Hi folks! So yes, I realize that it has been a lifetime since I last posted anything that was worth reading. (I'm making the assumption that it was somewhat worth reading previously!)
Why the sudden jump back into blogging you ask? Well to be perfectly frank it's because I have way too much time on my hands and an extra hobby won't kill me! As for what I will be putting in here I really am not quite sure yet. I've never really had a theme to my blog before and I doubt that I will now. I'll likely just post anything that strikes my fancy. Like food. Lots of food. I've been cooking a lot more lately and will probably post quite a bit about that. I also want to make time to do other things like more knitting projects, more travelling and a million other things. So bear with me while I get my act together!
In the meantime, here are some pictures of cute animals to tide you over:
I can't believe it but I only have 6 more days abroad before coming home and it's looking like they're going to be jam packed!! We're going to be heading up to Galway this weekend and doing some exploring, then it's back to London for a pint at The World's End pub, followed by 2 shows in the West End: The Lion King and The Phantom of the Opera. After that we're on a plane home.
Before I get into what we've been up to the last few days (and believe me there's plenty) some of you might be wondering if I'm disappointed that things didn't work out the way I had hoped. In some ways I am simply because I thought working abroad was something I always wanted to do and when I got there and realized how ill equipped I was to be there it lost all it's appeal. I don't think I fully appreciated just how hard it would be or how good I have it back in Canada! Also, I spent a bunch of money just to get there and so that's a pain but really..I don't regret coming. I'm still getting a great adventure out of it and Teresa and I have been having a blast this past week. I feel like I've really learned a lot about the kind of life I want and the way I want my life to go. Yes it's too bad I had to get all the way over here to realize that it wasn't what I wanted but I love to travel so we turned it into a trip instead. Though it's been rather disorganized! Either way it was a crazy whirlwind adventure and I'll be ready for some stability when I get back home!
Anyways, here's the latest update of all the crazy shenanigans we've been getting up to! I have no idea of all the little things of course since we've been here for a week already! Hopefully we're not driving the whole family nuts yet....hah! As far as I can remember after the night we went clubbing the following day we stayed home in pj's all day playing Mario on the Wii and watching terrible TV on MTV, which was really quite enjoyable as all guilty pleasure shows are. The next day I believe we went into Dublin again and just wandered around some friends and we did manage to go out to Dundrum shopping center which was cool. It was absolutely HUGE! There were so many floors and a ton of shops. The shopping here it amazing compared with home, just ask my bank account! Also while we were there they have a little place called Yo! Sushi where the sushi comes around on a conveyor belt which is old news I realize but since I've never eaten at a place like that it was a great time.
Following that I think we had another lazy day at home, although we did take the dog for a walk to the grocery store down the street and we tied her up outside while we ran in for a few things so I could make dinner for the family. Their dog REALLY hates the cold (lucky they live in Ireland eh?) so as we were coming out of the exit door we happened to look over to our right and there's the dog sitting in the entrance to the shop where it's nice and warm! Just sitting there...hanging out. It was so funny, she's such a goofy dog! My lasagna that night turned out really well so I was pleased that everyone enjoyed it. This was followed by even more Mario and bad MTV shows.
Ok...I'm probably skipping stuff since it's been ages since I last blogged but I'll just go straight to yesterday because we had a lot of fun yesterday. Teresa, Jenny and I went into Dublin to go to the Guinness Brewery which was really cool. I even managed to get the student price (I wasn't about to say anything!) and really it's a good deal. For 13 euro we got to go through the place and learn about all the ingredients used to make Guinness and see how it gets processed.
We even learned some of the history behind how it all started and we learned how to make barrels, which quite frankly was almost more impressive than how they make the beer. Barrel making takes some serious skill! Then on the 2nd floor there's a free tasting where they talk about the aromas of Guinness and what gives it it's distinct flavour profile and colour (which is ruby red and not black...who knew?! lol) then you're shuffled along into the next room with a teeny little glass of Guinness to learn how to drink it properly and believe me, if you don't look stupid doing it, you're doing it wrong. Just sayin. So that was a lot of fun and both Teresa and Jenny hated it! After the tasting we got to see the advertising that Guinness has been doing the whole time they've been selling beer and we also tested our beer IQ which was...ok lol. The advertising stuff was really cool though!
The public part of the brewery is so massive, it's 7 floors! This was the 4th floor I think. Also on the 4th floor was the Guinness Academy. That's where you go in and learn how to properly pour a pint of Guinness and then they give you a certificate. I thought it would be super fun so I decided to do it! Here's how it works: 1. Tilt the glass at a 45 degree angle and don't let the nozzle touch the glass or the beer, 2. Pull the handle down quickly so that there's enough gas coming through with the beer and as it fills you tilt the glass upright and stop when you reach halfway through the harp on the glass (because you're using a proper Guinness glass of course!) 3. Let it settle! It's a two part pour. 4. Once it's settled you push the handle of the beer tap away from you, this gives you more beer to fill the glass but not more gas. Let the head come just over the rim of the glass and you're done! It's pretty straight forwward, but it should take at least 2 and a half minutes to pour a Guinness. Apparently mine was the best pour my teacher had seen all day. Which he could've just been saying for the sake of the experience but I'm going to pretend like it was for real lol!
Afterwards I was able to take my pint up to the 7th floor so that Teresa and Jenny could redeem their tickets for a complimentary drink. But they both had pop since neither of them actually liked Guinness. It was very beautiful where we had drinks because you get a panoramic view of Dublin and lucky for us it wasn't raining so we actually got to see everything! Afterwards we walked through a slightly sketchy part of Dublin to get to the bus stop that we needed. Once we got home we had a lovely steak dinner and then it was off to the bowling alley! We had an absolute blast! The bowling alley was cool because it played the music videos of all the songs that would play which I thought was neat. It was pretty reasonably priced too. And they sell alcohol...we ended up sharing a bottle of wine haha it was kind of weird. Not that I minded though!
Well that's all for now! Tomorrow we're off to Galway for the weekend and then it's back to London. Like I said, it's hard to believe that our trip is coming to an end but we've been having a really good time. I'll be sad to leave Ireland for sure, but I am definitely coming back!
We made it to Ireland! What a long day it was to get here but am I ever glad we decided to come! It has been such a blast from the minute we got here! So here's the story...
On Friday we got up very early to leave Sam and Lisa's flat. We were SO grateful that they had let us stay there with them and couldn't thank them enough for everything they had done for us. They are such lovely, wonderful people! As they made their way to work, we made our way to the train station. Upon arriving we had to stand and stare at the departure boards to wait and see what platform we had to go to in order to catch our train. I had just enough time to get us a snack and use the washroom before we were ready to go to our platform. Oh and by the way..we left the house at 6:35am and didn't make it to the train station until 8:30am. Welcome to public transit in London. Anyways, we were in coach B on the train so we had to walk practically to the VERY back of the train to get into our spots and then we have to figure out how to get all our luggage on the stupid train so that it was out of the way. Fortunately Teresa and I each got two seats to ourselves so that helped! It was about a 3 hour train ride. It was very uneventful, I slept, wrote in my journal and stared out the window until I got dizzy and had to close my eyes again. Finally we arrived at the ferry terminal which is basically where the train stops so that was handy. We stood in line for a little while before we were able to get our tickets and then the weirdest thing happened, we got onto a city bus and were driven onto the ferry. There was no foot passenger platform..the ferry itself wasn't close at all haha so that was an interesting difference! We had had to check our large baggage so we only had our small bags which was good because we had to climb a million flights of stairs to get up to deck 9 (the first passenger deck) and then we basically just hunkered down and got comfy for the trip because it was a long ride.
The ferries here are very different from the ones at home. The one we were on had a cinema, a full size restaurant, a huge gift shop, a large kids play area, couches, a cafe, slot machines...the list goes on. Mostly though we just sat on our own (we took a time out from each other..we needed some alone time) and I watched a movie and wrote in my journal more and just relaxed. The ferry ride was about 3 hours also, definitely a full day of travel. Meanwhile my pen pal Megan had been trying to get a hold of me on Facebook but there was no free wifi on the ferry or train so I hadn't been able to reach her because we were going to meet at a train station. Though in the end it all worked out. When we arrived in Dublin Port we didn't have any Euro's for the bus to get to the train station so we ended up taking a cab to Megan's house instead which was actually really nice. It was worth the money for sure after such a long day! We arrived at Megan's house and she wasn't home but her mom came out to greet us and say hello and from the minute we've arrived we have had the most amazing time staying here! The whole family is so kind and friendly it's been really lovely! Once we got settled and Megan got home (we beat her haha, she was coming from work) we all had some supper and decided to stay in and have a few drinks. I taught them some drinking games and they taught us some and all in all it was a hilarious night, poor Megan was having a rough go of it with the drinking games!! Then we all called it a night and got ready for a busy day the next day!
Saturday morning rolls around, we got up early and had some brekie and then we were off to Dublin! Megan took us to see Trinity College and the Book of Kells but when we got there it was rather busy and it cost 9 euro to go and see it so we decided we'd just leave it and look at the grounds as they are quite lovely.
After that Megan took us around to have a look at some of the other places nearby. We went into a park called Steven's Green that was really lovely (and yes...quite green) which apparently in the summer time is really difficult to walk through as there are so many people around, sitting on the lawns and walking on the paths so it's hard to get through. But since it's winter and the weather was less than perfect (although quite good for Irish standards I thought) it was practically empty so we got to walk through a bit of the park before going back to the main roads.
From there we went into the Steven's Green mall, and then walked around to find lunch at a Japanese restaurant that I can't remember the name of and we found a lot of vintage shops on the way so I stopped and looked at a bunch of those. We passed a cupcake stand and had delicious cupcakes! Then we finally made it to lunch which was pretty good. I think Megan had the best one! After that we slowly made our way to Penneys (a HUGE store with lots of inexpensive stuff) and then we went to a shop nearby for some makeup and to a bookstore so Megan could grab a gift for a friend but they didn't have what she wanted so we headed home to get ready for a night out on the town!
We went to a club called The Palace which was really nice inside. Definitely a different vibe than the ones back home but still really fun! They also have a designated smoking area in the clubs here so people don't have to stand outside the front of the building which I thought was a neat idea. Teresa and I didn't know most of the music and frankly I must be getting too old for clubbing because it was fricken loud in there!! But we had some drinks and had a really good time. I got half a drink slopped down my back...I was nice and sticky after that. And I really enjoyed looking at all the girls in their crazy get ups. I really ought to have taken some pictures...
The clubs here don't close until about 4am some of them so we left at 3am to grab a bite with Megan's friends and then catch the last bus home at 4am. While we were standing outside, me in my yellow rain jacket because I'm just that cool, and this guy came up to me yelling "follow the yellow brick road!" and then grabbed a handful of my hair and smelled it. I'm talking a proper deep inhale and then he wandered away like nothing happened. It was easily the most bizzare thing that's happened since I got here! But it was funny and we had a really good time. We got home and got caught in a crazy downpour (proper Irish weather!) and ran partway home, collapsed into bed and slept soundly until 11:30am this morning.
This morning has been really chill and that's been great. We haven't had a day to just sit and do nothing in a long time so it is not just after 4pm and I haven't showered or gotten dressed today. We had a lovely start to our morning actually, we were spoiled with a proper Irish breakfast of rashers (bacon basically) sausages, black pudding (aka blood pudding), white pudding (made with organs), bread and butter and sunny side up eggs. I have now officially eaten white and black pudding and thoroughly enjoyed both! Which was a surprise haha, I didn't expect to like it to be honest. But if you can forget about what they're made of they're both actually quite tasty! I think now it's about time I showered or at least got up off the couch!
Coming soon:
- More photos of Dublin
- a possible trip to Galway
- Paris and Disneyland!
And here's a song to put you in the Irish mood! Galway Girl by Steve Earle.
