Last weekend in Galway.

Well it's our last weekend in Galway so we rented a car with Mary and did some stuff that we've been meaning to get round to.

Up first was Croagh Patrick, the traditional pilgrimage walk. It's no stroll as the pictures will show, it takes a certain amount of faith and determination to get to the top. Having said that we climbed alongside an eight year old and a crazy dude in bare feet!



Our first look at the task ahead.



How to do it properly, it's very serious for many.



The relentless track that only got worst as the treck went on.



In between the bad track and the worst track was the ridge line where lots of people have left messages using rocks.



The second prayer station with the second lake in the background. On a good day the views are reportably awesome it was a bit misty for us.



haha our reward view from the summit.



The most impressive thing at the top of Cr Pat, us alive!



The chapel at the top was closed but much bigger than we'd thought it would be.



Inside the side chapel, photo taken through a window.



The final push to the peak is pure up and pure shingle, the fasted way down is to jump and slide with the loose rocks. Danger is fun.



So across from Cro Pat is the national famine memorial a cool ship made from skeletons.




Sunday it was off for a general drive and a visit to the Cliffs of Moher.



The cliffs themselves.



The happy travel trio.



The sign everyone was ignoring with a passion.



Emmett in his new hoodie.



Funny sign language.



The tea room where we had lunch.

So I might detail this a bit better latter but probably not. It's been a great weekend and now I'm tired so goodnight.

Men with big sticks.

So long time no blog, but to be honest winter has been long and a bit uninspiring. However we seem to be coming to the end of it, we've just had an unthinkable 4 days without rain!

In order to pack a bit more Irish into our stay here we went to a hurling match last Sunday and it is the sport of kings! It's like watching a cricket ball being whacked around by out of control hockey players at the speed of netball, love it. Injuries are frequent and some seem serious but I'm pretty sure we didn't see anyone die.

It was our boys from Galway playing the yellow guys from County Clare, we won but Clare made an impressive come back toward the end making it an exciting match.



Our motley crew Anna (kiwi), Erin (oz), Brendan (kiwi), Claire (french) and Mary (kiwi) all kitted out with the best 2euro shop flags we could buy.



The ball lands...



Hurling version of a ruck...



Note the ref is at least a stick length away from the action...



Guess which way the ball went.



We won! 2 goals (in the goal worth 3 points) and 24 points (over the bar is 1 point) add them up we won 30 to 25, simple.



It got really cold but you can hardly see it on our faces.



In other news Emmett now weighs like nothing and while the health benefits are great it has made his head look too big. Also he's taken to wearing my clothes... (hint: see the Singapore photos earlier in the blog)

In other other news we saw Juno this week and it rocks solid so go see it, then buy the soundtrack, awesome.

We're off this weekend to climb a mountain so we'll hopefully update again before we hit the road.

Love ya, see you soon!

Aimee and Emmett

Winter wonderland.

Hello,

Well we're in holiday limbo a bit as we've only 6 weeks left in Galway and the big trip is starting to be a bit of a distraction. It's just as well we have a distraction though because it's pretty darn cold here and any distraction from the wet and dark is a welcome change.

The one time it was cold but we didn't mind was in the first week of the new year when the cold bought snow. It was an exciting couple of hours and then the every present rain washed it away. It only snows here every few years so everyone got a bit of a buzz out of it, even the locals.



Em walked to work in a snow storm.



Our apartment walkway covered.



The city looking clean for once!



It hasn't snowed again since but hail is quite common and can be expected every few days. I like dramatic weather so while it's cold it's all good fun.

Happy summer you kiwi's, I hope you're enjoying the good weather as much as I'm enjoying the bad.

Love,
Aimee.

Christmas in Edinburgh

Well hello there and Happy New Year!

While we rang in the new year in fairly standard style at the local pub here in Galway we had an altogether more spectacular Christmas holiday in Edinburgh.



We went to Edinburgh not only to see Scotland but also to visit our buddy Rupe, pictured above in "the meadows" with Emmett. Rupe was a great sport and a fantastic guide who fair nearly wore us out with his determination to show us all of Edinburgh, especially the scary bits!



This is the meadows, a sort of green belt between our hostel and the city, it was cold as the thick frost clearly shows.



So our first tourist stop was the castle. Edinburgh castle is not just an old fortress it's also the home of the war memorial and a couple of museums. We were even there at 1pm, when every day a canon is fired to tell the people of Edinburgh what the time is. In one of the castle towers are the Scotish crown jewels which are really cool and look just like crown jewels in story books. The crown even has that ring of white fur around the bottom of it and everything.



Inside the castle grounds.



Looking up at the castle from inside the lower walls.



Emmett in his Dr. Who t-shirt by a tardis.

So on one of our first nights we all went on a ghost tour of the South bridge vaults. The vaults are the areas under the south bridge that were walled in some rediculous amount of time ago. Anyway at first the vaults were considered good property but then it rained and it turned out they leaked. So they became an underground nasty place where all sorts of bad/poor/sad/mean/icky/illegal stuff happened. And now they're considered haunted, we didn't see any ghosts, still scared the pants offa me though. Less scary but almost cooler was Mary King's close, an entire street simply built over the top of and perfectly preserved below the city council buildings.



Well it got really cold, the canal iced over but alas no snow.





Swanning around, haha.



Well with the sun setting before 4pm each day we had a great deal of evening time. Here we were walking through Santa's petting zoo area (he had real reindeer that he fed) and the castle looked really pretty so we took a couple of pics.





This is Advocates close (a close is like an ally or a side street) the scene of a famous murder, and a pretty picture.



I sorta fell in love with the German Christmas market and it's mulled wine stall... The markets were really cool and sold all sorts of festive stuff, like tree decorations and wooden toys. They also sold German Christmas food like stollen (fruit cake) and german sausage.



OK very exciting was going ice skating on Christmas Eve under Edinburgh castle. Emmett was not keen so Rup and I had a great time while he took pictures. As you can see in the picture below we were naturals.







On Christmas eve evening we went to the Saint Giles Cathedral Carols service, opening line "there will be no more than 8 hymns" - spoil sports. Anyway the 8 we were allowed to sing were very nice and it was good fun.

Christmas day came clear and frosty and it was over to Rupert's for lots of good food and wine.



Christmas group shot.



Spectacular Christmas dinner, many thanks to the chef.



On Boxing day Emmett was a little worst for wear so Rup and I climbed Arthur's seat, it's a hill that overlooks Edinburgh. It was really cool but as the picture shows also very windy. Then Rupe decided we'd climb down shunning any pre-made paths so we had a great time scrambling down a steep hillface. I'm serious it was great, how often past the age of 12 do you get to scoot down a hill on your backside?



Then on our last day we went to see the royal yacht Brittania. The royal family really are something else, a yacht with over 200 staff and as pictured a Bentley on board in case anywhere they landed didn't have a vehicle suitable for them.

So Christmas was great and Edinburgh should you ever get the chance is fantastic. We did so much more than I've even mentioned here and we could have stayed longer easily and still been entertained.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New year (we hope to see you all in it!)
Love,
Aimee and Emmett.