The Solo Travel Experience

Everyone recommends doing some individual traveling some time in your life. 

I am currently on a two week solo travel and here is my itinerary:

11/14- 11/16 dublin, Ireland

11/17- 11/19 Galway, Ireland

11/20- 11/21 Paris, France

11/22-11/23 Barcelona, Spain

11/24- 11/25 Rome, Italy

Please forgive any blog posts during this are written on my iPhone so I am sure errors will be plenty!

My responses to going on a trip all by me-lonesome have been varied from "you're crazy you're gonna die" (*cough Julie cough*), to the "be really careful", to "sounds boring being alone", to the "brave" or just general "that's awesome how exciting" ... So I thought I would give my advice and experience thus far !

1. You have to be comfortable being alone, and what better way to learn to be more comfortable in your own skin than a solo travel! Which leads to #2...

2. Books are your friend. Books on trains, books on planes, books in coffee shops, books in hostels.

3. Being alone puts you out of your comfort zone, and we all know it is good to get out of your comfort zone - you really learn a lot about yourself.

4. You learn to become more outgoing, a better conversationalist, and a better listener. I talk incredibly fast so this has been a good experience, especially talking to people from different countries with different accents, to sloooow down.

5. Hostels are your friend. The majority of people who stay at hostels are just like you, looking to meet people, have conversations, and want to do fun things. Hostels provide a lot of events for its guests from traditional cooking classes to pub crawls.

6. You get to make friends and connections all over the globe! When I go to Australia I will have no shortage of places to stay or at least advice from natives who know the best spots.

... And the best thing of solo traveling is...

7. Freedom! You get to chose your adventure, what to see, what to do, and when to do them. If you want to do a full action packed tour all day then pack a sandwich and go! If you are hungover and don't want to go see yet another cathedral then sleep in! No one will be dragging you out of bed! 

In the grand scheme of things two weeks is actually a very short trip and most people I have met are on 3 months to 1 year trips!

So follow my photos along my mini solo trip and enjoy :) 

Me and Molly Malone - Dublin, Ireland (apparently touching her boob is good luck!)

Reading in St. Stephan's green in Dublin, Ireland

Cliffs of Moher selfie

Drinking an Irish beer atop the Cliffs of Moher

Me and the Cliffs of Moher outside Galway, Ireland@

The land of the Irish

Ireland is one of the top countries I wanted to visit. Maybe because I am Irish, maybe because I like potatoes, or most likely because I like beer and live music and Irish pubs. 

Definitely because I like beer and live music and Irish pubs.

Getting to Ireland was the most hectic and terrible travel experience of my life. I missed my train by seconds. It was a scene from a movie where I see the train and am running to it and it just slowly starts moving, only feet away from me. After dishing out more money for a more expensive train ticket I made it to the airport. Ryanair is the cheap European airline, which mainly made this trip possible, however there is a 10 kilo bag limit for the plane. They literally have a scale at the gate to check. I made it through wearing five sweaters and my travel books in my pocket. After flying Austria to London I only had an hour between flights. Well, in London they make you go through customs and then go back through security. After the very slow custom line I ran like a crazy person and by a miracle made it to the plan 15 minutes before take-off. As I sat down out of breath and sweating on the plane I realized nothing else mattered, because on this day I would be in Ireland. On that note I smiled and ordered a beer.

My first night at O'neills I ordered a Jameson, a Guinness, and a Shepherd's pie and it was the best thing I have ever tasted. I was sitting next to two older gentleman, my grandparents age or so, who immediately began chatting and for hours they told me the stories of Ireland over many a Guinness. 

They told me it is weird, if not rude, to sit down at a pub and not introduce yourself and talk to the person next to you. This is the number one reason I love Ireland - the people. The Irish are loud, and friendly, and very fun. For example walking to my second hostel I walked up and down the street looking for the entrance and I must of had a stressful look on my face because a stranger came up to see what was wrong and ushered me to the door. 

Dublin is a very lively city with much to see. 

A Jameson and Guinness

Shepherds pie and gravy amazingness

Me first Irish friends at O'Neills

Temple bar is a very large cluster of bars, near the Liffey river

Oliver St. John Gogartys ( bar connected to one of the hostels I stayed in )

The temple bar, bar

Dame lane - less touristy string of pubs

The Irish love their tea

Cake cafe

Many of residential doors are painted with vibrant colors. The folk tale is that men used to come home so drunk from the pubs, that all the doors looked a like and they would accidentally go into the neighbors house... And in bed with the neighbors wife! So to avoid this terrible problem, doors were painted bright colors to make if easier to find at night !

St Patricks church 

Trinity college bell - the college that houses the book of Kells !

Grafton street is the main shopping area of Dublin 

Samuel Beckett bridge

I did the Guinness brewery your, which is pretty cool!

Guinness stew and Guinness at the brewery 

View of Dublin from skybar at Guinness storehouse

I also went to the old Jameson distillery. I did not do the tour, but I enjoyed a fantastic Irish Jameson coffee.

Irish Jameson coffee 

Me and Molly Malone. Apparently it is good luck to touch her left breast. She sold fish by day and sold something else by night (if you know what I mean). She has a famous Irish song about her:

In Dublin's fair city,

Where the girls are so pretty,

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

"Alive, alive, oh,

Alive, alive, oh,"

Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh".

She was a fishmonger,

But sure 'twas no wonder,

For so were her father and mother before,

And they each wheeled their barrows,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

(chorus)

She died of a fever,

And none could relieve her,

And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.

But her ghost wheels her barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

Christ church 

St. Andrews church 

As the Irish say...

Sláinte

(Cheers)

Wien

Our hometown ! Vienna ! Wien ! Land of coffee and chocolates and classical music! I wanted to put together a post of photos of this reserved and beautiful place. Enjoy!

Random Vienna Photos

Canal and U-bahn snaking through the city

U-bahn train stop

Waiting for the U-bahn

Wienerschnitzel

Kurbissuppe (Pumpkin soup) aka my obsession, from Sperl Cafe

Panorama of Michaelerplatz that features the Michaelekirche tower on the right

Spiral staircase up to our apartment

Flower street art in the Margareten District

1516 Brewery - Where we found IPA bier!

The Cobblestone Streets of Wien

The Inner Stadt consists mainly of cobblestone streets with no car access

 Karlskirche 

My favorite building

Busking travelers in the Karlskirche plaza

During Vienna Design Week, the pond in front of Karlskirche was drained and replaced with a large snowglobe 

Stephansdom

Stephansdom at night

Organ inside Stephansdom

View from the South Tower of Stephandsom

Peterskirche

The Hofburg & Surrounding Area

The Hofburg area consists of one amazing building after another including: Museum fir Volkerkunde, Ephesos Museum, Hofjagd und Rustkammer Collection, Papyrus Museum, Sammlung Alter Musikinstrumente, Nationalbibliothek, Neue Burg Museums, Schatzkammer, Sisi Museum, and Spanish Riding Museum.

Austrian National Library (left) & Palm House (right)

Burggarten

Adjacent to Palm house and Austrian National Library

Walkway in-between Burggarten and Austrian National Library 

Naturhistorisches Museum

Statue of Maria Theresia

This statue is in the center of Maria-Theresien-Platz and stands between Naturhistorisches Museum and Kunsthistorisches Museum

Hofburg Palace / International Palace

Michaelerplatz & Sisi Musem

Random parade through Michaelerplatz

Museums Quarter

The Museums in the Museums quarter are all linked through large quart yards and painted walkways. Each museum quart yard consists of colored lounge chairs.

Museums include the Leopold Museum, Kunsthalle, MUMOK, and Architekturzentrum Wien.

Parliament Building featuring Athena Fountain

Volksgarten

One of my favorite garden parks thus far

A city where lunch breaks mean opening your own bottle of wine to enjoy your sandwich while looking upon the beauty of a park

Temple of Theseus in Volksgarten

Albertina (art museum)

Schonbrunn Palace

View walking in to the palace

Maze inside the palace gardens

Heldendenkmal der Roten Armee

A memorial to those who died in the 1945 Vienna Offensive

& behind the fountain

Palais Schwarzenberg

an 18th-century palace built for Prince Eugene's political rival, Count Heinrich-Franz of Mansfield. In an attempt to outdo Prince Eugene, Mansfield bought this plot, directly next to the Belvedere, and hired the same architect, Johann Lukas von Hildebrant

 Belvedere Palace

View of the backyard of the Belvedere Palace

The Vienna Secession

Founded in 1897 by artists Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, and others. The Secession artists objected to the prevailing conservatism of the Vienna Künstlerhaus with its traditional orientation toward Historicism. 

The Prater

A large public park consisting of the Wurstelprater amusement park

The famed Prater ferris wheel 

Mexikokirche or St. Francis of Assisi Church

Located in the Leopolstadt district on the Danube river

The Gasometers

These four 112-year-old gasometers have been renovated into urban complexes

This building connected to the gasometer is designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au: the firm Brandon works for

WWII Bunker Tower 

A building converted into an outdoor climbing wall and the Haus des Meeres (aquarium)