You thought you got rid of me. Hah.

So Summer’s ending. I hate to even think about it, it makes me cringe. But it’s ending. Which means it’s time to look back on the good old summer days and cry because it’s not happening for another year. So let’s go before I regret this.

I went to Europe! Europe is that place where they say things strange and Britain left it. But my trip there was great. I went to Ireland for three days first, and then to Italy for TWO AND A HALF WEEKS. Yes. I am blessed with these wonderful opportunities. But let’s go look back on my trip and by the end I’ll be buying a ticket to live in Italy.

Day 1: We got to the airport at 11:40. We took a taxi and the driver talked about how bad Rogers cellphones are and Pokemon Go [which I am in love with]. So, nothing too bad about getting the airport early, right?

Our flight was at 2:30

Thanks mom. So we went through security [which I will always hate because I’m always scared they’ll drag me into one of those interrogation rooms and ask me questions which I don’t know the answer to] and then got to the gate. With three hours to spare. We got A&W, and the lady behind us asked what poutine was. And then I realized I’d be deprived of poutine for three weeks. I almost cried. So we got on the plane, and headed off to Dublin!

So we got there, and I counted about 20 hares in the airport fields. It was ridiculous. So Ireland is about eight hours ahead of Vancouver. I tried to sleep on the the plane, but I didn’t. So my entire family was exhausted for the entire day, as for us it was 4:00 am in Vancouver when we landed, and it was noon in Ireland. Augh. So we met my Granny Finola at the airport

And we went off to the small town of Skerries. Skerries is a half hour drive from Dublin, and is the town which my dad grew up in. It’s quite a beautiful place.

We took the first day to tour around Skerries. I had Ribena, which is only the best British drink since tea. We toured around the harbour, and had ice cream from a place called ‘Storm in a Tea Cup’. Which makes really good ice cream, by the way. We went back to my Granny’s house, had dinner, and went to bed at 6:30 out of exhaustion.

Day 2: We went into Dublin. Now, two things you need to know about the Irish. Point 1: Rule are just suggestions. The best example of this is when we went to get on one of the double decker tour buses. Really interesting and educational, I’ll tell you about it later. But so we go up to the guy who sells the tickets, and we’re all like ‘yeah four tickets. Three adults, one youth’. And the guy takes a look at my sister, and asks how old she is. ’16’ she said. The guy nodded. ‘Yeah. Now you’re fourteen, you go free now’. Ireland is great, man. Anyways, point 2: They run on Irish time.

Pretty much if you tell someone you’ll meet them at 2:00 in Ireland, they’ll get there between 2:00 and 3:00.

So, we got on one of those big tour busses

And we were off around Dublin. Our tour guide who narrated the tour was called Patty. Like he could,not get more Irish, he might as well have been eating potatoes and Guinness. We went past quite a few cool places, including a college. Nothing too fancy about it, right? Wrong. There was a funny story about it. The founder once said “over my dead body will a woman educate herself at my college”. He died, and that same year the first woman was sent to learn there. Huh.

Fun Irish Fact: St. Patrick, contrary to popular belief, didn’t drive the snakes out of Ireland. There was never any snakes in Ireland, he drove out Paganism, represented by the serpent, and brought in Christianity, the main religion in Ireland nowadays.

We went past the Guiness factory, which we didn’t go into as no one in my family drinks at all. If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what Guiness is, it’s pretty much the world’s strongest beer. It’s close to black in colour and is quite strong. Not that I would know

Once we were done in Dublin, after getting off the bus and enjoying the sights and all the Irish things and having ice cream for dinner [oops] we got back, and relaxed at my Granny’s place, then went to bed.

Day 3: This was the day that my Granny finally said something about the weather. Usually, it’s awful in Ireland. Raining, cloudy, cold, miserable. But the three days that we were there, it had been 25°-30°. Yeah, we hit a good spot. So on the third day was all about historic stuff. Now, when I say historic, I don’t mean 18th century buildings. I mean older than the Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids

Newgrange, Ireland, EU, Planet Earth. Built around 3200 BC. It was actually a device built by the ancient people who worshipped the sun as a god.

How it works, is during the winter solstice, the sun will shine through the passage directly and hit the back wall. Our best guess as to why the peoples of old, old, old Ireland did this was because they worshipped the sun, and they feared every year that the sun gods would leave them and plunge the world into eternal darkness. This device proved that the gods would rise like the sun and not leave them in the dark. And we got to enter it. The outside looked like this

We entered through the hole on the bottom, and it was so small even I, Miss. 5ft, had to duck to fit in. It was really cool. My mum, being the typical tourist, insisted she took a photo of me sitting outside of it.

But that was cool. After that, we went to my dad’s old college! It was an all boys school, where my dad and his twin went. Yes, they got in trouble a lot. They even had a golf course! Like, what? The building itself was quite impressive,

But then you saw where the priests lived.

An actual castle. Yes, there were priests. It was a religious school, very Catholic, very strict. So my dad didn’t do well there. There was this really cool tree arch where people used to hand out in the hide form studies sometimes. So probably the best school ever [sorry Seycove!]

We had dinner at a place called ‘Stoop Your Head’ and had the best chowder ever.

Day 4:

I woke up at 12:30 at night. Thanks universe! So I was laying there, questioning life for about 2 and a half hours until my mum came in. We were supposed to leave at 4:00 am, which no one was happy about, to go to Italy. We got up, and got all packed up. We opened the door for the taxi…. And it was pouring rain. The day before we got to Ireland, it had been awful. We got there, and it was the best it had been all summer. The day we leave, the heavens opened. It was great. The flight to Pisa was only about two hours, so we got there in no time.

And we were in Italy. One hour ahead of Ireland, shaped like a boot, makes the best pizza, pasta, and leather. I was happy, to say the least. So we got off the plane, and my dad tells my family to stay, and he and I went to get the tickets to get a train down to Florence, where we were staying. No, I didn’t see the leaning tower.

So we get to the ticket stand, and my dad asks the lady which is faster, train or bus. The lady, who obviously didn’t understand two words he had said, prints out some tickets, says “you take bus” and holds her hand out for money. So we took the bus to Florence. I slept through most…. Okay all of the bus ride. I was tired!

So we get to Florence, and we call a cab. Things you should know about Italian driving: it’s terrifying. People walk in the streets, there are more people walking than driving. So being in a cab is awful. He almost mulled over three bikers and two hundred people. So we got to the hotel, and we realized something. Italy is hot! Seriously, it was 35°. So we got into the [thankfully air conditioned] hotel. The people at the front desk were great, showing us everywhere good to eat, where to go, and gave us a thing to fill out about breakfast.

We got into the room, which was also great, and unpack. Then we look at the breakfast menu. It was all normal stuff. Orange juice, bacon, eggs, coffe, fruit salad, cake. Wait a second….

Yes. One of the options was cake. So I naturally decided to have cake for breakfast. As you do in Europe. So we went out for lunch, and had it at a nice panini place

For first Italian food, and it was great. It was giant, but great. We went onto the Ponte Vecchio, which sells a bunch of jewlery and watches and stuff. My dad said “be natural” and tried to take a photo of me. Well… I’m not a natural human being.

But if you can see at the top of the phot, there’s what looks like a tunnel. That’s where all the aristocrats walked so they wouldn’t get muddled up with the peasants down below. Italians were petty, wow.

So then we went to the Piazza Signoria. It was really beautiful, with quite a few statues and a large clock tower.

So inside of there, we got Firenze Cards. Pretty much, this allowed us to skip the lines in every museum, art gallery, anything touristy in Florence. I know, awesome. So we got into this place, but we didn’t get to see much, as there was a choir performance on. My mum and sister stayed for that, where as my dad, my Granny and I went back to the hotel for a bit. We went out to dinner, and I got a new iPad case!

Day 5: Our breakfast came:

Yum

We met up with my cousins, Amy and Aoife [pronounced Ee-fah] and my Aunt Aisling [pronounced Ash-ling] and Uncle David [you should be able to pronounce this I hope]. We went into the Uffizi Gallery, which had really impressive works of art

We also went to the Duomo. This was an issue. So we got in the long line up… And we weren’t aloud in. No shoulders showing, and nothing above the knees. We did get in, after buying scarves. It was worth it to get it. Though I didn’t take any pictures, as my dad had his phone and he waited outside with my sister, who didn’t want to go in.

We had dinner at a pizza place, and took this wonderful photo without my knowing

This is why you tell me when photos are happening. |:/

Then we had ice cream. Italian ice cream is the best, I can promise you. Though, we went to a really expensive ice cream place on accident. 9 euro for one ice cream. And there were seven of us having ice cream. You can imagine how much that cost. I’m not doing the math, use a calculator.

Day 6: We went to more chapels, which I didn’t take pictures of.

Yes. Leave it to Ruby to go to Italy and not take pictures. So any evidence that this day happened was lost. But we went to a few more churches, including a mosque, which was really cool. This was also our last day in Florence, which was sad. But we got this wonderful view of the Ponte Vecchio

Day 7: We had to say goodbye to Florence. 🙁

But, we rented a car, and drove down to the small town of Bucine [Boo-chee-nee]. We had coffee, and I discovered my love of lattes. We were one of the first people at the wonderful house, which had a giant pool. Then it started

The Week of Family

This entire week just sort of melted together. In total, our house [rather castle] had 20 people in it.

 

Thought the Week of Family we had a lot of time in the pool

 

We went on a ‘scenic adventure’. Also known as my dad seeing some sort of castle in the distance and trying to drive to it. We got to a small town… And took a picture in someone’s backyard.

It was a nice yard, to be fair.

On I think it was the second day, we found a bat on the ground! My cousin Orla insisted on keeping it alive. For size reference, the piece of fruit was maybe an inch and a half long

And…. I died my hair!

We also recreated a photo from thirteen years ago! It was really fun to see how everyone had changed

So, after a well of lounging around by the pool, it was time to move on. See you again in four years, family! 👋🏼

Day whatever number we’re on now: We left for Sorrento. No, not the car. The place in Italy, home of limoncello and black pasta. It was great! The first day we roamed around the shops mainly, and had a pizza dinner in a semi-fancy restaurant, wearing shorts and tee shirts. Let’s play find the tourists.

Day after the last one: We went on a boat cruise! It was really fun, seeing as I love being on boats. The boat itself was nice

And the driver was a fun guy. We went swimming twice, and my parents got dunked underneath this water fall that was supposed to bring good luck.

We stopped off in Positano, which was super hot. But we saw a chrurch with a set of stairs out of the Godfather

We got back on the boat, went swimming again, and then stopped off on the Amalfi Coast. It’s a beautiful place, really. We went into a shop that sold homemade paper, which was interesting

Then we went home

Day before the last day: This was probably the highlight of Sorrento for me. We went to Pompeii. For those of you know don’t know, Pompeii is a Roman city that was covered after a volcano exploded and killed everyone. Fun fact: the volcano let out no lava. What happened was the city was covered in gas which asphyxiated them all, and then they were covered in volcanic ask which solidified over time. A bit like Atlantis but on land. At-land-is…

Yeah that was bad. But we went there, and it was SO HOT. But it was interesting to learn about it. We actually got to see one of the bodies

The Last Day: We left our hotel 🙁 and went to Rome. It was a long ride, about three hours, but we passed the time

So we got to some, and got on one of the tours busses. We toured, it was fun, and we got off and had ice cream. By then it was about 4 pm already. We say Vatican City, though we couldn’t get inside because we didn’t have the proper wear. We had dinner, and took the train back to our hotel for a nice sleep before getting up at 6:00am to leave

And that was my trip! I think that’s one of the longest blog posts I’ve ever written…. Wow. But I hoped you enjoyed, if you made it this far. And, I look forward to writing to y’all this year!

Read Ya Later

Ruby