Summer Fun in Killarney!

9 days of summer fun in Killarney is now over, but what a 9 days it was! We had great weather, some great thunderstorms, great food, family and friends.







You can see more pictures if you click HERE!

eHarmony + a cute boy = an east coast holiday

So if you haven't already heard....

Yes, I joined eHarmony.

Yes, I started talking with a boy.

Yes, I flew to Halifax on Spring Break.

And yes, Josh is coming to Killarney for May Long Weekend. He'll meet the family and experience Manitoba for the first time.

So yes, Josh and I are completely smitten with each other.


Josh and I being dorks. Well, maybe just me being a dork. It's incredible that he still likes me, I think :)


Josh and I. Being normal. Not dorks.

Bonjour Paris!

Monday, July 7: arrived in Paris, and met my friends Traci and Donovan at the airport. Checked into our budget hotel. We had a triple room with our own bathroom, and a window that opened up into the lobby below. We heard quite a lot of things through that window... Struggled along, using my Grade 4 French and exuberant gesturing to communicate.

Tuesday, July 8: Took the train to Versaille, France to see Versaille Palace. As my friend Mark once put it, "they splashed gold onto everything they possibly could". It was a huge palace, restored beautifully, and absolutely dazzling with gold, mirrors, fabrics, wallpapers, statues, and marble. Astounding. The grounds were something to behold as well. The movie "Marie Antoinette" with Kirsten Dunst is based at Versaille. That evening we went to the Eiffel Tower, took pictures, ate hotdogs, and waited in line to go up to the top. Breathtaking. By the time we got down, the sun had descended and she was all lit up.


Traci and Donovan at Versaille, with our audio guides!
Traci and I, Versaille.
Versaille, and the gardens.

Traci and I, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Donovan and I, eating hot dogs!

Wednesday, July 9: A full day. We went to the Pompidou Center, a wacky museum with even wackier exhibits. We had lunch and ate crepes by a fountain. Donovan got pooped on by a pigeon (only got on his backpack, easily wiped off). We went to the Louvre and only spent an hour or so there, seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. I will admit that I am not a museum/art gallery fan, so this was fine by me. We went to the Monet museum and saw Waterlilies, his famous painting. We walked down the Champs de Elysees, a famous shopping street. We took pictures of the Arc de Triumphe. We came back to our hotel room, and heard 2 people having sex in the next room. We had Chinese food for dinner. That night we heard hysterical screaming coming through our open window. We aren't sure what was happening. The Arc de Triumphe, and me!
Me and the Mona Lisa.
Eating a freshly made crepe with Nutella inside! Delicious, although tricky to eat while standing on a street corner.

Thursday, July 10: We waited in line for an hour to enter the Sainte Chapelle chapel, an ancient church with gorgeous stained glass windows. We walked to the Notre Dame cathedral (didn't see a hunchback though). We went to the Pantheon, where famous people like Pierre and Marie Curie are buried...also Louis Braille (who invented the Braille way of writing for the blind), and Voltaire are buried there. We took a boat tour of the Seine river and got tanned by the sun. We saw a movie being filmed (we think, no famous faces around, but lots of cameras and lights). We came back to our hotel room and through our window heard someone throwing up in the lobby. We went for pasta.
Traci and I in front of Notre Dame cathedral.
Traci and I on a boat tour on the Seine river.

Friday, July 11: Donovan's birthday. Traci and Donovan flew home to Calgary, and I flew home to Belfast.

bob and rose visit ireland!

Mom posing for a photo during our drive up the north coast.


Mom & I, on the coast.


Dad, Mom and I at the Glenoe waterfall.


Mom, Dad and I at Dunluce Castle.

A truly boring title for a truly exciting week!

Mom & Dad arrived on Friday, June 27. The week was full of exciting events...visiting castles, driving up the coast, hiking to a hidden waterfall, eating in random roadside diners, driving the car on the beach right next to the Atlantic ocean, discovering how they make the famous Bushmill's Whiskey, and trying to enjoy our free samples of it (yuck), buying pottery (and trying not to break it), eating fish'n'chips, taking city bus tours of Glasgow and Belfast, watching the rain, enjoying one and a half days of sunshine, taking ferry boat rides to Scotland, seeing Irish dancing, meeting my friends, walking over a very high rope bridge (80 feet above the ground), playing Travel Scrabble, exploring a 2,000 year old stone "fortress", driving the roads of Northern Ireland, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Now it is Sunday, July 6 and Mom & Dad are on their way back home to Canada. We had a great 10 days together and I'm so honoured and pleased that they took the time and money to travel all the way here to visit me.

Tomorrow, July 7, Monday, I am off to Paris to meet up with my friends Donovan and Traci. We'll be there until July 11, Friday, when Traci and Donovan return to Canada and I return to Belfast to finish up my last month here in Northern Ireland. I am already dreading having to leave here. It will be very difficult to return home, although joyous as well. It is very much a bittersweet event.



Dad and I inside the 2,000 year old fortress.


Mom and Dad at Carrickfergus Castle.


Mom and I on the city bus tour, Glasgow, Scotland.


Dad, Mom & I after we crossed the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

ich liebe Deutschland!

this past week i was in germany visiting my friend leslie.



teresia, leslie's one year old daughter. a tiny little package of a girl!

i flew into frankfurt on tuesday, and then on wednesday morning, leslie and i caught the train to weimar, a smallish town in eastern germany. the train ride was about 3 hours (my first long train ride, it was great!). weimar is very picturesque and "pretty"...every tourists' dream! two famous german authors/poets lived there once, Schiller and Goethe, and we toured their houses. we also ate alot...bratwurst (delicious), ice cream, french fries, bread, pretzels, etc.
the sausage stand where i bought my bratwurst!!




on thursday leslie and i went to Buchenwald concentration camp, just outside of weimar. it was a very heart breaking visit. we rented iPod tour guides, so we could hear more information about each building and landmark in the camp. the reality of how the prisoners were treated is unreal. thousands of jews/prisoners of war died in that camp - absolutely horrible.



i am not sure to what extent my ancestors were involved in World War II (besides Granny building airplanes in Vancouver!), but i know that my heritage is rooted in Germany/Europe, and seeing those things in person really made me curious to find out more about that time era. Aunties, can you tell me about our great-grandparents, etc?

me in front of weimar's theatre

london...!

the london eye
parliament buildings and big ben: the view from the london eye
westminster abbey
big ben
this past week i was in london, and it was fabulous!!! on wednesday morning i met my friends traci and donovan at gatwick airport. traci and donovan have been married since 2005, and london was their first stop on a 3 1/2 month european adventure! the 3 of us met at bible school. we stayed with my friend mark, who lives in london. over the course of 4 days, we saw:
-Big Ben
-Parliament buildings
-Westminster Abbey
-Buckingham Palace
-Green Park
-The National art gallery
-Tower Bridge
-Tower of London
-the London Eye
-"Chicago" musical
-the British Museum
-the Tate Modern art gallery
-Victoria and Albert museum
-Harrod's (uber posh department store)
-Temple Church
-Courts of Justice (where the inquest into Princess Diana's death is being held at the moment)
-Hyde Park
-"Ye Olde Chesire Cheese" pub, re-built in 1667...we sat at the same table where Charles Dickens used to sit!
-Oxford and Picadilly Street

we basically walked everywhere and saw everything we could! my friend mark joined us when he could, but otherwise, the 3 of us were free to wander where we liked. we basically mastered the underground "tube" system and had no problems getting to where we needed to go!
london is a huge metropolitan city, but is very unique and has great buildings and sights! it was very busy, tons of people all the time, everywhere. not sure if i could ever hack it there for a long term situation, but definitely was fun to experience it for a few days!

donovan, traci and i, on the london eye
buckingham palace
mark and i, outside of "chicago"
traci and i, with the classic red telephone booth (i think everyone who goes to london takes a picture like this!)
traci and i, outside westminster abbey

mark.

i saw my friend mark at the weekend.
i met him in south africa.
he's from london.
his grandparents live in killough, northern ireland.
it had been almost 3 years since we last saw each other!
it was fabulous and i loved it.
sometimes you forget how much you miss someone until you're with them again.
i'll see him again in april, when i go to london.
i'm going to london to meet up with my friends traci and donovan, who are embarking on a 3 1/2 month european adventure! london is their first stop at the beginning of april. their last stop is paris, in july...i'll also be joining them there!


it was a very windy day and we are both a little windblown. but i still quite like this picture.


the coast of ireland, by the village of killough. gorgeous. wish you all could see it in person :)

ps. this is my 100th post! seems to me like i was posting about nothing, because i can't remember much about the other 99...thanks for sticking around! here's to life and thinking about interesting post titles (harder than you might think).

very gut fun in frankfurt!

this weekend i was off to frankfurt, germany, to spend some time with leslie, my wonderful friend who i met in south africa. leslie lives with her boyfriend david, and their 8 month old daughter, teresia (adorable).i took the bus from ballynure into belfast, and then a bus from belfast to the dublin airport, in the south of ireland (as people say here). all of the road signs in ireland were in both english and what i assume to be gaelic. the drive to dublin airport was 2 1/2 hours long, and they dropped us off right at the airport, which was great! the flight to frankfurt was about 1 1/2 hours, and i had a headache by the time i landed. i have discovered i don't really like flying anymore. i always end up with a headache, and feeling tired/gross/nasty/blah. although the thrill of going somewhere is always fun! the airport i landed at in frankfurt was actually an hour and a half out of frankfurt (which i didn't know...i guess that's why the flight was so cheap!), so leslie and david had to come and get me, and were stuck in a traffic jam, so by the time they got there, they had been driving for 3 hours! but luckily the drive home was quick and leslie and i were soon talking about old times in south africa.

on saturday, david had to work, so leslie, teresia and i just hung around their flat for most of the morning. teresia is cute and happy and she loves me! we were best of friends right away and i am glad for that. leslie fed me a german breakfast, consisting of a variety of breads and spreads! delicious! i think i might have to start eating like a german! in the afternoon we went for a long walk by the river (i got to push the stroller...i don't know why, but i loved it!) and saw some of the sights of frankfurt...a huge old church, old ruins of roman baths, a jewish cemetery. we met david at 4:00 and passed over teresia, and leslie and i went shopping! H&M is now my favorite store! i bought some things and feel a bit more stylish now! that night david made us pizza and leslie and i watched a movie. we were quite tired after our day of walking and it felt good to sleep!

on sunday, we all took the train to a village about 1/2 hour away, to walk/hike to a castle that the romans had built. it is now a tourist spot. it was interesting, but it would have been even more interesting if i could have read the information signs...seeing as they were all in german, it was a bit difficult! our hike was 3 km, and poor david had to push the stroller, most of which was uphill! so i think he got the biggest workout of all!

interesting story: leslie and i were buying our tickets for the train ride home, while david took teresia onto the train (he had a train pass). the train was about to leave and leslie and i were running to make it, while david was telling the driver that 2 more people were coming, but the driver said he wasn't going to wait. david said, "Ok, just let me get my kid off the train". before he could do so, the driver closed to doors on him, with teresia in her stroller in the train, and david outside of the train! so david forcibly opened the doors of the train, and it was at that moment leslie and i arrived, so we hopped on. we were all inside, and the driver came barrelling out of his driving compartment, and demanded to see david's train pass, which david showed him. the driver then took his pass into his driving compartment and when david tried to follow him (in germany it's against the law to take someone's ID without that person being present), the driver slammed the door shut in david's face and wouldn't let him in! so everyone is looking and talking and finally david gets his ID pass back, and everyone is still looking and talking, and some people are saying the driver was right, and in which case, leslie had some words for them! other people are agreeing with david and saying he was right, that driver had no right to do that, etc. keep in mind this is all in german, so i had to ask leslie for the whole story afterward, but i got the gist of it! a man gave david his business card and told him that if the driver did call the police (which he said he was going to do because david forced his way onto the train), then this man would be a witness for david. so! that was our excitement for the day!

that evening, david made us some typical german food, something that is particular to the frankfurt area. it was a big round chunk of cheese, with a vinegar/oil sauce over it, with onions. you would eat the cheese with a piece of bread and butter. it was interesting. as i told leslie, it's okay, but i didn't love it. help me out here leslie, it is called "cheese with music"??

so the weekend was great, fun, fabulous, exciting! it was so wonderful to see leslie and meet her little family.

The Causeway Coastal Route

this morning joanne and i took a drive up the Causeway Coastal Route, which is an absolutely beautiful drive that can take you all the way around the coast of Northern Ireland.

our first stop was at Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. this rope bridge spans of chasm of 80 feet deep. it used to be used by the fisherman who caught salmon. since the depletion of salmon, the rope bridge is now a tourist attraction. there was a heck of a walk to and from the rope bridge, resulting in a red face and rapidly pounding heart (for both joanne and i!) due to the steep incline of the path. the bridge itself was not very long, about 65 feet long. apparently there have been a few mishaps on the bridge, of people falling over, although no deaths have been reported!


we then stopped for lunch at a quaint little cafe in a fisherman's village, right on the coast.

our next stop was the Giant's Causeway. The Giant’s Causeway is a world heritage site and Ireland’s foremost natural tourist attraction. Famous for its 37,000 large stone pillars, the causeway was formed 60 million years ago by molten lava cooling and shrinking as it came in contact with the atmosphere. (yes i got this off the internet)


there is, however, a much more interesting story about how this causeway was formed!
legend has it that a giant, called Finn MacCool, built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his enemy, another giant called Benandonner. Finn MacCool fell asleep before he got to Scotland, and when he did not arrive, Benandonner came across to Ireland, looking for him. to protect Finn, his wife, Oonagh, laid a blanket over him and pretended that he was actually Finn's son. When Benandonner saw the size of the "infant", he assumed that the baby's alleged father, Finn, must be gigantic! Benandonner fled home to Scotland, terrified, and ripped up the causeway to prevent Finn from following him.

there are actually similar rock formations on the island of Staffa in Scotland, which would lead people to believe this causeway legend. and yes, some of these pictures are from the internet! somehow, my amateur photos didn't do this place justice!!!


from the Giant's Causeway we made our way home. the drive itself was stunningly gorgeous, something i will definitely want to do again during my year here.

i hope you enjoyed the history lesson in this post! to learn more about the Giant's Causeway, click
here.