So I moved into my new room yesterday and I've never been happier. We cooked up a big dinner and all sat around the table eating like a little family we also realized that we still fit within our family roles like we did back home. Kellie was the oldest child at home and here she is the oldest at 21, Liv was the middle child and she turns 19 on December 8th and me being the baby of the family at home I'm the baby here as well.

The girls are pretty much the best roommates anyone could ask for and while the house is little it's already starting to feel like home. It was so nice to wander out of the bathroom after my shower in a towel and head to my room like I did back home, instead of trying to change in a steamy bathroom the size of a closet like at the hostel.

Lately all we've been doing is eating, watching Buffy and climbing the small mountain that leads to the grocery store up the way.

OH! And Aunt Susan, you remember the 50 Euro you gave me to spend frivolously well here is what I spent 3 euro of it on, and I think it had to be the best 3 euros I ever spent!

Oh and I've fallen in love already, but don't worry mum it's not a boy; it's a store. Penney's has to be the worlds best invention.

So life has slowed down now that mum has headed home; in current events I now have a home and job out in Galway which makes me a very happy camper. I'm working at a coffee shop on the GMIT Campus, yes the irony of blowing off University to move half way across the world only to end up working at a University has not escaped me. Basic synopsis of my job: make coffee, make tea, make smoothies, make sandwiches, clean tables, do dishes and ogle hot Irish schoolboys. I'm moving in tomorrow with Liv and Kellie which is awesome because I got along with the two of them so well and the house is only about a 10 minute walk from my work, oh yeah I also work with Liv. Once I'm settled in and have been able to add the Sara Touch I'll put up photos of my room.

Last night I spent the night with Danielle (another swapper at the hostel) watching girly movies until midnight before we went to bed. So tonight we're going out tonight to celebrate my last night in Dublin. Today has been really chilled out, Danielle (who's in my room) and I had breakfast and then we headed out to Penney's so I could get a duvet cover, which I didn't end up doing. BUT for a whole 3 Euro I bought myself the worlds comfiest slippers, later Danielle and I are going to cook up a storm and settle down with Druids and a girly movie until later when we'll head out to the pub.

So I have a bunch of photos that I meant to put up during other updates but seemed to have slipped my mind so now I'm just going to put up one random update with all the photos and explanations of the photos. So here we go.....!

So during the update about the Aran Islands I mentioned that the islands were made up of hard granite and limestone and that I discovered that the hard way, but I never elaborated on that. When we were up in Dún Aonghasa wandering around the ruins of the prehistoric forts I stepped on what looked like flat ground only to discover that it was a rocky surface with grass growing on top of it; I twisted my ankle and fell but it wasn't my ankle that I hurt I scraped my knee on the sharp rocks. Considering I hadn't

 cut my jeans up I thought it was just a little scrape so mum and I limped the 1km down the hillside 

to get some lunch, when I went to the toilet I discovered my knee was worse than just a little scrape, thank god for mothers who carry band-aids in their purses. This photo is from almost a week after I fell.

WARNING! This warning is for my sister who reads the blog to my niece and nephew every morning at breakfast. These are the cute shirts I bought for my niece and nephew.

This cute little shirt if for my niece who gets into all sorts of trouble but looks so cute while she does it.

This is for my nephew because I think he'd look adorable in a rugby jersey. I bought this jersey in Galway which is why it says Connacht, Galway is in the province of Cannacht.

Today I had to get up at 6:15am to go down to GNIB (Garda National Immigration Bureau) to register with immigration so that the next time I leave Ireland they don't threaten me with deportation again. So after

 standing in the rain for an hour and sitting in the waiting room for two hours I finally walked away with THIS!

And these two photos are the ones of mum and I kissing the Blarney Stone, which was the coldest, slimiest and wettest thing in Ireland, aside from a few of the blokes hanging around some of the pubs.

Yesterday I woke up bright and early (5am) so that I could hop on the GoBus back out to Galway because I had a job interview out there today. The reason I left so early yesterday being that I was crashing at Liv and Kellie's flat so I didn't have to pay for a hostel for the night. For those of you who don't know who Liv and Kellie are let me give you a brief introduction;

Olivia is the one on the right, she's 18 as well and from Calgary, Alberta. Beside her is Kellie, Kellie is 21 and she's from Toronto, Ontario. I met these two through SWAP they both arrived in Ireland shortly before me. They're living together in a nice little flat in Galway, with an extra room I might be occupying ( more on that later.)

Liv and Kellie had an American Couch-Surfer staying with them who joined us on our adventures in Connemara; his name is Nick, he's 22 from San Diego and plays in a pirate band (I mention this any time we had to introduce ourselves to anyone) This is Nick;

(He was eating his lunch when I took this photo, he'll more than likely kill me when he see's it...)

We made the trek down into City Center Galway to the bus depot to get our tour tickets for the tour; it was bright and sunny when we left Galway, I only mention this as to explain why, when it started pouring rain in Connemara, I didn't have my umbrella with me. Shortly after boarding the bus we all proceed to fall asleep. After waking up we realized we were already well into Connemara, one of the most beautiful and rugged terrain's in Ireland.

The main stop on this bus tour was Kylemore Abbey and before I show you any photos of the place I'm going to have to tell you a short (but not really) history of the abbey for it makes the

 beauty of the place all that more beautiful.

The Kylemore Abbey was never originally an abbey, when it was built between 1863 and 1868 it was the private residence of an English couple, Mitchell and Margaret Henry.  The Henry's were well loved by all of the resident's in Connemara which was a rare occurrence because A. they were English and B. they were landowners. But the Henry's were a loving and caring family and were amazing landowners, Mitchell Henry was a well

known English doctor and if he ever heard of one of his tenants or their families falling ill he would provide the best medical attention possible, free of charge. As well, during the Irish Famine of 1879 the Henry family would hire on tenant farmers to work in the castle so that they were still able to make money and feed their families, even though the Henry's needed no extra help. The Henry's had 9 children and when their youngest son was diagnosed with TB their doctor had suggested taking him on excursions to the Mediterranean, as the dry hot

 climate would be good for him, it was on one of these excursions that Mitchell's wife Margaret

 contracted West Nile and died in Ciaro. Upon arriving back to Kylemore Castle he had a mausoleum built where he buried his wife so that she could forever lie in the place she loved best, Connemara. Before Margaret had passed away she had constructed a brilliant walled

 garden  not far from the castle; the last walled garden in Ireland to be built. A few years af

ter the death of his wife, Mitchell Henry lost another woman he loved dearly, his eldest daughter. After these deaths Mitchell Henry could no longer stand the thought and he and his family abandoned Kylemore Castle.

The castle lived a quiet life until the first world war when a group of nuns had to flee from Belgium before their abbey was destroyed. Fleeing from Belgium to France, from France to England and finally from England to Ireland the nuns finally found a new home in Kylemore Castle. The castle was so expensive to run that even the King of England had refused to

 purchase it stating that he simply couldn't afford it. The nuns were determined to stay and opened up a private boarding school but nothing they could do would raise enough money to keep the castle in working order so finally they had to open it up to the public. While the nuns still reside in Kylemore abbey the school is no longer operational and many rooms

 are private living quarters for the nuns.

COMING SOON!

• Pictures of Galway

• Pictures of Cork and Blarney Castle
• Pictures of the freaking cute shirts I bought for my niece and nephew
• Update on the house/job hunt

Sorry for the delays in updates guys but the world has been crazy right now and tomorrow I have to wake up at 5am to hope on the bus to Galway where I drop my bags with my friend, we hop on a bus to Connemara. I'm sleeping on their couch tomorrow night and Monday morning I have my first job interview!

Inis Mor, Aran Islands, Co. Galway, Ireland

Today mum and I went to Inis Mor which is the largest trio of islands known as the Aran Islands. It is by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever been with breathtaking views from the cliffs, green fields and white sand beaches. We had originally planned to hire bikes or walk the island but when we got there mum saw the horse and cart tours and she couldn't say no to the big browns eyes of Ronny.... the horse. I however couldn't deny the big brown eyes of Angus.... the cute 20-Something Irish guy, so instead of hiring bikes or trekking it out on foot we splurged a little and did a private horse drawn tour of the island.

We started off towards Dún Aonghasa the oldest circular fort in Europe; along the way Angus was telling us about the history of Ireland as well as about the island itself. For example, the island is made up of hard limestone (as I will soon find out the hard way) which is not fertile for crops in the least, so the farmers used to drag seaweed up on top of the rock and use that as their soil for growing grass for their horses and cattle to graze on. There are no food crops on the island and only three trees on the whole of the island (imported by rich foreigners who have built their holiday homes there.) While traversing the island you'll also notice that the whole of the country side is divided up into little plots using low stone walls - there is no cement used in the building of these walls, just rocks piled on rocks

 and they've been around for hundreds of years. 

These walls are used to divide up the land, to show where one farmers land begins and the other ends, they have little V gaps in the fence to make the rotation of cattle easier.

When we got to Dún Aonghasa we had to disembark the cart and climb 1km uphill to get to the fort. This is the view of the cliff side from the ruins of the fort....

On our way down we encountered a Leprechaun House, these miniature houses are all over the Irish country side and yet no one really knows what purpose they serve.

On our way down from the fort we stopped and mum bought me an Aran sweater because I've been looking at them the whole time we've been in Galway and these ones were made right on the island by the highly skilled knitting women. Each sweater takes over 60 hours to knit and assemble, none of the women use patterns they do it all from memory and there are nine different stitches that all mean something different. Angus told us that about 50 years ago when fishermen were lost at sea and their bodies finally washed up, if they couldn't identify the man by his face they could identify his family by the sweaters they were wearing because the women in each family used a specific stitching pattern. 

On our way back into town Angus points out that the vet is in town today; the only day out of the month that they have a vet. The bank is open one day a week for four hours (the bank workers are flown in from Connemara) and during the peak tourism season bank hours are extended to a whole two days, that's eight hours a week...

After a ferry ride and a bus ride back to Galway mum and I rushed around trying to put together Thanksgiving dinner, I ended up eating stir fry and rice while mum had SuperMac's (the Irish version of MacDonalds, invented here in Galway!) and now we're sitting in the common room watching re-runs of Friends....

Galway, Ireland

Life Lessons Learned in Ireland... 

1. Streetlights are only for decorational purposes; one crosses the street whenever and wherever one feels like.
2. When flushing an Irish toilet you must use the element of surprise; you must not rest your hand on the lever prior to flushing- you must pounce and flush with a vengeance. 
3. The Irish have a wicked sense of humor, all their doors are made with heavy hardwoods and are spring loaded, making opening them a workout.
4. Cyclists are more dangerous than motorists. ALWAYS check the bicycle lanes.
5. They do have bathrooms/washrooms here, but don't be fooled, there is no toilet in them; just sinks and tubs.
6. Australians make the best drinking partners but Belgians are better for breakfast conversations.
7. Claddagh rings are like a portable Facebook Relationship status; the ring is worn on the right hand with the heart facing outward to show that the wearer is not romantically linked but is looking for love. When turned inwards, it is shown that the wearer is in a relationship, or their heart has been "captured".The ring worn on the left hand with the heart facing outward shows the wearer is engaged; turned inward indicates the wearer is married.
8. Irish men love to dance and Canadian women love them for that.
9. Irish men are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, but Irish women are mean and vicious for the most part.

London, England - Dublin, Ireland - Galway, Ireland

October 8th 

So yesterday mum and I tried to get a little bit more sightseeing in before we headed back to Dublin in the evening.

• One of the things mum really wanted to see was Buckingham Palace so we wandered over there yesterday morning and happened to catch the Changing of the Guards. (Pictures to come keep checking back!)
• Then we headed over to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre that I wanted to see and we managed to just catch the last show of the season of As You Like It that was simply amazing! It was a little bit chilly and I can see why the season ends in early October.
• We had to run from the Globe to the Tube station to get back to the hostel and collect our bags and run to make it to the airport on time and that is where everything pretty much goes to hell...

1. The train we were on to the airport takes just over an hour as it is to get to the airport and ours was delayed by about half an hour and we practically ran from the train to the check in deck only for me to be told that I was being faced with deportation.
2. When I entered Ireland for the first time they stamped my passport with a one month grace period to register with the immigration bureau and get my 12-month work visa issued into my passport. Well I hadn't gone to immigration yet and forgot to pack my work visa in my bag and so I legal didn't have the right to enter Ireland again.... so immigration told me about a loop hole; if I have a plane ticket leaving Ireland on the day or before my one month grace period is up I can get back into Ireland and register with immigration. So now I have a ticket back to London in three weeks.

October 9th

Mum and I headed to Galway today, three hour bus ride from Dublin into Galway. Galway is absolutely gorgeous, I've never seen anything so green before!

• Mum and I got off the bus and loaded up with our packs and wandered out into the street looking confused and as we stood on the corner with our map looking really confused a gentleman across the street shouted "are you girls lost?" After sheepishly admitting we were he came over and introduced himself. After telling him where we were trying to get he said he was headed over in that relative area so he walked us right to our hostel all the while telling us where to go to do things and things we should see in Galway. He was like our own local tour guide.
• Mum and I are settled into our hostel and tomorrow we'll be doing some more exploring, maybe even head to the Salt Hill Promenade, which our little tour guide told us was a beautiful walk along the coast.

The Irish are so nice and so willing to help and I'm not used to it. I was always expect them to want something in return and they never ask, they always seem to be more than happy to help. I love it here.

Dublin, Ireland & London, England

October 3^rd continued…

St. Stephens Green

• ·      A beautiful park in the middle of Dublin filled with tons of grassy areas, bronze busts of people no one remembers, duck ponds inhabited by angry swans and local teenagers making out EVERYWHERE. Beautiful nonetheless.

October 4^th

Dun Laogahaire

• ·      A beautiful little coastal town just outside of Dublin where all the local old people insist on swimming at Fifty Foot Point every morning. They’re crazy! It was chilly the morning we were out there and they were all still out there in their bathing suits floundering around in the water.

Avoca

• ·      We stopped for rest break at a place called Avoca Handweavers, it’s a store in Ireland and I fell in love; there very first thing I saw was a teapot with a button print all over it. And there was cupcakes everywhere and floral print teapots and cute little aprons. Once I’m settled into my own place I’m going to buy a teapot and an apron fom there as a housewarming gift to myself.
  

Wicklow Mountains

• ·      A beautiful mountain range (although not actually mountains they’re 100 meters too short to technically be classified as mountains) north of Dublin.
  
• ·      This is also where the River Liffey that runs through the heart of Dublin originates.
  
• ·      Many of the beautiful landscape shots from P.S. I Love You were shot in Wicklow National Park including the scene were Gerard Butler (who is actually Scottish…) and Hilary Swank meet for the first time; and yes, mum and I did get our photos taken in that place….
  
• ·      We stopped at a place overlooking Guinness Lake which is a lake that was naturally shaped like a pint glass and had sand from the coast shipped in to created a beach at the top that looked like the head of the pint. After we all got back on the bus, as a group the entire bus did a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey, mum even finished hers before I finished mine.

Glendalough (Pronounced glen-da-lock)

• ·      An old mountain monastery of St. Kevin, it was believed that St. Kevin fled to the isolated region to escape having to make any weighty decisions regarding battles and could concentrate on devoting himself to the lord. It is believed that before choosing the life of a hermit Kevin was madly in love with a woman named Kathleen and when Kevin vowed a life of celibacy Kathleen didn’t take him seriously and would attempt to seduce him on a daily basis. When Kathleen left Kevin would throw himself naked into a bush of thorns and roll around to punish himself for his impure thoughts. Talk about a buzz kill…
  
• ·      Mum and I hiked around the monastery it was a 22 km hike.
  

Traditional Irish Music Pub Crawl

• ·      After our day in the mountains mum and I embarked on another journey it was a pub crawl through some of Dublin City Centers best music pubs with two local musicians playing tunes and songs and talking about the history and importance of Irish music in the past and present.
  
• ·      Mum had TWO WHOLE DRINKS!
  

October 5^th

First day in London!

• ·      Well our flight was twenty minutes late departing because of terrible weather… in London.
  
• ·      We arrived into London under rainstorm and after finally getting into the city center after an hour and a half train ride from Gatwick Airport we couldn’t find our hostel. We had originally booked into the Generator but there was a mix up in bookings and they had supposedly given our room to someone else so they forwarded our booking onto another place in the area, the St. Athans Hotel. The place was clean and quiet and sterile; it felt like the Seniors home I used to work at where people dumped their relatives to die. So mum went back to the Generator and with complaining that only a mother could manage, got us rooms at the generator.
  
• ·      To cheer me up after finding out we’d be spending the night in a retirement home mum and I went out for Indian food, AND SHE ACTUALLY ATE IT. I have to give mum lots of credit she tired a lot of things on this trip that I never thought she would; Traditional Irish Stew, Guinness, Irish Whiskey, a Pub Crawl, Indian Food…
  

October 6^th

Mum and I hopped on the tube and did some sight seeing;

• ·      We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The London Eye – which is like a gigantic Ferris wheel that reaches 135m tall at the highest point and gives you a 360-degree view of London. I even convinced mum to do it, heres photographic proof!
  

One of the things mum and I agreed that we both wanted to do while in London was see a show.

• ·      Thanks to Jane, one of the ladies my mum works with, we found a place to get fairly cheap tickets to the West End shows. For £20 less we got AMAZING seats to see Les Miserables and it was simply breath taking, mum pretty much bawled her eyes out the whole time.
  

October 7^th

We did a sight seeing tour today, which was pretty much terrible. It was a hop on hop off service like the one we did in Dublin only these buses never came when they were supposed to so we got stuck standing in the rain waiting for 25 minutes for the next bus. Today we saw:

• ·      London Bridge, Millennium Bridge and pretty much every other bridge in London
  
• ·      Tower of London
  
• ·      Thames River Cruise
  
• ·      Shakespeare’s Globe Theater – we were going to go see As You Like It but it was pouring rain and seeing as it was an open theatre we didn’t think that was such a great idea.
  

We had super yummy Chinese food for dinner and I’ll probably eat the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

Dublin, Ireland

Thursday Oct. 1

So Thursday afternoon mum and I sat in the USIT office as I updated my CV and cover letters, I had to phone Urban Outfitters to get the number for the Benefits Department to add to my CV reference section and my manager said she'd call me back with it so I left her my Irish cell number and then waited, and  never heard back from her and I was starting to wonder why,

 later I went on Facebook and a co-worker had given me the number and mentioned that when Tracy tried to call me somehow she was connected to a number in Hong Kong instead of

 mine....

With most of the day gone by the time I updated my CV mum and I decided to go grocery shopping for dinner because there is quite literally a mob of thirty germans in our hostel and in true German fashion they cook EVERY meal so you either have to eat early or eat late because they take up all the seats in the kitchen. So early dinner it was! After dinner Hugh(one of the Aussies) Levina and Matt (two Canadians that just got into Ireland) and myself went to Quays Pub to hear some amazing Irish music, they were a guitar and fiddle duo. That's one thing that I'm already so in love with this country is the music, I don't know if I'll ever use my IPod here  because the streets are already filled with amazing music. At the Quays myself and the two other Canadians had our first pints of Guinness; it wasn't bad but it's so filling I don't know how ANYONE could get drunk off of that.

Friday Oct. 2

Yesterday I finally gave in and did something unbelievably touristy with mum. It was called the hop on - hop off bus tour, meaning it stopped at 14 or 15 different places in Dublin and you could get off at any stop for any amount of time and then just hop onto the next bus coming around every ten minutes.

Our first stop was at the Guinness Brewery which was actually so much fun, you wander around the brewery in a self-guided tour and they tell you all about the history and everything.

Once you get half way through your tour you get to something called the Tasting Bar, and well these photos say more than words every could...

After the Guinness Brewery we went to Kailmainham Goal which is the old Dublin prison where they kept all the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising before they were all executed by firing squad in the stone breakers yard of the prison.