Travels

Ok, so I kind of forgot that I have a blog, all this travelling I am doing has made me lose my thoughts and become forgetful it seems J Of course that was not me rubbing in that I am jetsetting around the world but I am, well at least around Europe.
As I haven’t actually updated this at all since I began travelling, I will give ye all a run down of what I having been doing and the places I am yet to see.
I have been travelling outside of Ireland for a month now.
Started on the 25th of November when I flew to London, stayed in Brighton for the night, thought since I had a stopover in London that I would pop down to Brighton and check it out, it was cold and wet but cool and I am glad that I went down there. After rising early I jetted off to the airport to fly into Athens where the adventures and much needed sunshine would begin. Athens was great, about 20 degrees everyday which just made it even nicer. 3 days there checking out the sights and discovering new foods, which has definitely been my favourite thing to do in each new country. I went to Aegina for a day which is an island an hour from Athens, I was hoping to go to Santorini but with it being low tourist season, I was told that there wouldn’t be much happening on the island with a lot of the shops and the like closed. Aegina wasn’t really that happening but I was happy enough to sit in the sun eating pistachios (grown on the island). I then headed North to Thessaloniki, it was cold and quiet, but a nice city all the same.
Next stop, Roma. Rome was great, so much to see and nice weather made it lots of fun. Met some lovely people at the hostel on the first night who were heading to Naples in the next couple of days so I joined them, it rained ALL day. We started the day with pizza, (mmm) at a place that had been open since 1870 I think, very possibly the first pizza place in Italy. Liz Gilbert goes there in her book, Eat Pray Love, and comments on how amazing it is so that was one of the reasons for going. And it was very good, and cheap, a lot of pizza was eaten that day! From Naples we took the metro to Pompeii where the city was ruined by a volcano (still raining), very interesting. Back to Rome. 2 more days of exploring and discovering all that Rome has to offer. More pizza consumed. Took the train to Florence, where I spent 2 days. A beautiful city where I would have loved to have spent A LOT more time but there were more places to see so I had to return to Rome to fly to Barcelona.
I really liked Barcelona, before I left people had told me that they either loved Barcelona or really did not enjoy it. I thought it was a great city. On my first full day chose to spend the whole day outside rather that visit any museums or the like as the weather was just too lovely. 3 days spent there in total. From there I went to Valencia, the home of Paella, so I had to acknowledge this and have some J very good! It rained and was quite cold in Valencia which was a bit sucky because although I should be accustomed to rain, I still hate it and really do not enjoy being in it. Back to Barcelona to fly to Munich. On arrival it was snowing. Light snow but SNOW. The Christmas market were quite an experience. I thought that I had found the main one then I found another and another and another, I think my fist night in Munich I visited 5 markets, the Germans really know how to do Christmas, although having said this it didn’t feel like Christmas until a day or 2 ago. I only had one a half days in Munich but from what I saw it seemed like a nice city. Cold but nice. I was yet to experience real cold as I bussed it to Prague the night of my day in Munich. Prague was so cold, proper snow here. Prague was also very beautiful, I had very high expectations of this charming city, as everyone I spoke to had told me how much they enjoyed Prague and it delivered. And I really do think that the snow just added another layer of beautiful J 3 days here! And more Christmas markets, with more yummy food and hot wine, Gluhwein, which I didn’t really like though. This made me sad L never mind I like the hot punch! Next stop Berlin, where I find myself now waiting in the airport for a plane to Edinburgh which was meant to leave an hour and a half ago but due to bad weather in Edinburgh we cannot fly just yet, not sure how long we will wait either, supposedly they were going to inform us an hour ago, this did not happen. Back to Berlin, I only had just under 3 days here, bus delayed in Prague making time in this great city shorter L Wished that I had of had longer here. Such an interesting history has Berlin that I would have loved a few more days to explore it, but never mind, I shall just have to come back again as I hope to with all of the cities and countries that I have visited so far there are so many other places in the different countries that I wanted to visit. As you may have guessed I am having a great time.
If I ever get to Edinburgh, I am meeting 2 of my friends from home for Christmas which I am super excited for. I have also heard that Edinburgh is amazing. White Christmas too me thinks J
The rest of the trip:
Edinburgh, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Wales and back to Ireland for 3 weeks before heading home on the 16th of Feb.

Merry Christmas xx

It begins...

So i am currently sitting in the restaurant at Shannon Airport drinking a cup of tea, waiting for the plane to start boarding in about a half hour. I will be on my way to Gatwick where i will make my way to Brighton for the night which i hope will be fun, then at 9 am tomorrow morning i will be on my way to Athens (yay) (no rain). I'm in Greece for 6 days and hope to make it to Santorini while I am there as well as having a few days in Athens. Then I'm off to Italy, Spain, Germany and Czech Rep during the weeks leading up to Christmas. I am excited and between you and me a little scared.
So quick Ireland update: all is well, finished up work a week ago kind of weird but nice not to have to go to work. Up until this morning when i left home, i was living Harry Potter style under the stairs in my apartment - I think if i had been there any longer cabin fever would have set in. (new person moved in - took my room, meant i didn't have to crash on someone's couch). Has been raing cats and dogs in galway the last week so much so rain that I wasn't sure if i would even be able to get to the airport today. Lots of flooding in areas surrounding the city - thankfully not in the city though. Was nearly blown away on many occasions last week. Any excuse to stay indoors was made. I think this is one of the top reasons as to why I am so excited about going to Greece -because there will be sun. My housemate couldn't go home to her family home basically because she couldn't get into town. Scary!
So i will keep this updated as I make my way around!
All my love xx

I finally made it to Cork

After planning to go to Cork many times over and never getting around to it i decided Friday arvo after work that I would go down for the weekend. And I was a little disappointed :( It seemed that there wasn't that much to do. Saturday, I walked around town, went to a market, the art gallery, went to dinner at this cool restaurant (Quay Co-op) and saw a film as part of the Cork Film Festival (an Aussie film called Samson and Delilah, which is actually going to be screened on the ABC on Sunday November 22 at 8:30, so you should check it out) . Then today, Sunday I went to Blarney castle, which was class, and the grounds were beautiful. I am glad that I did make the effort to go down there though.

Other than going to Cork I have been planning my Europe adventure that begins November 26 when I fly to athens :) so still have planning to do but will hopefully have it all out of the way by the end of this week. YAY!!

All my love xx

If I had a surfboard and a wetsuit, does that mean that i went surfing??

Well if it does then, yesterday I went surfing near Westport, north of Galway and apart from the fact that it was absolutely positively freezing in and out of the water, it was lots of fun. For the record, I can't actually surf but I still had heaps of fun. We spent the whole afternoon at the beach. A lot of that later in the arvo was time was spent in the warmth of the car watching other people surf but still. I went with a friend who's house i also stayed at over the weekend. It was lovely. Even if just to be in a house with a family and dogs and all that homey kind of stuff, and the company was great. Friday night was so clear out that there were sooo many stars. You can't really see much star wise in the city. So it was great to just lie under the starts wrapped in a jacket and blanket.

Last week I was also on TV, well kind of I was in the audience of the taping of a show called the Byrne Ultimatum. A comedy quiz show hosted by comedian Jason Byrne. It was very funny. It was broadcast on Monday night but I was at swing dancing lessons but I was able to watch the recording of it over the weekend. It was only a half hour show when aired but took just over 2 hours to record, so of course there were lots of the funny bits were taken out but it was still good. We were on TV 2 or 3 times I think as we were in the front row. So I'm now famous!

Still working more than i would prefer but its ok and means more money than i would be instead be earning, I think that it is going to decrease this week.

Well it was a great weekend!

This week, I am going to swing dancing lessons and bongo lessons. So I will be a self proclaimed amazing dancing drummer by the end of the week.

After a few dry weeks, the rain has started again today :( And it is getting cold and dark.

All my love, Rhiannon xx

How do other people work full time???

So it is now Friday night and I have just finished a 40 hour week of work and I am wrecked. Wrecked I tell you! It's only been a week and I already miss my 12pm starts :( I am amazed at how a majority of the population work full time. One of the girls at work finished up last week so i am working her shift and mine so I am in the kitchen/food prep all day everyday. So glad that it is Friday. Although I only have 5 weeks left of work before I go off and explore the rest of Ireland and Europe. Of course being the very disorganised person that I am, I haven't actually planned anything yet other than where I want to go but I will get to that soon.

I had a lovely birthday last week, got sent lovely things in the mail which made me feel very loved :) I went out for birthday drinks with some friends which was lots of fun! Thanks xx

Not too much is happening atm other than work, but at least the more I work, the more travel money I have, which is a plus!

All my love xx

You'll be glad to know that I did not get run down by a bike..

Last weekend, I went to Amsterdam! It was lots of fun. Really nice city, very pretty. Lots of fun markets to trek around looking for cool buys. The hostel that we stayed in had the best brekky that I have ever had in a hostel. There was lots of food, which we got so much more than we needed and a pile of napkins to not very sneakily wrapped up for a make do lunch. Excellent. There was cake served. Made an excellent afternoon tea :)

Everyone in Amsterdam rides bikes, so crossing the road you have to look out for cars, trams, buses and BIKES. Scary.

Went to the Anne Frank Huis, which in a building that was the factory owned by Otto Frank, Anne's father and where the family lived/hid. It was very interesting and worth a visit. We bought a hop on hop off pass for a boat that went to the sights via the canal which was quite cool, slow but fun and because it was sunny it was also all the better. Joined a 3 hour walking tour around the city which was quite informative although I am pretty sure that it went for more than 3 hours, very long. all in all a good weekend. I would go back to Amsterdam again!

Of course because I left Galway last weekend, the weather was BEAUTIFUL, thankfully this weekend has been lovely out so it is ok and as I mentioned the weather in Amsterdam was nice and sunny and that is all that matters.

All my love xx

RAIN

It is raining AGAIN. But I am getting used to it, i guess. I will need to get used to it. On my walk to church this morning the rain was coming from every direction, there was no way of blocking it. I had remembered to grab my umbrella before leaving the home, thankfully. I was very wet for the whole service, not nice, trust me. I think that I need to invest in a rain jacket this week.
Last week I made a Butternut squash (pumpkin) , spinach and chickpea curry. It was very yummy. I didn't put in chili, but chili powder as well as mixed spice. So if you are looking for an easy dish, you should try this, it went down well. tasted great the day after i made it. If anything, it is very visually pleasing, which in my book is always important.
I am going to launch into being active this coming week as I have spent the afternoon in bed (wrapped in my Snuggie, mummy sent me one), dozing on and off and am now feeling extremely lazy :(
Currently enjoying Florence and the Machine. FANTASTIC!
Happy Birthday to my lovely cousin Fio, for this week. Super jealous if you will be making it to her party.
all my love xx