A pint of Guiness in the Emerald Isle

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After two months of travel it was great to settle down and make a little home for myself in Ireland.

I was very lucky to get a job and a flat very quickly. I have been working at a shop called the Great Outdoors selling snowboarding and skiing gear, it has been a great job with a lot of other young people and travellers like me working there. The only problem with retail is that you have to work every Saturday, however luckily the mid week flights are cheaper so I have taken advantage of this.

I have been living in a flat with 3 Aussies in Fairview, North Dublin. The flat is really cool and just as large as any flat I had back in NZ. I do have to walk through the Dublin slums of Summerhill to get to work, but it is only a 45 minute walk and catching the bus would just about take the same ammount of time.

Dublin is a funky and vibrant city, and there is nothing really that beats the Irish pubs. My first pint of Guiness was drunk at the tourist haunt of Temple Bar, and it was a pleasant suprise. It really does taste different over here, more creamy and smooth. I don't think I will ever have a pint of Guiness outside of Ireland again.

To really appreciate Ireland you need to get out of the city, so I have done a few trips into the countryside. My first was to Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. It is a beautiful spot with a couple of ancient monestaries, great scenery and many hill walking (tramping) tracks.

My next trip was to County Offaly, right in the heart of Ireland. It is famed for being a real country county and we even saw a few tractors driving down the main streets of the towns. We stopped at an old Monestary called Clonmcnoise alongside the Shannon river, visited the town of Birr (it was very brrrr cold this day) for a pub lunch and drove over the Slieve Bloom Mountains on the way home.

Early December I visited the Munster city of Cork. Jane, a member of my old Rotary Club from South Africa, now lives there so I took the opportunity to visit her and see the sights of Cork. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the city, it was very small compared to Dublin and reminded me of the differences between Wellington and Auckland. Jane and I went to a chocolate cooking class while I was there, yum yum!

My other Irish adventure was up to Belfast in Northern Ireland. This was a great lesson in Irish history and probably my favourite place that I have visited in Ireland so far. My flatmates and I did a Black Cab tour of the Catholic and Protestant communities to learn about the period of time known as "the troubles". We had a fantastic cab driver - Paddy, and the tour was amazing, the best thing to do when in Belfast.

Some of my favourite things about Ireland so far have been the accent (everyone sounds like they are stars on Father Ted), Butlers hot chocolates, the friendly and funny taxi drivers, the funny sheep with black faces, the Guinness advertising and the lack of rain in winter (despite the freezing cold, the coldest EVER winter they have had).

I am now half way through my stay in Ireland, and still have much more of the country to explore. There will be many more highlights to come - "to be sure, to be sure".

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Photos

Grafton St Flowers
I work behind these flowers

My first photo in Ireland
mmm Guiness