Spending 10 days in Europe was expensive. I knew I should've gone to India and Pakistan instead. But my flight from Dubai to London flew right over Baghdad...so that was probably the coolest part. I could look down and see little white cars driving around. From 28,000 feet it was hard to tell that a war was going on down there. 6 hours later my plane landed in London and it was weird getting used to seeing so much green again. I spent a few days in London wandering around, getting used to the West again, and going bankrupt. A meal at McDonald's set me back 8-10 dollars and it was the cheapest place I could find. Then I made another spontaneous decision (like I did in Egypt to go to Abu Simbel on the Sudan border) to take a bus across the English channel to visit Paris. It was only 44 quid so I thought, 'why not?' Except I spent all my money on the bus ticket and food (I ate McDonald's for every meal) so I didn't have any money for a hotel in Paris. No problem. I just stayed awake and wandered the streets all night. I met a lot of interesting people at some French bars. Like this one guy who was from Morocco. I even got to practice my Arabic with him, except he was kind of drunk. Then I watched the sunrise at the Eiffel Tower. Oh, and in France you can get a beer at McDonald's. And since they have the metric system and don't use pounds, they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese a 'Royale with Cheese'. And a Big Mac is 'Le Big Mac'. I loved Paris. It definitely beats out London and Dublin. Spontaneous decisions can pay off sometimes. Dublin was nice and cozy. Much cleaner and calmer than Paris and London. Irish accents were a bit too thick and were hard to figure out sometimes. I would make out a word here and there but the rest was all gibberish. But they did like how I was from Notre Dame. No one in the Middle East had heard of ND so it was a relief to meet people who actually knew my university. But the best part about Dublin was the Guinness Storehouse. It's my favorite beer so it felt like a pilgrimage being able to visit the place. And compared to secular London and Paris, it was nice to see a European city not in Italy that still retained its Catholic character. I flew back to the US and Notre Dame on the 16th. I left Dubai on February 7th so it was the longest time I had ever been out of the country. And now I was only back for 4 days before I would leave the country again.
Big Ben and Parliament
London Bridge
I randomly stumbled upon this in Trafalgar Sqaure
Buckingham Palace
Louvre
French McDonald's: Royale with Cheese, Beer, Potato Wedges (no French Fries?)
530am at the Eiffel Tower
7am at Le Arche d'Triomphe
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Guinness
It was good to be back at ND though. It was still kind of cold (60 degrees) but at least it was sunny. It was -2 degrees and snowing when I left in February. It was a bit weird being at ND for graduation weekend. I couldn't stop thinking that this would be me in 2 years. Yikes. My family and I met Martin Sheen outside the bookstore. He liked how we were Filipino, since it was in the Philippines that he lived when Apocalypse Now was being filmed. I also ate Chipotle for the first time in 4 months. It was glorious.
ND Graduation: Fam port with Martin Sheen.
Anyway, I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Manila. It feels good to be back in the homeland. Again.
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