Ok, this post is for those of you who are not facebook users - a brief look at my semester's travels in pictures. Hopefully this gives you a general idea of my adventures until I finally get around to putting together a Picasa album that everyone can see. We begin with my trip to Germany - we stayed in Nuremberg, but took trains into Munich on Friday and Saturday.
Oktoberfest! We made it (with a little help from ND in Innsbruck friends)! From left: AJ, Jim, me, and Meghan. Beer and a pretzel - we covered all the essentials. Prost!
We spent Saturday sightseeing in Munich. This is the Chinescher Turm in the Englischer Garten, which is one of the largest city parks in the world.
Nuremberg was an awesome city to walk around- they rebuilt it in a very traditional German style after the war. 
This was a really elaborate fountain in Nuremberg that I'm really glad I insisted on seeing. My fellow travelers had some doubts about how interesting a "Fountain of Marriage" could be, but it was well worth the excursion. It depicted about stages of marriage in larger than life-sized figures. Here I'm standing in front of what is evidently the phase where the wife lets herself go and just gorges on food, much to the husband's dismay, haha.
Trip 2: Barcelona!! I met Heather and Tina for a weekend in Barcelona. This is the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona and it's probably the craziest piece of architecture I've ever seen. It's been under construction for more than 100 years and it's not even completed yet! The architect, Gaudi, went insane trying to finish it. Fortunately, he had already designed a bunch of really cool buildings all over Barcelona before he became consumed by this one.
Me outside of Sagrada Familia - if you look really closely you can see an entire orchestra of statues around the doorway. They even have a bassoon player! I have to admit, I never thought I would see a statue of someone playing the bassoon.
Here's a view of a lot of the city of Barcelona behind me. It was a very strange city, in my opinion, but I thought hearing the Catalan dialect was really interesting. Catalan Spanish is about as close to French as it is to Castilian Spanish, so I could read all the signs about as well as Heather, who speaks Castilian. 
Meghan and I at Sacre Coeur representing Walsh Hall in Paris (wearing our hundredth anniversary shirts). We were also trying to avoid the creepy immigrant men who try to force you buy friendship bracelets by forcibly tying them onto your wrists. I've discovered the key is to not make eye contact - once they've seen the whites of your eyes, you better start saying "non merci" repeatedly and book it in the other direction...
Walshies visiting in Paris! Caroline (Rome), Me, Tina (London), and Meghan. I'm assuming I don't need to clarify the background of this one..
Reunited in London! Misha (London), Me, Tina (London), and Heather (Toledo) in front of Parliament. Two other Notre Dame girls just happened to be on the bridge at the same time, so they took this picture for us.
Antoinette (Dublin), Heather and I in front of Tower Bridge (often mistaken for London Bridge).
Here's me and AJ (Oxford) on the boat cruise on the Thames - you can see Big Ben and Parliament over my shoulder!
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