Day 50 Good Friday After an early start I arrived in Zaragoza mid afternoon in the main train station. With a little negotiating I found the bus I needed to take to the hostel and after a chat with the driver I managed to get off at the correct stop and found my hostel in no time. My next issue was that I was short on cash to pay for my stay and of course I couldn’t check in without making my full payment. So with directions from the hostel I set off to find an ATM and some food for [View Full Entry]

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DAY 46 I finally arrived at my hostel at 7pm without managing to get lost even with my complicated directions! I was quiet pleased with myself, maybe my sense of direction was improving………………….. After settling into my hostel I headed down to the common room to cook my self some dinner to find myself face to face with one of the girls I had met back in Barcelona at the Pringles machine the night before last. Her name is Katherine and she was travelling with her friend Emily. It was fantastic to see a familiar face. They ended moving in [View Full Entry]

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DAY 42 When I arrived in Barcelona it was raining!! So here I was catching a bus then train from the airport to my accommodation for 4 nights. I looked a treat big pack on back small on front is somehow I tripped I had no idea how I was going to manage to get up! Well I made it to my hostel with various pointing from locals in the right direction late afternoon. I settled into my room then went off to explore the hostel. On my trip to the reception I was convinced to join in a dinner then [View Full Entry]

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DAYS 37 & 38 This Saturday after Ryan left at an unearthly hour I spent with Sylvia, mum's friend from school. She took me around the twon showing me thier old school, mum and das old house they shared with Shive and Jack, mum's house she grew up in (which has been changed so much I hardly recongnised it) and we also went to a Church fate. The afternoon bought a visit to Shive's aunt Evelyn and St Naih's Church were my granparents are burried. That night we went to Lyn and Pat's for a barby but Pat was the [View Full Entry]

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DAY 34 Wednesday, Ryan, Aunty Joan and I went to Malahide Castle. Here we had a tour around the grounds and castle. Which told us of the history of the castle, how the Talbot family had lived in the castle for up to 800 years and the family ghost Puck. We had our lunch there and then headed over to Ian's so that Ryan could help him lift his motorcycle into the back of the van. During this time we had a lovely time playing on the trampoline with Daniel. Afterwards we strolled back to Aunty Joan's through the park and [View Full Entry]

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DAYS 29-31 Friday I spoke to my Uncle Alan who asked if I wanted to go to Wexford with them for the weekend which I did. Amy (my little cousin) didn't know I was coming so you should have heard the shrieks at the school gate when we picked her up. That night we played on the near by play equipment and realised that maybe I was a little too big to be playing on it! After a lovely dinner cooked by Uncle Alan it was movie time in Amy’s room we watched Cadet Kellie. This was done in semi darkness [View Full Entry]

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DAY 28 This Thursday turned out to be the only day during the week that remained foggy for all but three hours of the day. I believe that it was because I had decided to go exploring this day. I caught the train into the city and bought a daily ticket for the Dublin hop-on, hop-off bus. This bus tour takes you around to all of the tourist sites in Dublin, running every 10 minutes. I visited the National Museum which had displays on historic Ireland including details on the Vikings. The next stop was Steven's Green where I had a [View Full Entry]

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DAY 26 Today dawned bright and sunny for St Patrick’s Day. Today I went into the city with my cousin Ryan and 2 of his friends to watch the parade. In there we met my other cousin Ian, his wife and their son Daniel. We waited for over an hour for the parade to start and it was fantastic. There was so much colour and so many nationalities all taking part in the event. Some of the entries though were a little odd and I wasn't sure how they fitted in. But they all looked amazing including Kin Kong, a flying [View Full Entry]

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DAYS 21-24 On Thursday (12.3.09) we were up at 6am to head to the ferry to take us to Hollyheads in Wales. This ferry ride took us a total of 3 and half hours. Once we docked it took us 2 hours to drive to our hotel in Chester which is just south of Manchester. The hotel was called Holiday Inn. Here we caught up with my cousin Gill and two of her kids Ryan and Shane. All of which I haven’t seen in over 10 years, since I was 12!!! While we were there my aunty Joan, Gill and I [View Full Entry]

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DAY 17 It was my second day in Ireland today and I went to my Aunt and Uncle’s local Church, St Doulough’s. It is the oldest church in Ireland with over 600 years of continuous weekly use. The Church also contains one section with the original stone roof. As the church was completely stone and the heaters so high up everyone in the church remained rugged up for the whole service. It didn’t help that it was only 2 degrees outside!!! After Church we proceeded to Malahide Castle where we had morning tea of hot chocolate and cake. There were children [View Full Entry]

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