update!

Wow, it's been a while. Things have been weird--I got really sick the weekend of February 20th, spent the next week recovering, went to Ireland for 4.5ish days, came back to Barcelona for two days, went to Navarre for three days, came back to face the harsh reality of midsems, spent this past weekend in Barcelona, and here I am.

I have a TON of pictures from my trips to Ireland and Navarre. I took . . . over 200 pictures in each place? Woops.

To sum it up: Ireland was absolutely amazing. It's green and beautiful right now, so I can only imagine what it's like during the summer months. We saw the Cliffs of Moher and spent time in both Galway and Dublin. We also spent a couple nights in Lisdoonvarna, a small town near the cliffs. We walked from Lisdoonvarna to Doolin, a coastal town near the cliffs, one day and then rented bikes to get to the cliffs. That failed because it was rainy and cold, so we retreated back to Lisdoonvarna and went to the cliffs the next day--and it was sunny and beautiful! So that was really nice. Here is a picture of the cliffs (one of many dozens that I took throughout the visit):



Galway was a really nice, pretty little city. Dublin was really cool, too. We saw ancient books at Trinity College, which was kind of one of the highlights of the trip for me. What can I say, I'm a sucker for old illuminated manuscripts.

All the rest of my Ireland pictures are here.

The next weekend I went with IES to Navarre, which was kind of an organizational disaster but still a good time. We saw a couple old castles, lots of beautiful mountains, snow(!), and more wind turbines than I've ever seen in my entire life (the record prior to that trip was one, so it may not seem that impressive . . . but it was). We also visited a vineyard and some stops along the road to Santiago de Compostela, which was a huge route for pilgrimages a la The Canterbury Tales, except on the continent. We stayed in Pamplona, where Hemingway stayed and fell in love with the Fiesta de San Fermin, which includes the running of the bulls. There are lots of pictures
here.

In that album there are also some pictures from my weekend here--I spent a lot of time outside near the sea. It was warm and beautiful out, so I did a lot of walking and even spent some time at the beach! So there are some pictures of that in there too.

Here is a picture of the Castle of Javier in Navarre: