Ceud Mille Failte

The end of our Trip

2006-11-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

Well, we're now back in Canada. It seems funny to be writing about Paris, now that we're not there anymore, but I thought we should, since people would probably like to hear about it.
When we arrived, we recieved a warm welcome from a friend, Nisha, who even let us stay in her apartment, and made us dinner. (Big thanks, Nisha!). During the next several days we saw so many sights that it is hard to believe, but we barely scratched the surface of what there is to see.
We of course went to see the Eiffel Tower, and the L'ouvre (of Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo fame, etc.), because that's just compulsory. But we also went to the Musee D'Orsay, where we saw in person some very famous impressionist paintings, including Van Gogh, Cezanne (spelling?), and Degas. We both really liked the large Degas exhibits, with paintings, pastels, and sculptures. It was quite surreal to see such famous art right before you, as it really does look different in person. I found the more modern art to actually be more interesting than the older, probably due to the greater variety of subject matter.
We also did a few little walking tours of famous areas of Paris, seeing along the way: Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Marais, the Cathedral Sacre Coeur in Montmartre (where Amelie was filmed!), Pompidou Modern art gallery, the Moulin Rouge (scandalous!), and just lots of other pretty buildings that were generally scenic.
When we got back to Dublin, we took a break from travelling and went to see the movie The Devil wears Prada (which was total cheese, by the way), and it was very strange, because a large part of the movie is filmed in Paris, and we saw a lot of the places in the movie, just days before.
Then we boarded our Dublin-London (and second-last) plane, and were relieved of our monstrously large and heavy luggage. sigh.
It felt strange to come home and see something familiar after three months of strange places. And thus ends our wacky adventures in Europe.

More Berlin Updates

2006-11-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

I also forgot to describe our visit to the Reichstag, the German parliament building. After visiting Christmasland Emma and Heather walked to the Reichstag to wander inside the famous glass dome. Through the floor of the dome the people can look down on the parliament in session. Our tour guide from the walking tour had mentioned to us that the architect designed the building this way so that the government would be constantly reminded that they are beneath the people and working for the people, and also so that the people could always keep an eye on them to make sure they are working. Mom would have hated this visit because the elevator leaves you on the roof and the tourists are free to climb the winding staircase that circles around the dome to get to the top, it makes you dizzy! But since we went after dark we had a gorgeous view of Berlin at night, all lit up and sparkling. We could also see the Brandenburger Tor from the roof. All of the buildings and tourist sites have good lighting at night, probably because half the day is in darkness, Germany has only 6 hours of daylight from December to February.

We have pictures of all these wonderful things, but since I have left my laptop in Ireland, I have no way of uploading pictures from my digital camera. So sad. You will all have to sit through a VERY long slideshow when Emma and I are back in Canada.

Emma and Heather Visit Christmasland!

2006-11-13T01:18:00.000-08:00

After a long day of museums and art galeries, both modern and historical, Emma and Heather were walking back to the bus station and stumbled across a Christmas Market. We weren't expecting to find one this early, the travel books said they usually begin around November 24th, but there was a small one. It was only about five pm but it was completely dark already and all the street lights were up and each street lamp was decorated with red bows and white christmas lights and stars. There were many booths around the centre square and they were lined with twinkling white lights and the tops of the tents and the unforms were all red and white stripes. There was techno music blaring in the background and the whole place smells of waffles and funnel cake cooking and roasted nuts and barbequed bratwerst and corn. Emma and I spent a lot of money and sampled everything listed above. I ordered hot red wine and Emma ordered hot chocolate with Baileys. We ordered in German:

"Heisse Schokolate mit Baileys, bitte". That means "Hot chocolate with Baileys, please".

We also learned to say "Has du eine freunden?" That means: "Do you have a girlfriend?"

There was also a giant massive ramp that was covered in fake snow and you could pay a Euro fifty to tobogon down the ramp on a tube. It isn't snowing in Germany yet but the ramp was sponsored by a ski company. At the market I baught myself a souvenier of beautiful little orange stars that were hand-woven with tiny string and the stars are on a string of little white christmas lights, so that when the lights are turned on the stars glow orange. I wasn't really thinking though, and I don't know how I'm going to plug them in when I get back to Canada. But I tried them out in the hostel and they are so pretty.

Emma and Heather are now in beautiful, historical Koln after a 10 hour train ride yesterday and four train tranfers. But the whole trip only cost €15 each to take the long way, so I guess I can't complain.

Also, I tasted the best cholocate I have ever had. It was made by Lindor and it's like nothing there is in Canada. I have two favorite flavors: Zimt und Koriander (cinnamon and coriander) and the best most wonderful thing I have ever tasted in my life, which was..........
.......

....

Chili flavored chocolate!!! That's right, it had chili in it and it was so freaking good. It made my tongue tingle like cinnamon hearts, it was spicey and sweet and wonderfulgood.

MMMMMMMMMM!!!!

Turn Left

2006-11-10T02:11:00.000-08:00

There is a girl in our hostel who comes from Japan and is living in England for school credit and is visiting Germany for the week. Last night in the middle of the she was talking in her sleep and she said really loudly in English with a thick Japanese accent: "What?! Turn left?"

Emma and I both heard her and started laughing. That is what travelling will do to you. Confusing directions and trying to navagate around a new city that barely speaks your language will haunt your dreams!

Guten Tag!

2006-11-09T02:36:00.000-08:00

Emma and Heather are in Germany! We are having a blast so far, Germany is amazing, everyone should come here. On Tuesday we had to wake up at three AM and run to the bus to be at the airport at four AM to catch our six AM flight to Germany. But the Flight only cost €0.01 so who's complaining. There was tax on top of that but it still only worked out to like €20 each. So we landed in Germany without understanding a word of German and had to figure out how to get to our hostel. The train station has no human beings, only machines, so it took an hour and the help of a friendly British couple to figure out how to catch a train. Our hostel is very aptly named David's Cosy Little Backpacker's Hostel. It's very nice and we have met many people so far from Canada, from the States and some girls from Japan who are getting a school credit in England and visiting Germany for the week. But we are all in a 10 bed room and someone was using the hairdryer at 3:00am last night so I'm kinda grumpy today. But there is a big breakfast table at the hostel, so everyone can chit chat, its so friendly. Once we figured out the bus machines, the busses and subways are very easy to use for tourists and will take you anywhere you want to go.

Berlin is so beautiful. It is fall here and there are trees all over the city that are gold and orange, red and green. It is not too cold outside yet, but the sun starts to set around 2:30pm and it is completely dark by 5pm. Everything here is so clean and everyone is friendly, most people speak some English, at least in the stores so we won't die of hunger. After our flight landed and we droped our stuff at the hostel we went to the Berlin Zoo. We saw elephants and seals and penguins and weird pig-like animals that were so ugly, I don't know what they were though because all the signs were in German. Then we went to visit the Cathedral that was bombed during WWII and only the facade remains. There is a modern-looking temple beside it, and the roof of the original building still broken as a reminder.

Yesterday we went on a walking tour of East Berlin. We saw the same British couple who helped us with our train tickets. There were tons of Canadians on our tour and some people from our hostel. Our tour guide was amazing, he knew everything and had so much insight into Germany history, I learned more from him that I ever learned in history class at school. He would act out the historical events he was describing and acted like many characters. Everyone thought he was hillarious. There were about 20 people on our tour and they were all about our age. The tour lasted four hours and we got to see the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and Humbolt University where all sorts of smart people studied, including Einstein and right in front of that was the place where the Nazis burned books from the university library. There is a memorial on that spot. It is a glass window on the outside ground and you look into the window and beneath you there is a a small room with empty book shelves with enough room to shelve the aproximate number of books that were burned. We also saw a memorial in the middle of the city right near the Reichtag for the Jewish people that died in the Holocaust. It was a series of large blocks that formed a maze, hard to describe, but I took pictures. We also got to see the actual hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from the balcony. Everyone took a picture. We got to see part of the Berlin wall and the tour guide told us the story of how it fell, and it was really neat because he was there.

Then we went to the Tiergarden that used to be Royal hunting grounds but was converted into a public park. It was soooo beautiful with all the colourful fall leaves.

Ok we have so much more to see, today is museum day, more update later!
-Heather

Photo Update of Innish Mor

2006-11-03T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a bar that is covered in chickens and roosters that would crow at us as we walked past.

Here is a view from the pier of the sun setting on the island.

Here is a view of the cliffs that we leaned over.

This is the view from the highest point on the island.

This is Emma walking on the path.

Emma and Heather return to Inishmor

2006-11-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

We had a great couple of days staying on the island of Inishmore. The first day was miserable and rainy, but we bought souvenir toques, and persevered. The next two days made up for the first - the sky was blue, waves were crashing, there were more cows than people...
Anyway, as usual, our internet is down (AGAIN!!!), so you may not see pictures until we get back to Canada, because we are moving out of our house in Galway. But there was much hiking, biking, pony-nose patting, and peering over the edge of high cliffs. That was nauseating. Wait till you see our birds-eye pictures of that. But don't worry, we crawled up to them on our bellies, and peered very cautiously over the edge. Some people were kneeling by them, craning their heads over; one gust of wind, and they'd have been toast. That was pretty scary. There were some really nice, but challenging hikes, which led to even nicer views at the top (all the walks seemed to go UP - even on the way down...). We were so tired after three days of walking and biking that it was blissful to sit on the ferry and relax, and watch the sunset - and it was a gorgeous sunset. We took so many pictures that we both ran out of film/memory space. Yes, it was THAT pretty.
-Emma

Our Home and Native Land

2006-10-29T05:12:00.000-08:00

Emma and Heather are coming back to Canada for the winter!! YAY! We should probably be disapointed but really we're just excited to be going home. It is tough to find jobs in Galway and it's pretty miserable to have nothing to do all the time and no one to talk to. Not worth the stress. We are going back to Canada to work for the winter and coming back to Ireland next summer when it will be tourist season, and we will be able to finds jobs as live-in hostel workers. And this time, we are going to try to find jobs BEFORE we come over. We thought that it would be fun to live in another country and see what it's like without being a tourist, but really we just want to be tourists, it's much more fun! Plus, this way we can blow the rest of our savings on an awesome vacation. Here is our itinerary for the next couple of weeks:

Monday, October 30th - Wednesday, November 1st: Aran Islands, staying in a hostel on Innishmor and biking around seeing sublime cliffs and creepy archeaological sites and lots and lots of water.

November 2nd - November 3rd: Packing, hanging around Galway, saying goodbye to traveling girls from Halifax that we met while we were here.

November 4th - November 6th: Dublin. Literary Pub Crawl and other fun touristy stuff.

November 7th - November 15th: Germany. Our flight with Ryan Air leaves at 6:05am and lands in Berlin at 9:00am. We will see the sights in Berlin, then take another flight to Koln on November 11th, because it is like 300 Euro cheaper than taking the train.

November 15th - November 21st: Paris. We are flying German wings to Paris and will be staying there for just under a week. We probably won't be leaving the city because there is so much to see there. Then we are taking Ryan Air back to Dublin and staying there for one night.

November 22nd (just in time for my birthday): Flight back to Canada 10:30am- 7:05pm. Mom and dad, can you guys pick me up at the airport?

I will make lots of blog posts from other countries when I can find an internet cafe! See you all soon!

Hiking in the Connemara Mountains

2006-10-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Emma and Heather's most recent adventure was one of the most fun so far. We went to stay in a secluded hostel in the middle of nowhere that is surrounded by beautiful mountains. It was a two hour bus ride out of town through beautiful scenes of mirror-still lakes that reflected the mountains above them that were covered in trees and wild plants. The hostel was so remote that the website told us to bring food for as long as you are staying there because there is not a store for miles and miles! We had to fill Emma's travel backback with almost three days worth of food. When we first arrived in Sleepzone Connemara we ate our lunch outside, and this was our view:

Then we packed up and went on a self-guided hike for a couple of hours down one of the walking trails. There were sheep everywhere. Most of them weren't in fences and they were wondering around the main road or grazing near it. When we got out to the hiking trail there were sheep everywhere, so many sheep. At one point Emma and I followed the path around a sharp turn leading up a hill and when we turned the corner there were three sheep blocking the path and looking straight at us! We both started laughing, it looked like they were saying "you shall not pass here". The sheep were really skittish though and wouldnt let us anywhere near them, both of us tried MANY times to pet the sheep but they weren't havin' none of that.This is as close as I got to sheep, which is probably for the best because they looked a little soggy:

We hiked for about three hours then the trail turned into the main road, so we just backtracked instead of taking the main road and walked back along the same trail. Here is a picture of our hostel that night when we were getting back:

There is a tv room in the hostel and a bunch of people that were staying there all watched Jerry McGuire. Emma and I were staying in a four bed room and the two other girls were from Switzerland and were travelling around Ireland for three weeks. They were a lot of fun to hang out with and had some funny stories. The next day we set out for another adventure walk, through the mountains this time, but after a couple of hours it started to rain pretty hard and everything got soaked! We were trying to get to the small town of Lenanne but we turned around to go back to camp becuase everything was drenched. The Swiss girls made it there on their bikes on the main road though, and they said it was just five houses, a postal service window and a tourist shop. The hiking through the mountain was fun though, even though it was wet and muddy. I wish a had a pannoramic camera though, the pictures of the mountains dont really capture what it was like to be completely surrounded by mountains and lakes.

Emma and Heather Visit the Edge of the Earth

2006-10-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

(For this post, the pictures say it all. Please click on the images to view larger versions)...

Emma and Heather visited the most beautiful place in the world. We took the ferry out to Inishmor Island and rented bikes for the day. There weren't many tourists around and we didnt use a tour guide. We just biked around the most beautiful countryside on a self-guided tour. The population of the island is 800 so the landscape was pretty much open for uninterrupted biking and hiking. The bike trail/road runs along the coast line so we got to see beautiful tall untrimed grass, some farms and some beaches. The first stop we made was the heritage site of a ruined, abandoned signal tour. We had to hike up the steepest hill we've ever seen, it was ridiculous. We made some friends along the way:

Then we abandoned our bikes from exhaustion and hiked the rest of the way up. When we reached the top we were on the highest point of the island. The heritage site was unspoiled by tourists. We spent about 45 minutes hiking around and there were only three other people in the general area that whole time. We walked in and around the ruined tower that was covered in tall grass and wild plants. Here is what we saw:

The tower isn't in this picture, but you get the idea. We had some serious trouble editing photos for this post because they are all so beautiful. We also found at this site a small house that was set up to look like an old fashioned cottage. There was a bedroom and a chest and some bowls and a cabinet and a butter churn. It was a really neat site because it was totally abandoned and no one was guarding the site. It was just me and Emma in this preserved historical site. The site was every bit as eerie as it looks in the above picture with the wind whistling through the tall grass. We got back on our bikes and continued our trek to the cliffs. The entire west side of the island is made of steep cliffs. The brochures say that it should take you half an hour to bike from one end of the island to the other, but it took me and Emma almost half the day, not only because we were stopping to look at pretty things, but mostly because we had to get off and walk when we came to any sort of hill or slight incline in the road. Here is a photo of some of the scenery we saw on our bikes:

Then we made it to the cliffs. We saw them through the archeological site of Dún Aonghasa. It is a Celtic fort built on the edge of the cliffs from as early as 2000 BC. This is the stone stairway we climbed to reach the cliffs:

I don't have any words to describe the cliffs and the pictures don't capture it either. It is the most breathtaking site imaginable. Here are some of Emma and Heather's favorite photos (though there are hundreds more):

Emma is standing very close to the edge of the universe! Some crazy people were getting on their bellies and hanging their heads and torsos over the edge to take pictures, but we were too chicken. We stayed for about an hour and a half just wandering around and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere. Just when we thought it couldnt get anymore amazing and perfect, we saw a school of dolphins playing and jumping in the water below us! The pictures dont really show that we were on a cliff, but it was a long way to the water from where we were standing. More photos to come...

Nerdy Tourist Aquarium Adventure

2006-10-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

Emma and Heather are shameless tourists and the other day we visited Atlantiquarium and hung out with some sting rays, seahorses and big ugly trout. There were massive aquariums that went to the ceiling with glass windows that made us feel like we were underwater mermaids. Here are photos:

This sting ray is doing tricks for us. He kept poking his nose up to say hello and followed us around the tank. Here is a huge fat trout that was opening and closing his mouth for like ten minutes. He looked very grumpy.

Finally, here is a photo of pretty and glittery sea anemones:

Photo Update

2006-10-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

Today is a very special day! Emma and Heather have lugged the 10 ton laptop to an internet cafe so that we can post pictures of our adventures for y'all!!! Here are some LONG overdue pictures of Connemara from the way-back machine:

And here are some gorgeous shots of magnificent Kylemore Abbey (notice streams of waterfalls in the mountain):

More photos to come!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-10-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

For Thanksgiving Monday Emma and Heather celebrated the holiday with the Canadian girls that we met in our hostel. Their names are Marti and Racheal and they are from Halifax. They invited us over to their apartment and cooked a chicken and some mashed potatos and stuffing. Emma and I brought brocoli and culliflower cheese caserole (we modified the recipe that was in the book that Auntie Rose gave me before I left) and we also brought some apple crisp that I baked from the recipe that Grandma gave me. Thanks for the delicious recipes, you guys! It was a super fun time. And my Irish roommates had never tasted applecrisp and they didnt know what it was so Emma and I baked another batch for them on Tuesday night and they loved it!

Emma and Heather are Taking Holy Orders

2006-10-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Emma and Heather went on a day trip to Connemara. I wish I could post pictures but the internet at my house is down indefinately. It was so gorgeous, there was rocky sea-side scenery with waves crashing against the rocks and beatiful steep mountains with all sorts of narrow water falls running throughout the tops of the mountain and also little waterfalls running through the trees and rocks closer to the ground. And we saw a lot of CUTE sheep! One of them looked right at me. We visited Kylemore Abbey, which is a gorgeous castle-type builidng in the most beatiful rocky mountain setting near a lake that you could imagine. They gift shop near it had crafts that the nuns had made. I decided that I want to become a nun. It seems like all they really have to do is make awesome crafts and hike around the mountains and never have to worry about getting a job or making any money. And they get to run classes for little kids. It's no fair. It sounds like they've got it made, and all they have to do is pray a couple of times a day. That's what I want to do with my life. There is a really nice hostel out there that has bike rentals and all sorts of hiking stuff and Emma and I are going to stay there for a couple of day real soon. I can't wait!!!! That was the best part of the trip so far, and the thing I am most looking forward to is hiking in those mountains.

-Heather

Immigration Office: 3, Heather and Emma: 0

2006-09-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Emma and Heather were very stressed trying to find jobs and housing so we went on a day trip and toured around the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. It was so beautiful, check it out:

The pictures dont really capture it at all. The Cliffs were breathtaking and the day was so much fun in the Irish country side. And all of the streets were flooded and the bus had to drive through valleys of water.

Saturday we moved into our new place and our roommates are so friendly and so helpful, we would be totally lost without them. We don't know how to use any appliances here, we needed instructions on everything, including washer and dryer, the oven, the shower and how to lock the front door. They also gave us cell phone tutorials. Also Emma locked herself in the bathroom within the first half our of living here. Also I set off the emergency alarm on our first trip to the grocery store because there's only the front door to exit and enter, unlike in Canada where you have an entrance door and an exit door. But other than that everything is going well. Our roommates took us out to a pub on our first night here and we all get along really well. Here are some pictures of our new house:

Other than that we have been searching for jobs and trying to get our passports stamped, which seems to be pretty close to impossible. We have tried three times now. The first time we went to the bus station and asked what bus to get on, and they said #3. So we got on the number 3 bus and asked the bus driver if this bus goes by Lisobaun park where the Immigration Office is, and he said yes. We told him that we have no clue what it looks like, so he said that he would let us know what stop to get off. So after a half an hour we started to get nervous so Emma asked if we'd passed it yet and the driver said that we had already passed it but the bus is on a loop so we'd pass it again before the town so we waited and waited and waited and then we were back in the town as the bus station we had started in. The driver said that he said it twice, but that could not be, because we were listening and standing right beside him the whole time. We did the entire bus loop. It took an hour. We were too stressed to attempt it again that day. We told our roommates what had happened and they laughed at us and Ciara said she was going there the next day so we would all walk together. When we got to Lisobaun park there were no unit numbers or anything and the place is HUGE so we wandered around for a while looking for it and finally found it in a back corner with no sign or anything official looking, just a half peice of paper with the words "Immigration Office" on it and scotch-taped to the window. BUT, the privious day the computers had failed so they were only taking people who already had their tickets from the previous day. We were told to come back tomorrow. So the next day we tried AGAIN and there was a sign on the door that said "Closed unit October 1st" with no explanation. So I guess we wait and try and walk out there again on Monday. JEEZ!

The internet is working in our house again so we will be able to post more often and be better at keeping up with emails!!

-Heather

Emma and Heather are No Longer Hobos

2006-09-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

We have a place to live now! YAY!
It is a really cute house in Knocknaccarra, a 10 minute city bus ride out of town. We share with four other people who are the same age as us and are just out of school. There are two boys and two girls. The house is really nice and bright and modern and we can't wait to move in!! Our moving day is this Saturday.

Finding housing here is ridiculously difficult. The accomodation listings come out every Wednesday at 2pm and everyone lines up at the Galway Advertiser around 1 and Emma and Heather stood in the freaking rain for almost an hour with all the other chumps who needed a place to live. We started calling places right away and many lines were busy because everyone was calling at once. We went to see a few places and told the people we would think about it. Some of the listings said to call after 6pm but when we called some places they were already gone that night. So we called back our favorite place and told them we wanted to move in. It was pretty inexpensive considering it is really expensive to live here, rent is really high. But our place is 50 Euro a week which is the cheapest we could find and was really rare.

So now finally we have a house! We still need to find jobs, then we can start touring around. We have been looking at a Cliffs of Moher bus tour that looks really beautiful and it's for a whole day. While we're here we also want to tour around Ireland and go to Scotland and Amsterdam and maybe France.

I will post a picture of the house on Saturday when we move in.

-Heather

This is How Windy it is in Galway:

2006-09-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today it was so windy by the water that we were literally being blown down the street. Seriously.

Rainy Day in a Seaside Town

2006-09-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Galway is very rainy and very windy. Emma and Heather are trying to find a place to live, but places go very fast here so we are excited for Wednesday when the new paper comes out with new advertised places to rent. We will be very happy to have a private washroom and not have to share bedrooms that have 10 beds!

Galway is very beautiful though, and we both have moviestar hair from being in the wind constantly. Our hair is wavy and stylish. Yesterday we walked out on the causeway that leads to nowhere and the town looked pretty and whimsical from way out in the water. The beach area smells likes salt and oysters, and there are lots of CUTE scruffy dogs here. There are no purebreds they are all adorable scragtaggly mutts. Galway is not as busy as Dublin but there are a lot of tourists around and it gets busy on the weekends.

Today Emma and Heather are sulking because we are hobos with no homes so we slpurged and baught stylish expensive things. Heather got a cute overpriced hat and Emma got a cute overpriced hairband. Everyone here is very well dressed and most people wear expensive clothes.

Here are some pictures of beautiful Galway:

Some of the streets are just for pedestrians, which is awesome. The roads, however, are very confusing. The road rules and etiquette are completely different and wild. Traffic is heavy.

The internet is very slow today so I can't upload any more pictures. I will post again later.

So far, Galway is very pleasant, and we be much more fun when we have jobs and rooms.

-Heather

In Our New Home City - Galway

2006-09-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night, Emma and Heather went to a really cute pub that was painted green and had a band playing penny whistles and fiddles. It was in Temple Bar and it was called Oliver St John Gogharty. It was very crowded and we had a lot of rowdy fun. See photo below.

On Thursday Emma and Heather tried to go to Dublin Castle but it was very hard to find the freaking entrance. We wandered around for a long time, then gave up. It was kind of a small castle anyhow. Then we went to the National Museum of Ireland. That was loads of fun. We saw pottery and buttons and knives from 2500-1900 BC. They also had the carved out rocks that were used as molds to make daggers. We also saw the room with the Irish national treasures. We saw clothes were preserved in a bog from the 17th Ce and some really long pimped-out canes. There were also many really snazy famous historical brooches. The highlight of that trip was the Viking Exhibit. We saw a scull that was smashed by an axe and the iron collars that the Vikings used to put on slaves. There were also some old shoes made out of leather that were massive.

That night we went to a trendy pub that was kinda swank (we wore high heels). Then we went to another pub in Temple Bar called The Quays and had a Guinness. There was live music. We also met some really cool Canadian people who recognized the brand on Emma's pants and asked us if we were from Canada. They were from Windsor. They were really friendly and it was nice to talk to someone from Canada.

On Friday morning we caught a bus from Dublin to Galway and were both very happy to leave the busy city. We just got back from walking around the downtown of Galway and its sooooo pretty so far. Inside the city centre the streets dont have any cars and its just people and pubs and its very close to the water and lots of great beaches. Right now we are splurging on a B&B for the weekend then we are going to back to living in a 10 bedroom hostel. See photo below of our B&B called Glencree. Tomorrow we will explore the town some more. Galway is going to be an awesome place for our new home.

Tonight I will post pictures of Galway.
-Heather

First Day In Ireland

2006-09-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

Today Emma and Heather are in Ireland. Already, we have been caught in the rain. We have changed our shirts but are both too lazy to get dry pants and shoes from the baggage lock-up place in our hostel, and we now own a stupid green umbrella with a shamrock that says Ireland. But it's not as though we blend in anyhow. I was determined not to look like a tourist but its pretty much impossible. Yesterday we got to our hostel.

Heathrow airport is worse than Dante’s ninth layer of hell. We almost missed our connecting flight because of the stupidest person in existence who misdirected us twice to the wrong line up, and the lineups are LOOOOONNNGGGGGGGG and hot and stuffy and smelly and stooopid.

British Airways was ok, but neither of us got much sleep. Getting from the airport to our hostel was soooo annoying. The busses are really difficult and no one helped with our four bags that weighed more than we did. Then from the bus station the cab driver loaded our stuff into his cab and when we told him the address of where we were going he laughed at us and said “It’s right over there” and gave us the most convoluted directions. There was no way we could cross the busy street to get to where he pointed, and we couldn’t get all our luggage over there and we were both hot and exhausted and stressed and hungry. So we tried another cab driver too, and he gave us different directions than the first guy. And we just looked at him until he said “Do you speak English?” Finally we found a cab driver who would drive us there, and it was a good five minute ride, and he helped us cross the street with our heavy bags. And after he loaded all our bags I went to get in the passenger side and wondered why there were two steering wheels. Then I realized…I’m not smart. The cabbie thought it was funny and said he was going to let me get in before I realized what I was doing.

That night we went for a nice walk to Temple bar, and it was really pretty and funky and comparable to Kensington Market in Toronto. It was really trendy and we found Sandy’s doppelganger in a pub (but he wasn’t nearly as cool of course). Below is a picture of us at Ha’ Penny Bridge. Then we went back to our hostel and watched Trailer Park boys and crashed in our beds. There are eight other girls in our hostel room and they are VERY quiet and awkward.

Today we went to Grafton St., a must-see for all tourists. We peaked in some really swank stores and had some delicious fresh roast coffee with mocha at Bewley’s. And we ate our lunch of roasted pepper wraps in St. Steven’s Green. See photo below.

So far Ireland is pretty sweet. Soon we will be going to Galway. Horray!!!

-Heather

First Taste of Guinness

2006-08-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Emma and I tried our first pint of Guinness the other night. We didn't want to be regarded as wusses when we went to Ireland. They would think that Canadians like beer that is mostly water and they would scoff at us. We couln't let that happen.

First impressions: Bryn's description of Guinness was accurate: it tasted like burnt coffee that had sat in the fridge all night. It had a disgusting aftertaste but wasn't so bad with chicken fingers and fries. In time we will learn to love it and crave it.

But for now, nothing in the world beat's a platter of nachos with green olives and tomatos and a pitcher of Rickard's Red at Ethels.

Emma Loves Beer

2006-08-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Emma loves Canadian beer...but will she love Irish beer?