The last few months in Ireland

The Festive Season

I took off for a couple of months in September to do a bit of travelling on my way home to Sydney for weddings and came back to Ireland in time for the festive season.

From when I came back in mid November, I was planning to revisit places in Ireland on weekends that have captured a soft spot such as Killarney, Dingle, Westport, Port Stewart and Galway but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to revisit anywhere as I was booked literally every weekend with Christmas parties (so it wasn’t really unfortunate), once you’ve built up a good contact list here, you’re bound to be invited out and no is not an answer the Irish like to hear.

I had the opportunity to be introduced to more different pubs and continue to enjoy the craic. I, who does not drink too much found myself a little over toxicated with some nasty hangovers. I guess this goes to show how much fun you can have here in Ireland. It’s “bleedin deadly alright” (extremely awesome).

I joined a charity organisation – CanTeen. They had a Christmas day trip out to an amusement centre where we had a good game of bowling, qasar, pizza and then afterwards on to the pub for some more great craic.

USIT also held a great Christmas party with one free mulled wine for each participant (I’ve never tried one of those and I must say it is delicious) and lots of food to splurge on, it’s great to know the Work Ireland program can still keep the party up for Christmas as well – thanks guys.

For New Year’s Eve I went out with a couple of girlfriends to the Baggot Inn, a pub in town where you can reserve a table and pull your own pint of drink, this pub can get booked out quite fast if you don’t get in quickly. We made it into the Baggot Inn about 11pm enjoying our last hour of 2008 and toasted happily with cocktails to 2009. There were people going around just hugging anyone, all in great spirits. In the last hour, there were Irish songs being played, a perfect opportunity to get some Irish dancing going. As the Baggot Inn closed, we went across the road to get some grub and then headed home.

Getting home at 4am, I could barely sleep, probably too excited from the great craic I had the night before. I woke at around 9am and went for a walk. The streets were really deserted; everyone must have partied til the crack of dawn.

Coming back from Australia in November, I moved to a beautiful estate in a town called Monkstown, it’s only 5 minutes walk to the coast and a nice 30 minute stroll to work everyday. Today I thought instead of walking the coastal walk towards work, I would walk the opposite direction. What was meant to have only been an hour walk to nurse the hangover turned out to be almost 4 hours. Definitely a great start to the New Year.

Visiting Counting Cork

I know I have said I didn’t get to go away on weekends to other towns, I did however go to Cork to catch up with friends the weekend of the New Year.
Taking an air coach bus on the Friday after work, I arrived into Cork early in the evening where I was rewarded with dinner and then went out with my friends for a little pub crawl around Cork city.

One pub I remember fondly is the Long Island pub where their speciality is cocktails and we tried quite a few of those cocktails. The menu book listed hundreds of cocktails so I had to ask if I could take a menu as a souvenir and that will be going into my travel journal.

Being the early bird I am, I let my friends sleep in whilst I went around Cork city to reminisce about it all. I went and did a bit of shopping with clothes and shoes at bargain prices, I managed to get items that were reduced from 40 euros down to 10 euros. I had been told Cork is a pretty good place to go shopping. It’s not huge a city but it’s a great little chic town to sit at the cafes, party at night and to go shopping. It’s also a great base point to start your adventures around greater Cork where the scenery is stunning. After getting acquainted with Cork, I had a quick dinner with my friends and headed back to Dublin.

Wicklow Town

Shortly after arriving back home, a friend called me to invite me to catch up for lunch at Wicklow town. I took the train to one of my favourite seaside beach towns – Bray where I was picked up. As we drove to Wicklow town, we had views of the Wicklow mountains in the distance which was all covered in snow, it was almost like being in Austria or Switzerland and from what I heard from work colleagues people took advantage of the snow, going snowboarding, skiing and tobogganing.

Arriving into Wicklow town, my friend took me to the coastal view of the town which was stunning. I’ve been to the outskirts of Wicklow town before capturing the beauties of the mountains but have never made it out to Wicklow town and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do so before I left.

There were ruins, beautiful cliffs, a small harbour, a beautiful beach and a small hiking trail but after I accidentally stepped into a big puddle (from sheer excitement of taking my photos). We decided it wasn’t a good idea to go hiking with wet feet and the cold weather. Instead we went to have lunch at the Grand Hotel where the service and food was great. The waitress recognised I’m from Australia and started chatting away to me about her time in Australia, its great how we can appreciate each other’s countries and culture.

Farewell Emerald Isle

The next week or so that I have left will leave me with catch ups with a few more friends, all whom I will miss and I haven’t even started packing!
My Irish experience has been some great craic, a year that I will truly look back on with all the wonderful memories from the spectacular scenery to the trad sessions (traditional Irish music nights) to the wonderful culture and most importantly the friends I made. I will definitely be back to visit.

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