And we're living in China now

Well, after the ski trip to Italy we moved to China. The move went all well and good, and we've been here for about a month and a half.

But, I'm not going to write much about it here as we've got a whole 'nother website for the China stories. Go to www.china2008.webset.co.nz.

Cheers,
Matt

Skiing in Italy (M)

On our second to last week in Ireland, Abby and I went skiing in Italy. Joe Burke, one of my workmates, had organised a trip to the ski resort of Livigno, so we added our number to the 50 odd Paddys that were already going and on a Friday evening we started what turned out to be a rather torturous journey. We got a ride with Joe to Athlone (1.5 hr) and then a bus with about 20 others to Dublin (2 hr). From there it was a flight to Brescia, Italy (3 hr) and a bus ride to Livigno (6hr). All in all, it was 3pm Saturday before we arrived in Livigno and got into our accommodation.

But, as we climbed up over the final passes to the resort, thru snow covered forests and villages, I had a feeling it would be a good week. This was confirmed for me when we started to cut down the face of the valley to Livigno and we crossed some ski runs, literally. The ski runs came down the hill above us, crossed under the road and then continued down the hill. There were skiers swishing down under us as we went past and, frankly, that got me excited. I've never skied under a road before.

Soon after we arrived in Livigno, and were deposited outside our accommodation. We had no real idea where we were staying, but Joe had done a good job of organising accommodation and Abby and I had our own self-contained apartment in Casa Paulo. Our neighbours, 7 lads from Athlone, turned out to be a fair bit more interested in drinking then skiing, and seemed to be getting home from the pub only minutes before I got up to go skiing. The made a bit of noise, but apart from that Abby and I were well pleased with our accommodation.


The view from our apartment window. This was Sunday morning, and you can see the high winds blowing the snow off the peaks.


Outside our apartment, and as you can see I've joined the 21st century and am using carvers for a change.

That first evening, we got our ski gear, had dinner and pretty much went straight to bed. Abby found out that getting around with arms full of boots, poles and skis isn't the easiest thing in the world, much akin on the frustration scale to the first time she got dressed up in full motorcycle gear. Still, like motorcycling, I reckoned she'd enjoy it once she got on the slope the next day. And I was practically jumping out of my skin to get on the field. I'd been studying the trail map and I reckoned that I had the most efficient plan to have every run skied before the end of the day.


getting boots on and off is a big pain in the rear end.

The next morning, I was up and breakfasted at 7 am and ready to go by 8. I looked out the window, but the lifts hadn't started running (Yes, the lifts started just outside the door of our apartment). I kept looking out the window for the next hour until they finally started running at 9, the scheduled opening time, as printed in the trail map which I read later.

It turned out that my lofty expectations for the first day didn't pan out, as high winds meant that all the top lifts weren't running. So I concentrated on getting my groove back instead, it had been three years since I skied last and I was a little rusty.


Vistas from the top of the Mountains. You can see all the bare patches where the snow's been blown clean off.

Meanwhile, Abby was at ski school. She had signed up for a ski school package and spent three hours a day, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, learning to ski. It seemed that she picked up the skiing reasonably quick and by Tuesday we were able to ski from the top of the first lift to the bottom together. In fact, she went on to be one of the better skiers in her class and got a silver medal in the slalom race that her class had on their last day.


From the top of lift 1.


Neeve, Susan, Abby and Sabrina (Abby's instructor)

So, fairly quickly we settled into a routine. I would get up first, and continue my exploration of the skifields, and Abby would head off to her ski lessons around 10 am. We'd meet up back at our apartment for a lunch of fresh bread, cheese and Italian Chamois Salami before I'd head off again and Abby would do her afternoon lesson. In the evenings, then, we'd go out to dinner somewhere. Even though Livigno is a tourist resort, we still found the prices to be very good compared to Ireland and ate out somewhere different every night. After dinner we might head out for a few beers with the rest of the group, but I don't favour skiing with a headache so mostly I kept it pretty quiet. Well, apart from the last night that is.


View from the top of the Gondola

The skifields around Livigno took a fair bit more time to explore than I originally thought. Both sides of the valley had fields on them, although all of them had a common pass, a magnetic card that worked on turnstiles at the entrance to all lifts. Also, some of the runs were uncommonly long, with a 15 minute ride in a high-speed gondola required to reach the top. So, by Monday I had only covered half the fields and my thighs and calves were about wrecked. Luckily, by Wednesday I had recovered again and I was starting to really get the hang of the top-of-the-line Rossignol carvers I had hired. Although the majority of the runs at Livigno were intermediate runs, they did seem to be high level intermediates and when taken at speed were damn good fun.


Out for dinner, this is Anthony and Sarah


and this is Matt and Abby.

By Thursday, Abby had made remarkable progress and after lunch we decided to do one of the longer blue runs. So, we bundled into the Gondola and headed for the top. It seemed that the snow ploughs Abby had been practising all week were working and we made our way to the bottom without any incidents to speak of, although it did take an hour to get down. The second time we did the same run, Abby was getting the hang of the open runs with faster skiers shooting past on either side and we almost halfed our time. Considering she'd only been skiing for 5 days I was impressed.


Quick video of Abby skiing

Friday rolled on quicker than any of us could imagine and soon we were passing our skis back to the hire shop. We were leaving Saturday morning at 2.30am so it wasn't really a great night to go out, but it was also the last night so I had a few to drink. Which meant I wasn't feeling all that great when we got up about 2 hours after going to bed, but we still managed to catch our bus alright and were back to our old flat in Galway much too soon. It's a bit of a downer, returning from a ski trip like that, but, unlike the rest of the Irish lads, we had already finished up our jobs and had nothing to do on Monday but pack for our move to China.

Dublin & Belfast (M)

In January Abby and I realised we'd not be in Ireland for all that much longer and we made a last ditch effort to visit a few of the places we'd missed. So, in the second weekend of January Abby and I went to Dublin for two days. It's amusing, in our travels over the last year we've been to Dublin numerous times to catch planes and ferries, but have never had a look around the city itself.

So, we caught the bus across from Galway and arrived into our hotel on Friday night. Somehow, I'd managed to find a fairly decent hotel in Temple Bar for about 35 euro each per night. That was pretty good, but probably had something to do with mid-January being deepest off-season. Anyway, the hotel was nice and it came with breakfast included.

On Saturday we went for a walk around the city center. Our first stop was Trinity College to look at the Book of Kells. This is a very old copy of the four gospels (circa. 800AD) and has amazingly detailed calligraphy and illustrations. The thing that impressed me most was all the different materials they needed to create the various colours in the book. For example, the colour blue was made from the rock lapis lazuli, only found in the Afganistan Himilayas, an awful long way from Ireland, even now. This, and the amount of time it must have taken the monks to complete the artwork, certainly gives an impression of how important religion was back then.


Trinity College, Dublin

I think what impressed, or surprised, Abby most was that as she was looking at the book, she happened to notice that one of the staff from her University residence in Dunedin was right beside her. He was awful surprised too when Abby said gidday.


From Trinity College we walked through St. Stephen's Green, around past Leinster House and had a look through the National Museum. There wasn't much we hadn't seen before in the National Museum, but it was well presented. It was interesting seeing the pieces that had been removed from other museums we'd visited around Ireland and were displayed here. I also found interesting the ancient Celtic tomb carvings, large rocks patterned with swirls and circles, interesting because I've seen the same shaped carvings on rocks in the middle of Australia, just down from Alice Springs. I've now got a theory that either there is an ancient connection between the Celts and the Australian Aborigines or that swirls and circles are easy shapes to carve in rocks.


Celtic rock carving, Ireland


Aboriginal rock carving, Australia

We then walked down the banks of the Liffey to look at Customs house and up the banks of the Liffey to cross the Ha'penny bridge before returning to Temple Bar. That evening we went for dinner at a small place called the Port House, a Tapa restaurant. It turned out to be a really good meal, I think Abby really liked having all the little tapa dishes that she could pick and mix with.


Customs House

On Sunday then, we walked out to the Guinness Brewery. They have a really swish visitors centre set up, it must be about 7 floors high in all, and it's well worth a visit. The culmination of the tour is a free Guinness at the top of the building, in a circular room with glass walls that allows views across all of Dublin.


The Guinness Brewery and a big stack of kegs


A pint of Guinness, at the top of the Guinness Brewery



From the Brewery we trekked over to Kilmainham Gaol, infamous for being Dublin's main prison in the late 1800's, early 1900's and more infamous for the political prisoners kept and executed there after the 1916 rising. It's a dreary enough place to look around, but is very different. As part of the prison was revamped in the 40's, it's a good example of the old and new style of prison. Old is small, over-crowded cells with poor ventilation, lighting, sewerage, everything really and new could be the set out of Prison Break. Apparently, the new wing of the prison has been used in several movies. I guess I should also mention that it's not a working prison any more.


Kilmainham Gaol



After visiting Kilmainham, we had to get across to the other side of Dublin to catch the bus back to Galway. That went off without a hitch and we spent the rest of the week resting at work before the next weekend.

The very next weekend we headed off to Northern Ireland. It's true that we had been that way in August 2007, but there were two reasons for heading up to the North again. Firstly, we hadn't seen Derry or Belfast properly and secondly, Amy MacGrannachan was coming with us and she hadn't seen any of the North at all.

So, early Saturday morning we headed up through Sligo and Donegal to Derry, arriving into our hotel there around 3 in the afternoon. Once again, hotel prices were reasonably cheap due to the off-season. We checked in and then had a look around the old part of Derry, in particular the Tower Museum just on the other side of the old city walls. They have a very good exhibition on the history of Derry which, to sum up very quickly, seems to include an almost constant quarrel for the last 1000 years between the English and the Irish, or the Protestants and the Catholics, or the Loyalists and the Unionists, or the Separatists and the Republicans. Anyway, it makes for an interesting exhibition and we spent a couple of hours there before we found a good spot for dinner in town and then a good spot for a few pints around the corner to finish the day off.


On the Derry city walls


An old advertising poster on the walls of a pub in Derry, a rather suspect advertising poster...


Evidence of Derry's past, all the shops are boarded up for the nights.

On Sunday we were up early again and drove up around the top of Antrim, past Downhill Castle, Dunluce Castle, the Bushmills Distillery and the Giant's Causeway. Then we headed straight through to Belfast and another cheap hotel. That evening we had a look around the nighttime scene in Belfast, we had a few beers in the Crown Hotel and wandered past the City Hall.


Temple at Downhill house


The view along the coast from Dunluce Castle


The bridge across to Dunluce Castle


Dunluce Castle from afar


Not much heard about this in NZ, but it did actually happen. Poster on the wall at Bushmills


Bushmills Distillery


The Giant's causeway, Antrim


Artsy shots of the Giant's Causeway


More artsy shots


Amy on the wishing seat, Giant's Causeway


Crown Saloon, Belfast


City Hall, Belfast

On Monday, we didn't have a heck of alot of time so we hired a cab to do a tour round the rest of the sights in Belfast. Most of these sights are the many loyalist and republican murals on the walls around the city and the other interesting results of the troubles, like the police station that looks more like a fort and the fence that runs through the middle of Belfast to keep Catholic and Protestants apart. We also got to see Goliath and Sampson, the two big ship building cranes in the Belfast port.


A Loyalist wall mural, Belfast


The Belfast Police station


International wall, Belfast.


Republican Mural, Belfast


Sampson and Goliath, Belfast

Then it was the 5 hour drive back to Galway and that was about that for Norther Ireland, although we did stop for ten minutes in Moira so that Abby could get some photos in a town that bears the same name as her Mother.


Abby in Moira. She's been keen to go here since we got to Ireland, I think.


Moira again

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (A)

Well this is a bit late really to be saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, but all the same we thought that we would share with you the way we spent our Irish Christmas and New Year.

Work wise over the Christmas and New Year was very busy for me as it was the end of the financial year for most of the companies that I am involved with and I was covering for Karla while she was in Mexico.

As I said in the last blog we had Christmas Eve dinner at Monika's house. Monika always says that she isn't much of a chef, but she really out-did herself. She made Beetroot soup and tortellini, and chicken goulash and potato pancakes, with good old Dunnes caramel ice-cream for dessert. While Monika was cooking the meal I was busy making a pavlova and Kahlua chocolate cheesecake. So as you can imagine it was a very busy evening.

Amy stayed at our house on Christmas Eve. We had already bought her presents around so that she would be able to open them with people bright and early. Christmas was really an eating and drinking extravaganza. In hindsight we really needed about 20 people to get through all the food instead of four of us.


Christmas morning at the flat

The day started with a hearty fry up and champagne. From there we moved on to a platter containing 5 different cheeses, salami, smoked salmon, hummus, sun dried tomatoes, pineapple, grapes, and rock melon. After this feast we played a game of Cluedo. The game got very competitive, and Monika with her tactical thinking and experience of the game took the top honours. After we had used our brains a bit we had our lunch, which was a roast chicken, ham, seafood salad, green salad and spuds. And of course more wine. We were pretty full after all this, so we retired again to the lounge for some more game playing.


Snacks before lunch, Monika, Amy, Matt and Nono, our Japanese flatmate

This time we played the Game of Life. I was the superstar, who commanded a huge pay check and Matt was a teacher. Well, I was about as popular as Britney Spears, and was pretty much never employed, whilst Matt was teaching extra classes left, right and centre. I was the first to finish the Game of Life, but Matt was the winner.

After some amount of time and watching a bit of Finding Nemo, we marched ourselves back into the kitchen to take on dessert. We had a pavlova, a chocolate Kahlua cheesecake, Trifle, Chocolate Eclairs and Ice-cream. Well we didn't get through much at all. Monika took herself off home not long after that, and Matt climbed up into bed not looking very healthy at all. Amy and I went for a bit of a walk at 10.30pm but it started raining so we headed home. Mind you I think that we would have had to walk the length and breadth of Ireland to have made any real difference.


Dessert for the four of us

We had a few pretty chilled out days after Christmas, which mostly involved eating left-overs. I didn't have to cook for like a week. We had a pretty quiet weekend too, which involved much sitting around, Matt building a 3D computer image of his parents house and me nagging at him that we really need to do something. In the end we decided to go out for a big slap-up dinner.

After much cunning and slyness I tricked Matt into wearing his suit, and we set off to Cooke's restaurant for a bells and whistles dinner. We had a lovely reflective night about all the amazing things that we have seen and done this year and all the fantastic things that the future has in store for us. Somehow we managed to fit in three courses and a bottle of wine. We then went down the way for another couple of drinks to reminisce about how great our memories are of the year that was.


Myself and Abby dressed up to go out for dinner

We caught a taxi home and stood outside the house having a 'moment'. Next thing
I know, Matt has asked me 'Abby, will you marry me?'

'Really?' I asked.

'Yes, really' he answered.

'Seriously?' I ask.

'Yes, seriously, will you marry me?'

After a bit more of that, I said yes, and we hugged and kissed and felt generally pretty pleased with ourselves.

So next thing is we tell people and wedding plans are well in truly under way.

M: What can I say? She made me wear a suit and I only do that every blue moon, so I thought I'd make the most of it. But seriously, I'm pleased as punch that we'll be getting married next February.

For New Years, Abby, Mac and I ended up down at the rugby club. It was a bit quieter down there than I expected and there was only about twenty of us all together. However, that made it awful easy to get to the bar and we rolled home early in the morning after a good night.

Amy and Abby on New Years, up at the rugby club


Some of the rugby lads. It was also Jared's (centre frame) 50th birthday.

Criss and Mac (A)

My cousin Carissa arrived at our house in Galway on Wednesday the 6th of November, around 5pm. I made a quick dinner and then Carissa, Matt and I caught a taxi to basketball. I was meant to have a game, but the other team couldn't make it. So, I was naughty and flagged practice and the three of us walked home through the town and went to the supermarket and bought some wine and went home and drank it instead.

On Thursday Matt and I went to work bright and early and Criss went into town and discovered the shops, in particular Penny’s. I think it was love at first sight. On Friday after work, Criss, Matt and I went out on the town for the purpose of Criss experiencing her first Irish Guinness in a real Irish pub. We then went and listened to a live rock covers band. Criss has had to listen to a lot of her friend’s doff doff music so was pretty stoked about having some real music. About 2.30am we completed the traditional Irish experience, and took her to SuperMacs for a feed. SuperMac’s is the Irish version of MacDonald’s, but much better than MacDonald’s.

In the morning, Matt went and picked up the hire car and some potato waffles and I cooked us up a huge breakfast. We then did a trip around the Burren on our way to pick up Macca (Amy Jane McGrannachan) from the Shannon airport. Our first stop was the Aillee Caves. I promised Kerre that I would go to them, but €12 to get in was a bit of a put-off so we looked at the postcards of them and toddled on.

A portal tomb out in the Burren. And Abby's cousin Carissa.

From there we went to the Neolithic tombs and made various hypotheses about what they were actually thinking when they built them. Our theories and the respected scienctific ones weren't really related. The last tomb that we went to, we had to walk along a bit of a goat track. Well, it is a goat trek normally but we didn't cross the fence in the right place and took a pretty scenic route which involved having to quickly recover our feet from the bog.

We went to Doolin for lunch. Doolin is reportedly the traditional music capital of the west and a lot of traditional music is recorded here. Criss had her second Guinness and tried the Irish stew. The conclusion was that the second Guinness was better than the first, and the Guinness does in fact taste better in Ireland. We have decided that doesn't have the bitter taste here that it does at home. We went and checked out one of Ireland's premier surf beaches. Criss took photos to send to her friends at home. By surf beach it just means that there are some waves.

Abby and Criss in a Doolin pub.

We made our way down to the Cliffs of Moher. It is free to go into, but you have to pay €8 for the car park. We saw a few other cars sneaky parking, so we also sneaky parked. Matt's knee has been a bit bung so he stayed and guarded the car/looked at his eyelids. We took some photos and then ran back to the warmth of the car.

The famed Cliffs of Moher

We meandered our way to Ennis where we embarked on a Bailey's cheesecake hunt. Ennis is where Matt and I stayed when we missed our flight to Paris. So we were pretty sure that we had the place sorted. Well, we discovered that it is a deceptively big place and our short cuts turned out to be not so short at all. Eventually we found Bailey's cheesecake and a cider. The barman asked Criss and I if we were from NZ. ‘Yes’ we said. ‘Where from’ he asked. I said ‘top of the north and bottom of the south’. ‘Which towns though, I've been there’. Not to Gore or Whangarei it would seem. But he had heard of Dunedin.

We then went and meet Macca from the airport. It took a while for her to emerge through the arrival gates with a large, black suitcase. But since all her stuff got destroyed in a fire in Canada the week before she left (which was started by a squirrel eating the wiring. Ok the squirrel was electrocuted and caught fire), I thought that she would only have carry on luggage. Somehow in three days she had accumulated a full suitcase and has a pack on its way. Her friends in Canada had chipped and rallied around and she ended up with heaps of stuff. Then there was lots of chattering in the car ride home to bed.

Sunday we had a wee sleep-in and eventually got out the door about 11am. We headed to Aughnanure Castle. Matt and I went there on our first motorbike trip together. It was so cool to see Clarissa and Amy reactions, as it’s really a nice wee castle. We had a good look around the castle and then headed off through the bog to Clifden where we had lunch.

Abby, Criss and Amy at Augnanure Castle, our local tourist spot of choice.

The last time we were in Clifden it was the middle of summer and the place was pumping with people. Sunday in November though is a good bit quieter, and we had to hunt for somewhere to eat lunch. But, we succeeded in our mission and Macca, Criss and I had open sandwiches. Somehow we were meant to be able to make a sandwich with a soda bread muffin. I am buggered if I know how though. Macca had her first Guinness and tried the Irish cidar and decided that they both tasted dangerously good.

Ah, Guinness!

We drove home through the Bog and visited what I consider to be the nicest beach that I have seen in Ireland. Macca and Criss thought that it was pretty funny that there were so many life rings on the beach when there weren't even any waves.

Lifebouys on the coastline. A lot of Irish can't swim, at all.

We were going to go home a different way, but somehow we ended up back on the road that we came in on. We went to the supermarket to do a big shop while we had the car. I think three girls in a supermarket together were a bit much for Matt and he made excuses about needing to go to the sport shop for something.

Amy and Criss went shopping together in Galway, well Criss showed her around the town, and then they went off to the Aran Islands for three nights. There was a variety of stories that they came home with. They were chased by a donkey, biked for miles and then could barely move, and taught the locals a thing or two about kiwi drinking games.

Mac over on the Arann Islands with a couple of "friendly" donkeys.

Another of Criss's photos from the Arann Islands. More donkeys, and JC as well.

After visiting us, Criss spent a couple of days exploring Dublin and then went up to Belfast to visit some friends. She is now in Edinburgh. When she left Galway she was planning to catch the Ferry to Scotland as she was pretty sure that she would have far too much stuff to be flying with, by the time she had been shopping in Dublin and Belfast she might have needed a whole container ship.

As for Amy, after a couple of false starts, she is now living a 5-10 minute walk from our house. The flat and the flatmate’s are really nice and she’s pretty happy. Amy is working in a shop to tide her over till after Christmas, when companies start rehiring.

Matt is still busy with Rugby and I am still playing basketball. I played a game out in the Gealteach (Irish speaking area) a week or so ago. They played the whole game in Irish, which for me was a pretty novel experience. I understood not a single work they were saying.

It is now the silly season here and I have been at Christmas parties the last two Friday’s and I have another one this week and another one the week after. They have all been ‘good Craic’ as they say here. Our plans for Christmas are quite quiet, it will only be Matt and I, Amy and my friend from work Monika, a bit of an Orphans Christmas really. We are going to have a Christmas eve meal at Monika’s, as it’s a Polish tradition, then a champagne breakfast and a Christmas dinner. Matt doesn’t think this is very quiet at all, but Amy and I are really excited about it. He can sit in the corner and eat cold weet-bix if he wants.

Our plans for next year are starting to come together. We are planning to move to China, but there is a lot of things to organize first. Matt is searching for jobs there now, and we are both trying to learn a bit of Chinese. And at the end of January we are going to Italy for a week skiing in the Alps, which is really exciting. There is a big group of Irish people going along, organized through Matt’s work, so that should be good craic and a good start to the year.

Merry Christmas!