Letterfrack.

Hello there, we've just had a long weekend and just because we could we spent Sunday night in Letterfrack.

Letterfrack is a tiny town about 2 hours away by bus from Galway. There's not much in Letterfrack but it is the gateway to the Connemara National Park. Connemara is the most dramatic scenery we've seen so far on the mainland, and while the mountains are hardly Ruapehu they are easier to climb and still very pretty.





The view from as high as we climbed, as you can see the incoming rain was somewhat of a concern.



The internet is slow and this is taking too long, I have to get up and get on with my day. Consider this a preview and I'll be back to finish it off tonight, scouts honour !)

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Well Aimee was never a scout anyway so I ( Emmett ) will now finish this entry.

We stayed at the Old Monastery Hostel which was fabulous. Just think of a junk shop and an old house which were combined in a tornado?

There was an old dog, two cats, a rabbit and a guinea pig to welcome us upon arrival.



Which was good because there was no concierge on duty.

Quirky doesn't begin to describe it.











There was a bar which was built into what may have once been a courtyard area but was now covered over. The bar wasn't running the night we were there but was apparently in full swing the night before with a traditional session (music session) also held in the living room.

After our walk up the hill ( see above) we opened a bottle of wine, made ourselves dinner and sat in the living room. This is as far as we got all evening as we met an Aussie called Erin from Freemantle and chatted with her.

In the morning we were served a hot breakfast of hot scones, hot brown bread, porridge and boiled eggs. It was funny watching the Italian and Belgin couples at our table trying porridge for the first time and nice to chat with them.

Well there are more Letterfrack pictures which we may blog latter in the week. It will be a Mary special (you'll see what i mean).

Dirty old town...

Hello,

We both took Monday off this week and had a long weekend, here's how it went.

Saturday we hung out in Galway the sun was shining and with Autumn in full swing the place is quite pretty, so pretty in fact that we took a couple of photos while wandering the river.



I bought a new hat at the market to keep my ears warm, next week we might buy Emmett one but with less rainbow colours.



Look how big our swan babies are, they still hang out with their parents but at a safe distance so as to still be cool - teenagers!

So after a relaxed day in Galway we got up bright and early on Sunday to catch the train to Dublin. We've been there before but only as a means to getting somewhere else so this was our first real visit.



Looking good first thing in the morning in very misty Galway.



A sign from above at the railway station.



The haze grew thicker as we travelled inland and the sun didn't break through until after 10am at least.

In Dublin we weren't too sure where to go first and since we didn't have a map even if we did know where to go we wouldn't have known how to get there. However when walked out of Houston station the decision was made for us when I looked across the road and said "isn't that the Guinness factory?"

The factory is huge so we did have to walk a city block or 2 to get to the tourist entrance but it was worth it. Unlike a lot of brewery tours you don't get to see the beer being made you instead get a lot of marketing and history but it was still cool. There was stuff you never thought of like how they had a commercial timber mill at one stage so they could make enough barrels to ship the stuff or that they had their own railway on the brewery grounds. Now they own heaps of trucks and I think a few ships still. You get a complimentry pint in the gravity bar as part of the tour, gravity bar is at the top of the tour building and has 360 degree views of Dublin city.



The Gilroy advertising room, Gilroy was also a portrait artist, he painted portraits of several royals.



Having a pint with the zoo keeper.



Guinness, moustache and all.



Dublin from one of it's highest points.

So after the factory tour we consulted our map (they were free at the bar) and headed to the city. We wandered for a bit then met up with our friend Jess and it was off to the pub.



Emmett had a tasteing tray of stouts, one of them had real raw oyster in the brew.

After an early dinner and a goodbye hug (Jess is home in Canada now) it was off to the hostel for an early night and plenty of sleep. Sleep that was briefly interrupted by a phone call from Ema-Joy - big smiles for those in the know.

Monday was our best day I'd say, we headed out early to Trinity College to see the book of Kells. We were in luck as the campus tours were still running and we even got a very serious former student as our guide.



Trinity College, the two massive trees were loosing their leaves like giant snow flakes it was really cool.



Our guide and this super famous sculpture.

We saw the book of Kells and it was OK, really though you can look at pictures of it on the net and get the same feel for it. However you can't walk through the college's old library on the net now that was a super cool place. Everything was roped off to all but it's 16 librarians but the volume of old books and the space itself was impressive.

After Trinity college we shopped and wandered the city side of the river, not much to report a bit like Auckland - same shops only bigger. We did find a couple of shops that we loved and were unique and they were good for present hunting. There were some things about Dublin that weren't like Auckland at all like...



Horses and carts in the fruit and veg market and...



Ladies selling fruit out of baby buggies.

So that's it ladies and gents a trip to Dublin and several "things to do" ticked off the list. Needless to say we arrived home safe and well and are back in Galway planning our next escape.

Love ya,
Aimee

Sleepy Galway

So this is what we wake up to most mornings now, it crisp and cold but the mist burns off into cool but sunny days. This suits me just fine as it means I can still shoo the kids outside if needs be, I just have to rug them up first.

Things have been pretty sleepy here, Emmett still works at the council and will do for another few weeks at least. I go to work 3 mornings and 5 afternoons a week which is about perfect because it's a fairly intense job and without breaks I still notch up enough hours to avoid secondary employment. The cultural diversity continues at Little Treasures with a Russian girl and a Polish boy our latest newbies, only 3 of the about 14 kids on the role are Irish. Many of the other kids are irish born but would not describe themselves as Irish, do not have Irish accents and are strongly aligned with their own cultural community. Fortunately no one seems to see this as a bad thing and things are rolling along nicely.

We're off to Dublin next weekend for a little trip, looking forward to it as we've only ever passed through the big city. There are a few essential sights like the Guinness factory and Trinity college with the book of kells that we intend to see so look out for a more lively blog entry soon.

We of course watched Ireland get knocked out of the world cup by Argentina, in fact my co-worker Sophia went to the game as she's Argentinian and her husbands cousin is in the team. We're hoping that the rather cool merchandise will now drop in price as most of it's made by canterbury and is very tempting indeed.

Well that's about it really, we're alive and well and one of us will write again soon!

Aimee