Backpashing Europe

'T'as been a disgracefully long time since my last update, so this will be yet another hideously long spiel from B as she attempts to cover a little of the past few months...

So....after a wonderfully long soujourn in Oz and SE-Asia, I arrived back in Ireland mid-March to a city revved up for St Patrick's Day - the centre of Dublin was absolutely mad....never before have I seen so many viking hats, green t-shirts, and wannabe leprechauns in my life! Nor have I ever seen so many ludicrously langered (heavily inebriated) teenagers before 10 in the morning, staggering about the town, engaging in reverse-peristaltis while their good mates tried to prevent them from passing out into/falling asleep in the deposits they left behind.....And goodness gracious me, if you ever need a fix of American marching bands (gotta love a bit of baton-twirling once in a while), St Patrick's Day in Dublin, is the place to be. Nah, Paddy's was great craic, a little on the hectic side, but a whole lot of fun and a great experience.

Who exactly was St Patrick anyway.... I was a tad disappointed to hear that my childhood visions of a holy most-excellently bearded bloke, wielding a wooden staff to ward off the snakes, was a little off the mark. Turned out that St Paddy arrived in Ireland in AD432. He was apparently born in Scotland (though the Welsh, of course, dispute this claim), and arrived in Ireland after being kidnapped by Irish pirates (Arrrr!). He became a slave and was resigned to a life of tending sheep. He then became a Christian, returned to Blighty for a stint, and then hoofed on back to Ireland, after a prophetic vision instructed him to convert everyone in Ireland to Christianity....

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Now skipping forward a few weeks to the Easter long weekend (a good opportunity to avoid the weekendly influx of hen/stag nights from La Terre de Pomme!!)...so my buddy Dean (yet another deserter from the Dublin fold) and I decided to head off to the West. So off it was to Killarney town, the base for exploration of the Iveragh Peninsula (i.e. the Ring of Kerry). Upon arrival in Killarney, we went in search of some tucker....only to find that the only thing we could get anywhere was fish!!! Apparently it's a Good Friday thing.....no beef, chicken, turkey, pork etc.....just fish!!!!! Very strange indeed. And would you believe that all the pubs were closed! Wow......really crazy. After a good feast on very boney fish, we hired some bikes (a slight improvement on the dodgy gearless Chinese bicycles I was cruising round rice paddies on in Laos) and headed for the nearby Killarney National Park. The park is a vast, resplendent, glacially carved out area, with large lakes, monastic sites, the impressive Ross Castle (the last in Munster to fall to Oliver Cromwell's army), ginormous trees covered in lichen, and mad-cyclists hooning around on their ten-speeders. There are also magnificient views of Ireland's highest mountain range - the Macgillycuddy's Reeks - of course we would have climbed up them all, if not for the dire dire weather.

The next day was spent on a bus tour (cringe!!) around the Iveragh Peninsula (aka the Ring of Kerry). Our bus driver, lets call him Seamus (as I can't recall his name), was as mad as a tellytubby overdosed on RedBull, and his driving reflected this. To be fair, the roads around the Ring of Kerry are rather hammered from the frequent flow of tour-buses all day long plying the road, but when you're whizzing around a hair-pin curve at 100miles/hr on a pock-marked, narrow road, one must question the sanity of the driver. The Ring of Kerry was all that one would expect though - beautiful, green, rainy and loaded with sheep and Kerry cows. From the ROK, I bussed up to delightful Dingle peninsula where I cycled out to the most Westerly point in Ireland all around the western part of Dingle - full of yellow flowers, bleeting mad sheep, hair-pin curves, and cottages set in the midst of limestone fenced green fields.

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Another couple weeks passed.....same old same....( work, shopping, eating out, rock-climbing, movies, etc....) before yet another bank holiday weekend in May, where four of us chicks (3 Aussies and Pommie!) headed down to The People's Republic of Cork! Cork is the biggest county in Ireland, and home to lots of pretty green (and sometimes rocky) wide-open spaces, sheep, locals withsome of the most lovely lilting accents in the world (though at times ya need to listen really hard to understand them hey) and tourists who fancy themselves as being exceedingly eloquent after having kissed the Blarney stone! Funnily enough, there doesn't seem to be any cork anywhere in sight! We were in Cork during the accession of 10 countries (namely Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) to the EU, so were lucky to miss the madness going on back in Dublin's fair city (anti-globalisation protests run by groups such as the funnily named/dressed Wombles of Wimbledon). Whilst in Cork, we caught a cab out to see Blarney Castle. The Blarney stone is a chip of the Scottish stone of Scone that was presented to the King of Munster in thanks for his support during a 14th century rebellion. Apparently the hygiene of the stone is questionable (all the locals will tell you this), so my attempt at bending over (held by the ankles and dangling down a little gap) was a little half-hearted. We also meandered round the University College of Cork grounds, drove out to Cobh (pronounced "Cove", the last port of call for the Titanic before it sunk), and cruised around West Cork for the day. According to my guidebook, West Cork was once the "badlands" of Ireland; its ruggedness and isolation rendered it lawless and largely uninhabitible. It's now home to loads of farms, holiday cottages and lovely beaches. It's very pretty and a nice (mostly) chilled out place to spend a few days.

On my second last weekend in Ireland (another bank holiday weekend, you see the bankers work really hard in Ireland so they need loads of holidays), I finally made it across to the splendid Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland, with my long-time dear friend, Katherine, yet another antipodean who has relocated to the Northern Hemisphere. We stopped overnight in Galway, "the fastest growing city in Europe" (apparently!), where we visited The Crane (a good trad pub), and got romanced by the 82 year old Sean, the most famous locksmith in town, and a man who fancies himself as quite the Tangoist, when he's not doing a little Samba on the side. From here we caught a ferry out to Inish more, the largest and most heavily populated of the Aran Islands (a grand total of 700 people live here, and about 50,000 sheep!) and spent the day cycling all around the place. The Aran islands were absolutely delightful, full of green fields, sheer limestone cliff faces tumbling into the rough Atlantic below, ancient forts, monastic sites where early Irish Christians settled to attain spiritual seclusion, old fellas giving tourists rides around the island in wagons towed by ponies, quaint little cottages, and a few quite nice beaches.

And then finally my last weekend in Dublin.....not too shabby, though exhausting! After starting to pack up my gear last week, I realized that I had accumulated a disgraceful amount of gear.....so much so that I had to leave 2 big bag fulls of gear in Dublin, and still pay an excess on my luggage allowance...grrrr. Went to the RHCP/T(h)rills/Pixies concert on the Sat night with everyone else in the country........a little hectic being sandwiched in with 100,000 other people but good fun nonetheless.

For now I've moved on to the wonderfully grand city of Edinburgh. Who knows how long I'll be here. At the moment I'm looking for a new job, not to mention a home. I'm also heading off to Norway in 4 days for a quick holiday. Apparently Norway is more expensive than Ireland - could this possibly be so?!?!?!

To finish up, I'd like to say thanks to all who were part of my Dublin experience - I miss you guys!!! Especially thanks to Dean, Ken, Jo, Julie, Regina, and the rest of the Abbey gang, the Saffas, and of course all you chicks from the South Western Area Health Board! 'T'as been grand sharing the experience with you all...I'll be back soon enough I'm sure.

Anyway, must finish up, the chick at the library is evil-eyeing me, which means I have to get off the free internet service.....Hope this email finds all of you happy and well. Again, sorry for the disgraceful lag between emails.....ah well. Let me know if any of you are going to be up/over this way soon. Would be delighted to put any (? ok so most) of you up for a few nights....when I get a place that is!

Slainte

Love Belinda xox

G'day

Well after a couple of weeks of

"TheweatherhasbeensolovelyIalmostforgotIwasabouttoenteranorthernhemispherewinter", we're having a rainy day in Dublin. I'm actually well acclimatized to the cold and a balmy 8 degrees has no longer become something to write home about (which is of course why I'm doing it! hey?). In spite of all one hears about how shocking the weather is here, I think Sydney gets a hell of a lot more rain than Dublin (when we're not having a drought!). But then El Nino has gone a little nuts these days with his ambitious efforts to spread the good weather love all around......

For this email, I've decided to give you the LONG and SHORT versions (a-la-Leighton - Lord of the Castle and close friend of Paz Thakra - Cantrill). I was recently informed my emails are at times, nauseatingly long, hence the attempted succinctness.

SHORT VERSION
Since my arrival back from Croatia.....I have:

*Spent a weekend in Galway and visited the spectacular Cliffs of Moher and the Burren (lots of rocks speckled across the countryside) in County Clare with a tour guide who liked to perseverate (i.e. he had to say everything twice, say everything twice - "Soon we will stop for lunch. We will stop for lunch. You can get chips for €2. Did you hear you can get chips for €2?!" Jill [old uni friend] was on the verge of going "postal" but after those €2 chippies was able to regain some composure).

*Had some old school friends visit - Aimee, Claire, Suz and Zelda (all ex-Avondaleans) - very delighted to see some old mates, even if they did drag me along to the Arlington to watch the Irish dancing!

*Been enjoying the Rugby (nothing like being abroad to reignite the patriotic passions for sport) and spent many an hour at the pub (the Irish equivalent of the beach - without the sun, salt, sea, sand and seedbags in lairy dacks and speedos, and with a lot more pasty yobbos) with the antipodean delegation supporting the Wally-bies. Still a little disappointed with the loss - it seemed the whole of Ireland was barracking for the Aussies - not a lot of love between the Poms and Irish even now.

*Moved out of my home and back into the hostel (just til I leave) as Claire and Andrew (Saffas) left today to go to the US. I am yet to rid myself of the mandatory "Hey" that Saffas put at the end of every single sentence (I won't even get started on all the "just now" and "now now" business, let alone the "Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame" and the "Isit").

*Spent a weekend in Edinburgh on a reconnaissance mission (planning to move there next year) with my Aussie mates Anthony and Dean, and a new recruit Alana. It's absolutely gorgeous....(oh and you don't have to stare constantly at the pavement so as to avoid the bubbly globs of saliva that Irish men so like to propel out of their "mouts") we did a Ghouls and Ghosts tour with Spooky Dave, climbed the mountain to Arthur's seat, visited Edinburgh castle and ate some HAGGIS!! miam miam.....

*Finally visited Kilmainham Gaol - originally a gaol for thieving types (i.e. those poor bastards who got shipped out to Australia for stealing a pint of Guinness) - but later used as a prison for political ratbags such as James Connolly, Michael Collins, Padraig Pearse (Easter Rising chaps).

*Survived the knacker (think scary scary Westies to the power of 10) enslaught at the Smithfield ice skating rink - only a few war wounds to prove that I was "skating like I meant it".

That's pretty much it!

As for the next few weeks.......I'm hoping to still make it to the Ring of Kerry but am fast running out of time, I'm off to Paris (yet again) with some fellow antipodeans, and will be leaving Dublin just after Xmas.

As of this week, my itinerary for the next few months post-Xmas is as follows:

- a few days in Munich and surrounds
- Singapore
- a diving course in the Tioman islands (off SE coast of peninsular Malaysia)
- Penang
- KL
- Melbourne for my sister's wedding
- road-trip round Tassie for a week (in search of the famous two-headed Taswegian)
- Sydney for a few weeks
- Laos for a month
- Dublin for a couple months
- Edinburgh

Life's tough hey?

All of the above is liable to change in the next few days/weeks....but will keep you posted!

Will send the long version "just now" (translation - maybe today, maybe next week, or maybe when the Garda National Immigration Bureau start sticking up my picture on telegraph poles around town)...

Ciao

Love Belinda
xoxo

Hola

Since last writing I've done three trips abroad! The first was a weekend in London at the beginning of August, 3 weeks ago I finally made it to Belfast, and then last weekend I zipped over to Paris!

I'd spent a week in London nearly 6 years ago, and had considered it my LEAST favourite city.....I thought perhaps a few years (on both London and my parts) would maybe change my perceptions of the city. My memories were of a ginormous, filthy, bleak metropolis, where it rained constantly, everything was overpriced, people were boxed into the tube like battery chickens and where service with a smile was a foreign concept.

So maybe it's not that bad.....for starters, I had a weekend of brilliant sunshine. I arrived in London on the tail end of one of the hottest fortnights on record. People were flailing about in the 39 celcius heat, turning into lobsters as they laid out to roast in Hyde, St James' and Regent's Parks (Hyde Park looking a little lunar with all the grass having shrivelled up and died), and the tube was like an underground sauna complex. And aside from the grime, crowds (I almost took up claustrophobia) and frowns.....oh and did I mention exorbitant prices (£12 for a B-grade movie in Leicester Square!!!), I did have a grand time.

As I had spent my time in London back in 1997, racing about to see all the main sights, I didn't have a full agenda of sightseeing to do. So I went and checked out the places I had missed last time) such as Lord's Cricket Ground, Abbey Road recording studios, Covent Garden Markets, Milennium Bridge, London Eye and Tate Modern Gallery.

I started off heading up to Lord's cricket ground (I'm not even going to try and explain cricket to the Yanks, and Europeans on his list!) where I took a 2hr tour of the grounds, under the guidance of a South African, who had the charisma of Mr Bean's forlorn teddy! Anyway, it was quite cool to go into the members stands, wander round the grounds, and check out the museum - got to see the Ashes too!!! They gave Bradman a good rap (well deserved), and provided us with a good overview of the history of cricket in England and across the globe, before taking us off to the Real (Royal) Tennis courts and letting us watch professional Real players strut their stuff on the courts.

In case you ever wondered, the reason they say "Love" when the score is zero, well an egg is about the same shape as a zero, the French word for egg is "l'oeuf"(spelling?), and with an anglicized twang on the word, makes it sound rather like "love". And why on earth do they count up 0-15-30-40??? Well again, in French, you would count "l'oeuf, quinze (15) , trente (30), quarante-cinq (45)". The Poms thought the 45 was too difficult to pronounce so decided to use quarante (40) instead - lazy!! Anyway, it was interesting, but it just wasn't cricket!!

After Lords, I wandered up the road to the nearby Abbey Rd recording studios. I'm not hugely up on my Beatles trivia, but I think this is where they cut their first LP - i could be completely wrong so apologies to Beatophiles......There is a whole big graffiti wall there where people from all over the world pay kudos to the Beatles. Of course i did the Beatles walking across the road thing along with all the other tourists.

From their I made a quick dash to Euston station to catch up with Leighton (Cantrill, some of you would know) for a brief lunch before he knicked off to Manchester for the weekend. And then set off again for an afternoon of sightseeing, stopping for a quick look around Covent Garden Market (a stack of high fashion shops, art and craft stalls, restaurants, cafes etc), St Paul's Cathedral (built 1710 by Christopher Wren, wedding place of Charles and Di, I THINK it's the 2nd biggest in the world), and then crossed the Milennium Bridge (recently reopened after reconstruction to stop in shaking about in the wind) over the algae-coated Thames to the Tate Modern gallery. The gallery is housed in what used to be a large power station. It has a grand collection of works by artists such as Gilbert and George (after whom my green tree frogs mascots were named), Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Matisse and Kandinsky. Really teriffic collection and it's free!!!!! A lot of cool stuff in London is free thankfully, which makes up for the ridiculous amounts you have to pay on food, accommodation etc etc.

I then met up with some friends from Oz, Susan (Holloway) and Lynelda at Victoria, and we grabbed some delicious Italian food.

I spent Saturday morning and afternoon doing a quick whiz around town admiring the sights of Buckingham Palace (didn't see old Lizzy or those wretched corgies this time - last time, by pure chance, we saw her twice on consecutive days!!), strolling along the stinky Thames between the Tower of London/Tower Bridge, and Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, had a picnic lunch in the park with Suz, Zelda and her man (2 thumbs up!), had a look at Kensington Palace and Royal Albert Hall, went for a stroll down Oxford St for some serious WINDOW shopping, and sauntered through the enormous Hyde Park and watched the Poms at play on the paddle-boats on the Serpentine (big snake-like lake). Dinner in Leicester Square - couldn't really fork out the money for the theatre which was a bummer, but nice Italian food (again) never hurts!

Back to London on the Sunday and I moved in with some South Africans I met at the hostel. Really great people, though they have very peculiar accents and reckon their rugby/cricket teams are better than ours.....

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago I made it up to Belfast. Once I eventually got there (train broke down and they shunted us on to buses which arrived 2 hours later than expected!!! I headed out for a wander around town.

I wandered down to the impressive City Hall at Donegal Square, then checked out St Anne's Pro-cathedral with its impressive Gertrude Stein mosaics, and ginormous British flags hanging from the ceiling. I was amused to learn that St Anne's patron saints and two little teddy bears called Patrick and Anne, and that the church has a tradition of collecting donations using Black Santas. The tradition started in 1926, when the then Dean, got a wooden barrel and sat out on the cathedral steps collecting donations whilst wearing his black clerical cloak (his long fluffy beard scored him the nicname of Santa.

Aside from that and a little shopping (naturally), I spent my time looking around the Catholic and Protestant parts of town. I'd kinda got a taste for how crazy the Catholic/Protestant deal was, when we drove around the North at the beginning of August. Not only are the Catholic and Protestant areas clearly demarcated by a huge wall (about 20ft or so high, made from corrugated-iron and covered in graffiti, but there are also gates that lock the areas off from each other. I think the need for this "peace wall" is taking Frosts' notion of "good fences mak(ing) good neighbours" to the extreme. The Protestant areas are plastered with Pommie flags, red, white and blue striped curbs, murals with images of William of Orange (the dude that lead to the defeat of the Catholic King in the Battle of the Boyne), The Apprentice Boys (the younguns who shut off the gates of Derry to keep out the Catholics in the 1689 siege), the Scottish Flag etc. I went for a walk through the Protestant area on the Saturday afternoon (apparently not always a good idea) and then back on the Black Taxi Tour the next day. The Catholic areas are a little more subdued, far fewer flags, and the murals have orange and green colours, the word "Saiorse" (Gaelic for Freedom)images of the British Bulldog, and pictures of the phoenix, a symbol of a united Ireland. The black taxi tour I did through teh Catholic and Protestant areas on Sunday was pretty cool - a convoy of about 5 cabs zoomed about 20 of us around town, stopping to look at all the murals, the peace line, memorials to various people who had died in the conflict etc....great commentary too, though the whole bollocks that has gone on up there is really beyond comprehension......people are still getting shot/assaulted, the hatred and criminality is rife.....really crazy stuff. The Bloody Sunday (Jan 1972) inquiry was reopened last year and is now into its 368th day!!

Back to Dublin....a fortnight ago, I headed over to the Chester Beatty Library - it won European Museum of the year in 2002. The museum is housed in the old clock tower of Dublin castle, and is the ginormous art collection of Beatty, a Canadian mining millionaire. It mostly contains Islamic and Far Eastern manuscripts and includes such exhibits as clay tablets from 2700BC Babylon, Japanese wood-block prints, Chinese books covered in Jade cases, and paintings from the Ottoman and Persian empires. It also has 250 Koranic manuscripts. Quite an interesting collection.

I had a quick trip to Paris last weekend with some Dublin-based Aussie friends. Did the usual sightseeing things like Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and Monmartre etc, and also visited Les Egouts de Paris (Paris' sewer museum - fascinating little place. A tad stinky though!), Catacombs (more than 6 million people buried here from overflowing Parisian cemetaries), Cimetiere due Pere Lachaise (resting place of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Chopin etc), the Latin Quarter (where we dined on Escargots, Raclette [essentially melted cheese poured on top of spuds] and Creme Brulee!), Marais quarter (gay and Jewish centres of Paris, also brilliant shops/cafes - ever tried a chili chocolate!?! Not bad!), Centre Pompidou, Jardin des Tuileries, Hotel des Invalides (Napoleon's resting place) etc.....Very quick trip and insanely busy but very enjoyable. Paris is such an unreal city - great sights, people, food and general ambience. Thinking about coming and living here for a while......improving my French, imbibing the atmosphere long term. Who knows though.....Many places to see, things to do.

I've also managed to meet up with some folks from back home - Aimee Harrison and Emily Butler, who were in town for the weekend after doing a tour round Ireland - and Leighton and Sara Cantrill, who were Ireland for about 5 days the other week.

So for this week it's boring old work for me, and then i'm heading off to Croatia next Saturday for 2 weeks!! Can't wait. My mum is flying over to meet me so it'll be great to catch up with her and spend some time travelling down the Adriatic coast....

Ciao

Belinda

xoxo

Tres apologetique for the laxness with the email updates of late Aside from the trip from a fortnight ago, there hasn't been all that much going on aside from work.

The job is going quite well and i'm enjoying the challenges of managing a small caseload of kiddies, and hanging out drinking coffee with the girls and guys at work. Ok, so I don't want to make it sound too cruisy, because it certainly is not. However, the amount of time the Irish spend on 'breaks' proportionate to the amount of time they spend actually working is insane! No wonder the economy is sliding back down after the Celtic boom of more recent years. My working day runs from 9 to 5, with an official 15min coffee break and 1hr15mins for lunch!! crazy.....they are also very flexible with the hours. You can rock up at 10 if you like, and finish a little later, or dock some time off lunch break and have an even shorter day! Still, I'm flat out all day seeing clients, doing admin etc. I'm certain the stress levels in this country are about half that of Oz.

Things are generally chilled out here...plodding even...You see the plodding effect when you hit the shops or a restaurant. If you want to go clothes shopping, you will spend 10mins waiting to be served, even if there is only one person in queue in front of you! And this is after you've already queued for 10 mins to get into the change room!

I'm still living at the youth hostel in town, but may be moving out with some South Africans (Saffas) I met at the hostel next week. It's a little less central than where I am now but a good deal cheaper. For the most part, the hostel is a lot of fun as you're always meeting new people and there's always something to do. Though it can get expensive and tiring as you end up going out at least 5 nights a week and getting an average of 6hrs sleep a night. And until last week I had to share a room with a girl with foot odour problem. My goodness, you'd think the poor lass' mother would have told her. I'd walk in at night, and walk back out again it was so bad. She actually manages to clear the whole tv room with her smelly feet. Seriously gross stuff. I've moved rooms now thank goodness!

A couple of weekends ago, I went with a group of a half dozen Aussies to see the peculiar Gaelic sport of hurling - not of the technicolour yawning kind either!! Hurling was an early version and blend of hockey and lacrosse. You have 2 fifteen-a side teams, and the sport is played on a rectangular field. The objective of the tame is to try and hit a baseball sized ball with the 'caman' (hurley stick), over the crossbar (goalposts) or into the net below. Players can whack the ball along the ground, hit it it through the air or balance it on the broad mit of the stick. They also seem to be quite fond of giving each other a good belt. It's a fast and furious game, and we had a great time. We actually got tix for the quarter finals so the level of play was pretty awesome even though it's kinda hard to follow what's going on all the time cause it's sooooooo fast.

I spent last weekend driving round Northern Ireland with two Aussies I met at the hostel. We had planned to catch a train up to Belfast for the weekend and spend the whole time there but at the last minute decided the flexibility of having a car would be much better so wound up hiring a VW Golf for the weekend and not actually making it to Belfast, aside from the skirting around the edge of the city we did on our way to the North coast.

On the way to the north, we stopped to have a look at Newgrange, home to one of the most significant Stone Age sites in Europe. Unfortunately the place was crawling with package tourists, and us travellers were told we couldn't possible do the 'tour' for another 3-4 hours!! Grrr, disappointed, we kept driving north til we spotted the ruins of a castle tower in someone's paddock beside the motorway. So of course we snuck in to have a look, first running and jumping on the huge rolled up hay bales scattered across the field, and then climbing the tower for a nice view over the countryside, and of course the rest of the property in case the farmer came a-running with his pitchfork!

We had the impression that the border crossing would involve some sort of police check, and there'd be some scary looking military dudes with their AK-47s, so we strategically poised the camera to film any shenanigans that would arise. Sadly, we didn't even realize when he had crossed the border as there's not even a sign to let you know!! The only way of really knowing is by looking at the roadsigns which are no longer printed bilingually in Gaelic and English.

As you get a few k's into N Ireland, it becomes a little more obvious you're in another country due to the vast number of flags and painted road-curbs proclaiming individual's loyalties to the Union (Brits) or the Republic. You drive through one town, to see it plastered with the Union Jack, flag of England, and red, white and blue stripes on the curbs. And then the next town has the Orange, green and white of the Irish Republic flag. Other towns have a good mixture, but typically the territories are clearly demarcated.

Upon hitting the north coast we hiked along the cliffs of Fair Head, from where you can see across to bonny Scotland. Along the cliffs here which in some points drop straight into the sea, are cahrming wildflower meadows, and paddocks of sheep, cows and the odd bull. After the long walk out to the headland we decided it would be easier to cut through the fields, and had fun rounding up the sheep in the paddock, and running away from the bulls when they got a little grumpy (don't think they like purple coats so much!). We then drove around to Ballycastle, at the mouth of the glens of Glenshesk and Geltaisie, and stopped for a while at Ballintoy harbour, where a lot of artists hang out to paint the "dark rock-strewn strand" which contrasts peculiarly with the pale-stone breakwater. We finished off the evening with a hearty meal of fish 'n' "chippies" (as they insist on calling them regardless of age/sex/status). We wound up camping somewhere along the coast for free because we checked in too late to register, and drove off in the wee hours of the morning so we could make the most of our day

We hit Carrick-a-rede (meaning "rock in the road") the next morning where you get to walk across an 80ft above-the-sea rope plank bridge. The bridge connects the mainland with a small island which used to be home to a salmon fishery. The views from here were really lovely, and the bridge, potentially scary when the wind picks up a bit. On the day we were there, however, the water was glassy enough for water skiing so the fear factor was a little absent. Still, nice place.

Next we made our pilgrimage to the Giant's Causeway, where the three of us blew £20 on a top-notch breakfast at a posh hotel (hey we got free parking out of it!). The causeway is pretty impressive and definitely worth the efforts to get up there if you're ever over in Ireland. If you haven't seen pics before in national geographic or on the discovery channel, it's has quite a lunar feel to it, and as W Thackeray said, 'When the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this must have been the bit over - a remnant of chaos.'. It is thought that the causeway was formed over time through volcanic eruptions, and the subsequent cooling of the lava into basalt hexagonal stepping stones which cascade down into the ocean. There are estimated to be some 40,000 of these stone columns stackd in together. According to ancient Gaelic legends, the causeway was obviously built by the giants, under the guidance of Finn McCool (they named a Maccas burger after him!!), the warrior and commander of the king of Ireland's armies. "Finn could pick thorns out of his heels while running and was capable of amazing feats of strength. Once, during a fight with a Scottish giant, he scooped up a huge clod of earth and flung it at his fleeing rival. The clod fell into the sea and turned into the Isle of Man".

After the causeway we cruised along the scenic coast to the surfing beaches of Portstewart and Portrush - a little too cold for a dip though. Nice place to sleep for a bit though as the sun was shining briliiantly that afternoon. Must have hit 24! The locals were going nuts, sweating like pigs and wiping their brows etc..... Then we continued along to the beaches and cliffs at Benone beach, from where you have spectacular views out to the Inishowen peninsula of county Donegal (part of the republic), and where you can drive your car for 12km along the beach! Good fun though we almost took the car swimming at one point - male drivers, i dunno!!

From there we stopped at the 18th century estate of Downhill, where we visited the Mussenden Temple (sitting directly at the edge of a cliff overlooking a beach - stunning views), and ruins of the Downhill palace. Really really nice joint they used to have there and incredible scenery.

We stopped in Derry (or if you're a Pom, Londonderry) for the night. The drive into town was kinda fun. As we hit the town periphery, we saw the usual flag propaganda, but to add to that, the military were doing a police check, oversized guns and all. They were clearing out some cars looking for dodgy people and weapons etc..... Anthony (one of my Aussie mates) took the Steve Irwin approach by putting on his most ocker Queensland accent and "G'day"-ing them. Worked a treat as they just waved us on through.

Apparently things are pretty calm now in Derry, although all the guidebooks warn firmly about parking your car in the wrong place, perchance some Brit-mad local notices your licence plates and decides to do in your windows with a golfstick. No probs though - car was in good nick when we went to drive off the next day.

We spent the morning walking about the 17th century old walls and touring the "Bloody Sunday" sites. Derry is the only remaining completely walled off city in Ireland and has provided the barricade to numerous sieges over the years between the Irish and the Brits. More than thirty years after the Bloody Sunday massacre (30 Jan 1972), the guys responsible for the deaths of the 17 victims (most of them very young with no previous major political associations) have not been brought to justice. Tony Blair reopened the inquiry into the massacre a few years ago, so it is hoped that the families of the victims will be delivered some sort of justice, but why exactly it still hasn't happened is unfathomable. There are several interesting murals painted on the walls around town exemplifying the brutalities and injustices of the massacre, and flags flying all over town proclaiming allegiances. Not far from the massacre site, there are even Palestinian flags flying high above the buildings, indicative of their empathy for the Palestinian cause. In other parts of town, the allegiance to the British empire is obvious with red white and blue stripes on the street curbs, flags flying etc.

After the main sightseeing, we decided to do some shopping (as you do) and found that you could buy BB guns (i think that's their name, anyway the rubber bullet ones?) in several shops around town. we went in and checked some of the places out;. apparently it is considered perfectly normal to sell them to 7 year olds wearing dog collars and with blue mohawks on the tops of their heads. We even got some footage of em running about town shooting at each other with these bullets. Crazy crazy stuff going on in this world! noone else seemed to bat and eyelid though!

Ok, so i never finished this off last week.....update.....

Spent all this last week at the hostel. Same old same, hanging out with the foreign legion etc. Have decided to move into the Saffas as they have promised to cook me braii every night (a Saffa BBQ) Was also spurred on by a break-in to my room at the hostel the other night. Some jerk jumped in through the skylight and did a little damage to the room. As far as i know, nothing of mine was touched but he stole one of the girls' video cameras. Ill probably discover 2mths down the track that something or other is gone..... All my friends are getting motivated and moving out too so the social side of things isn't the same anymore.

I flew into London this evening for the weekend. Have planned for tomorrow to check out Wimbledon and Lords, have lunch with leighton cantrill (friend from Sydney), visit the Tate gallery in the arvo, and meet up with Suz and Zelda for dinner. Hoping to see some more friends on Sat but need to do some organizing between now and then.

Anyway, hope you're all in good shape, enjoying life (wherever you are) and keeping out of trouble - especially you pink ladies at the San!! hehe

Ciao

Love Belinda

P.S. I finally have an address for mailing. Any belated birthday presents can be sent here

Flat 72, 35 Mountjoy Square
Dublin 1
Ireland.

Hello from Sunny Dublin (and yeah that is borderline oxymoronic -but true).

Out of the 5 days I've been in town, about 3 have been moderately sunny so it was a pleasant welcome to this rainy city. Though the presence of the sunshine doesn't exactly equate to warmth. Summer began here just over a week ago and the locals are lapping it up. When I arrived on Wednesday, the thermometer must have hit about 20. So everyone seems to be cruising round in shorts and t-shirts like it's 40 degrees! Meanwhile, Belinda is shivering away in a jumper and jeans. Having come from a month in Asia, the weather was a bit of a shock - especially when you have in mind that it is SUMMER!

Dublin is really a very attractive city, and contrary to popular notions that it is packed with drunken yobbos, I haven't found it all that bad - so far. But then I've been going to bed pretty early. Well as early as humanly possible considering it is still light outside at 10.30 at night!!! And then the sun peeks its way out at around 4am. It's very disconcerting. I have no concept of what the time is here - aside from what my tummy tells me. Considering how expensive the food is here, my tummy tries not to tell me too much at all at the moment, but hey you gotta eat! If you use the McEconomic scale, Dublin is on par with the whole of Switzerland and London. One large Big Mac meal will set you back EUR5.90!!! Basically that's the same for everything here. Same price as in Aussie dollars but it's Euro. So a cup of coffee is EUR2.50, and a sandwich is at least €3 etc. The only cheap thing I've found so far is internet access at 60c an hour if you go early enough!

Something peculiar to Dublin is the overly peroxided ladies that hang about on the street corners of the inner city suburbs selling fruit from prams! I would never have thought to set up shop from the back of a pram, but it's not such a bad idea. Considering the number of young ladies with babies
here, I guess it makes sense. Whereas the chicky babes at home with small babies would tend to be in their early 30s, there are many girls who can't be more than early 20s carting their bubs around in prams. Must be the long cold winters!

So what have I been up to......not a lot. Aside from orienting myself (I have a shocking sense of direction as some of you will know - I get lost walking back to my hotel in the middle of the night in pretty much every place I go to), and finding all the good places to eat and shop (got a new
handbag, now need some new shoes), I've been searching for a place to live. At the moment I'm staying with Jill, a friend from uni in town, but will need to find something permanent before I start work, hopefully next week if everything goes to plans. I still have some paperwork to do that
I wasn't told about before I left home so it may be 2 weeks before I start working to teach these Irish folk how to speak properly!!!

I've heard people go on and on about the Irish accent and had expected to have far more difficulties but so far haven 't had too many problems. But then, I'm in the centre of town. I suspect that when I start working, I'll have an interesting time. Where I'll be working is meant to have a pretty thick accent...so we'll see how it goes.

I spent yesterday in Kilkenny, purported to be the most beautiful medieval town in Ireland. It is definately a lovely place to spend a day, and I enjoyed visiting the Kilkenny Castle (nice but "same same" as all the other jolly ones I've been to!), St Canice's Cathedral and tower, Domincan Black
Abbey, Rothe House etc etc.....but best of all, found a delightful creperie, which has divine bruschetta and the ONLY Spanish Hot Chocolate in Ireland!!! Apparently the locals aren't big fans but it really is divine. I'm definitely going back to Kilkenny just to eat at this place! Any of you folks who make it over here.....we'll do lunch here. Really top stuff.

My last few days in Thailand were really great - though a tad on the lazy side. I met up with the American-Israeli guys I met snorkelling on Ko Phi Phi and spent the time with them - eating, shopping, eating (hey last chance for good banana smoothies), and more shopping - oh and running away from persistent tuk-tuk drivers and food vendors ("I'll get fat" seems to work). Phuket wasn't such a bad place either. I'd never seen myself going there because of its rep as a glitzy getaway for honeymooners and fat German tourists (not to forget those grotesque middle-aged men salivating over 14 yr old local girls). All of that is there...but being the off-season and with people staying at home because of SARs/terrorism, it was a little on the quiet side. Instead of having the beach chocker-block with portly
half-naked people sunning themselves on deckchairs, you had a beach of half-empty deckchairs - and not so many half-naked people. Plenty of beach vendors were still in force however trying to sell sarongs, ice-creams, drinks, fruit etc etc. Burying your face in whatever book you are reading when you see them coming seems to work though - even if you are very obvious about it!!

Not much planned for the next few days. I need to do the house-hunting thing, and might even squeeze in a bit of sightseeing too - considering i'm in a rather groovy city and all that....When going out for dinner the other night, I walked kinda straight past Trinity College without even batting an
eyelid - hey I was tired after flying and waiting for nearly 24hrs!! Shame shame....

Anyway, it is very nice to be in a big city again with hot water (forgotten how nice a hot shower was), flushing toilets and a relatively organised public transport system...at least I hope so! Though I will definitely miss the steamy Asian weather, beautiful beaches, cheap tasty food, hassle and groovy people I met along the way.

Gotta go - more house hunting to do.

Ciao

Love Belinda