer who was competing in the Olympics so I decided to take a picture :)

Walking the streets of London trying to find our sketchy hotel at 1am...totally safe. 

We found it...unfortunately!

Our creepy shower! We couldn't be alone. 

This doesn't do the creepiness justice. 

Well that's it for now about London. More updates to come!


Alejandra

The Olympics - Diego's Fight For the Gold

So when I started planning this trip with the girls I had no idea when the Olympics were taking place and where they were being held. We didn't originally plan on going to London and were going to spend a whole week in Ireland.

My cousin Diego was competing for a spot in the 2012 Olympics for Tae Kwon Do for Mexico and the Olympics were going on the same exact time we were in Europe. So i knew that if he made it to the Olympics I was going to switch my plans around and head to London to watch him. We found out he made the Olympic team in the spring and also that he would be competing August 8th which was perfect for me because that's the exact week I was suppose to be in Ireland.

I bought my tickets to all 3 events for the day that he would possible be competing in and bought my ticket from Dublin to London. People thought I was crazy for spending $500 to watch my cousin, but when else are you going to have family in the Olympics?! I wanted to be there to support all the hard work that he's been putting in his entire life.

Several of the family members went to support Diego. He competed on August 8 at the Excel Event Center. The family was staying at the Clearlake Hotel and so we all walked to the event center together. One of the family members was awesome enough to make us all shirts so we could cheer on Diego.

When we got there the arena was packed! There were so many people there. When Diego came out to fight the family went crazy. We were all screaming and cheering for Mexico. It was just so amazing being able to be there to support a family member and be able to witness this great moment. Unfortunately Diego did not move on to the Semifinals and his Olympic events were cut short. He fought the best he could and because of a judge's call was not awarded all the points he should have and that cost him the chance to compete for the gold.

I spent the rest of the day with the family at the event center. It was a long day but completely worth being there to watch a family member's dreams come reality!

I loved being able to spend the day with my family since I don't get to see them often because they live in Mexico. I can't wait to see Diego compete in 2016 and see his growth in the sport of Tae Kwon Do and watch him accept his gold medal :)




Alejandra

Christy and I's European Adventure Bad Habits :)

So Christy and I have noticed that we've developed some weird habits while being abroad. Normally we probably wouldn't be doing any of these things but for some reason think it completely acceptable since we're backpackers. I guess the title just makes me feel so much freer and adventurous.

1. We don't eat real meals but instead find food wherever we can. We just grab and go to save time and money. At least we're getting our fruits in though. Sometimes we can't figure out what to eat do we just don't eat. Don't worry this will change once we go to Spain France and italy since the food is amazing there!

2. We eat candy all the time. I guess it makes up for not eating real food? We just love the chocolate here! We have a lot of new candy to try...don't judge.

3. Confession...we can't live without the Internet. I'm just saying  we may or may not have asked several people to use their phones for phone calls and wifi. It's the 21st century deal with it.

4. We love anyone Irish. Enough said.

5. Every day we care less and less about the way we look and smell. And this is only week one.

6. No sleep is better than just a little bit of sleep apparently. Our logic is skewed I guess. But at least we're getting more out of trip?

7. We make friends with the hostel workers. It just happens. We've found ourselves just hanging out with them while they're supposed to be working. Example...we are sitting in the closed bar area of the hostel entertaining the night attendant. We're supposed to leave for the aiport at 4:30 and instead of sleeping we're doing this. We love being friends with the workers! Makes it more fun!

8. Our legs and feet are going to hate us after this! But there was no way I was going to wear those ugly TEVA sandles in Europe while everyone is dressed so cute.

9. We are strangely very okay with the fact that we've basically slept with only guys in every single one of our hostels. How does it happen that there's never any girls in our room.

10. We find ourselves sleeping any time we sit down. We've become narcoleptics. This has become a problem especially when you've paid to watch something. I legitimately fell asleep watching the Olympics several times and people actually turned around and laughed. It was great.

11. We will ask anyone for help. Why not?

Mama Said Don't Ride in Cars with Stangers ;)

Day 2: Mama Said Don't Ride in Cars with Strangers

We didn't really have much of a plan for the day other than to see the sights of Ireland. We had bought the Dublin Saver Pass for 2 days that lets you get in to all the tourist attractions at a discounted rate. Well they failed to mention that the Monday which was our second day was a bank holiday and everything was closed. Basically they just ripped us off. So we walked around after realizing we couldn't get into anything and tried to find something to do. Who knew that Irish people loved their colorful doors. While we were walk around town we came across these 10 year old boys tagging a wall like it was no big deal...i loved it.

Boys randomly tagging a wall in a residential area

On our walk around the city we tried to find food and figure out another cute town to go to in order to see the beauty of Ireland. Again...the Irish men love us. they were so helpful trying to find a city for us to go to. They recommended for us to go to a fishing town called Howthe. On our way to Howthe we met some lovely young lads on the train who opened our eyes to the he sport of gaelic football. A little confused on what it really was since it was in between soccer and rugby?

The town was out of a magazine!!! The water was beautiful and there was green everywhere! We basically did our own version of town and country magazine photo shoot. We went to see some of the cliffs which were breathtaking and took lots of great pictures. I felt like I was in PS I Love You.

On our way back from the cliffs we ran into a couple guys who we notice we're parking up some resist since they had been in the water. Obviously these guys were crazy going into the freezing water but I guess that works for the Irish. Knowing that we had a long walk down to where the bus stop was  why not get a ride from them. Looking back at it now it probably wasn't the smartest idea to hop in the back of a white van with no windows and filled with dead fish, spears, and saws. Also no actual seats just wherever you could find a spot to sit? But we of course were tired and lazy and decided these guys were not going to do anything shady. Hopefully. Mom I know you're freaking out reading this right now but I promise everything was okay :) I promise I'm making good decisions!

We went out that night to the temple bar district and had a great time with this love band playing some great Irish music. I was obsessed. They even played a song from PS I Love You. Not too much happed while we were out so we decided to head back to the hostel.

We had made some friends while we were at the hostel. Shout out to my boys dioni geanluca and Eduardo for making our stay memorable! I know you're reading this since I know all you do is hang out at the kitchen ;) that night I persuaded christy to help me write our first post of our adventures as we listened to crazy hostel stories from Eduardo. Good times for sure. Let's just say for some reason christy and I just end up hanging out with the workers and being their best buddies. Haha we like it.

Well more to come from the remaining Ireland and of course London adventures!

Peace and Love,

Alejandra

Irish Men Love Us!!!!

Day 1:

christy and i were scheduled to meet at the chicago aiport saturday evening to catch our plane to ireland. the plane was leaving in about 20 minutes and christy was still not there! there was an amazing thunderstorm happening while christy was supposed to land (so inconveniant but yet glad i got to see it) so her plane was delayed. she ended up sprinting to check into the flight and i was able to talk to the flight attendants to make sure they would wait for her :) as soon as they found out how beautiful she was they said yes...quote by christy.

she finally arrived on the plane and we asked the flight attendants to sit next to eachother in the back row of the plane. it didn't take too much convincing because our sparkling personalities were already shining through. (insert cheesy smiles here) i had to ditch the sweet old new zealand guy i was sitting next to. he was cool but took up way too much of the arm rest. could have been the most entertaining 7 hours of his life. we had the BEST FLIGHT ATTENDANTS EVER!!! although most of them were gay...there was a special someone we connected with :) perhaps our soulmate...story to come later. they were all hysterical telling funny stories, well they were telling funny stories to eachother and we always just pretended like we were a part of them. this is where it all began...how we realized we can never understand what the irish are saying. their accents are intense...too intense for this half mexican half spanish girl. well all in all we had a great time throwing banter back and forth with them and it made the 7 hours fly by! literally...pun intended.

when we arrived in dublin we met up with natalee at the dublin airport, bought our dublin saver passes and hopped on our complimentary bus into the city. we managed to find our hostel in no time, checked our bags in since we couldnt check in until 2, and went exploring the magical city of ireland. no shower, no sleep, and no problems. we hit up this restaurant that we thought was irish and it ended up being american. go figure. it was still pretty tasty though. one of the waiters was nice enough to give us a list of pubs and places to go out at night. the rest of the day was churches and museums, and learning how to pour our own guiness at the guiness storehouse. don't worry moms and dads, none of us partook. the 3 couples next to us were extremely grateful for the extra beer they got hooked up with.

the times hostel

some church i can't remember

being your typical tourist in the streets of dublin

what just happened?!

we're official guiness pourers...we have the certificates to prove it!

we went back to the hostel and took a one hour nap to re-energize us. we woke up to find an argentenian man was sharing our 8 bed mixed room. this was going to be interesting. he was really nice so we invited him to go out with us that night. we got ready for the night and headed out to dinner. everything was closed because apparently everything closes early on sundays (i guess we should have done a little better planning...oops) so we ended up at this overpriced mexican restaurant. we decided to grab some energy drinks to keep us going and who else do we run into but our favorite flight attendant. coincidence...i think it's fate bringing us together again like PS i love you (the movie). he invited us to a pub that he was meeting his friend at. once we grabbed our drinks we ran over with excitment to the pub. of course somehow the conversation ended up being about us being mormom. go figure the irish would ask so many questions when you dont drink...so weird. in that moment he ran as fast as he could away from us...haha no he didnt. we had a good chat and then he was on his way again. best 20 minutes of our lives...totally worth it.

our flight attendant friend bryan (this picture doesn't do him justice!) 

                               

as we were walking in the temple bar district we realized the irish men love us. no joke. and we are happy to take any compliments and free things they give us. not sketchy at all ;) we headed over to another pub that christy and i came across once we started talking to some random german guy who convinced us it was awesome. walked inside and it was american music heaven. i guess the irish really love their american classics. that's where the real fun began. we met these 3 guys from dublin and they couldn't have been happier that we were american. they bought us drinks...diet coke...geez where did your mind go just then. they took us on their own little pub crawl and we ended up at this pub/club that was off the hook. let's just say what happens in dublin stays in dublin...yeah. it was amazing to say the least. not that way...? gotta love the irish...as they were walking us back to our hostel at 4am one of the guys ended up getting in an argument with some random guy on the street. they argued, it was confusing because we couldnt understand their irish slang and the next minute they were hugging and kissing on the cheek. weird. anyways...they walked us home, tried to pay off the front desk so they could hang out in the hostel, and then walked the walk of rejection out the door.

hitting up the temple bar district

our irish friends for the night...they love their california girls

things got weird...this was actually the more normal part of the night prior to the 40 euro drink they had

alejandra

ps as christy and i are typing this we are speaking with our hostel front desk guy eduardo and he is filling us in on all the crazy things he's encountered while working at this hostel. all i have to say is that im nervous to touch anything in this hostel now. and christy is missing her stolen bed sheet.

more to come soon! bet you cant wait for day 2