26TH JANUARY - 15TH FEBRUARY
The week on Monday the 26th did not bring anything out of the ordinary. Em and I both had busy weeks at work. It remained rather cold, but the snow stayed away which was good. In the evening of Friday the 30th after dinner, Em and I went to Killaloe, a small town about 20 minutes northwest of Limerick as I had a farewell get together for one of the girls at work. We stayed until around midnight and had a good evening. Again it was a true Irish pub, rather small and cosy, with a gathering of musicians crowded around a table playing what ever was requested or what ever they felt like. It really is one of the best features of Ireland. On Saturday the 31st we were up early as we wanted to get to the Milk Markets to buy some fresh fish as we had heard good things. We weren't disappointed and bought a beautiful fresh piece of cod. After getting a few other things in town, we headed home for a late breakfast. In the afternoon, we went out to Ennis, a small town 30 minutes North-West of Limerick, to have a look at a camper van, which is currently owned by Em's workmate, Dirk and his wife Tina. We had a look around, a 1984 VW LT280 Westfalia Sven Hedin. We were very impressed, it was in amazing condition, and very roomy inside. Dirk said that they were only the third owner, the previous owner in Germany had it for 16 years, kept it in a barn, and only used it in the summer! After we'd had a cuppa at their house, we went to Lahinch, a small beachside community 30 minutes drive West with Dirk, Tina, and their two sons Finn (3yrs) and Tom (9mths). It turned out to be a beautfiul afternoon, and it got to 8°c, the same temperature as the water. Dirk is a keen surfer, so he went surfing and came back blue, while Em, Tina, Finn, Tom , and I walked on the beach and made some sandcastles. Once the sun started to set, it quickly became a lot colder, and we headed back to Ennis, and after a nice dinner with Dirk and Tina Em and I headed on home from there.
On Sunday I had hockey in Cork. After dropping me off at the club rooms so I could get a lift with someone, Em went to work for a few hours to try and help clear a backlog of work. The hockey game was close, and we lost 1 – 0. Not a result that we could be happy with, considering we should have at least drawn. Again it was a freezing cold day, and you couldn't help but think snow was again on it's way... Monday the 2nd of February brought the snow, another reasonable dumping. It was a slow trip to work, but not too dangerous. After a couple more days of snow, the weather started to warm up a little thankfully.
On Friday the 6th after work, Em and I flew to Paris for a four day trip. We flew out of Shannon, the local airport. Thankfully there was no snow at either end, so our flights we not cancelled. We landed at Beauvais Airport, Paris at about 10:30pm local time (11:30pm Ireland time), and caught the bus into Paris city, and then a taxi from there to our hotel. We had planned on using the metro to get to our hotel, but unfortunately it was not running. The taxi trip included going around the Arc De Triumphe roundabout, which is not something you would want to do in peak time traffic! Eleven roads intersect at this rounabout, and there are no lane markings. When we finally arrived at our hotel and checked in, it was after 1am, so we were ready for bed.
After a small sleep in in the morning, we were set to explore Paris. Our plans were to walk around Paris, do the bus tour and go up the Eiffel tower. However once we went outside we quickly realised this was not a great idea. There was low cloud, it was cold, and eventually it started to snow.
As we walked into central Paris, we quickly realised that we were going to love this city. A lot of the streets are lined with trees either side, and many of the roads are still cobbled (but in good condition). The buildings all complement each other in the same style – light beige / cream, 6 stories high, with narrow, tall windows, and curvy cast-iron balconies. We passed a large number of places selling fresh croissants, crepes (usually with loads of Nutella!), and other decadent goodies. We stopped into a small supermarket to get a couple of snacks and also saw that there were bottles of wine for 2 euros, and nice but cheap cheeses as well. From here we were starting to get a bit peckish so we stopped in at a small cafe for coffee and a croissant. We got a fantastic coffee as well, which was great. Em did the ordering in halting French, as I had not yet mastered the basic sentence that I needed to order the food (we made a rule that all food-ordering and ticket-buying had to be carried out in French - the French phrase-book went everywhere with us!).
From here we continued into the city, and eventually reached the river. At this stage it started to snow, so we took this as a good indication that we should have lunch. We weren't really sure where to go, so just chose somewhere on the riverfront. Em had a fantastic French Onion Soup which was fantastic. They don't call it French Onion Soup there of course – just Soupe l'Onione.
After lunch we decided to head to the Louvre museum, given the snow was getting heavier. We were so impressed by the museum from the outside that we weren't sure what to expect once got inside. The glass pyramids were amazing to see. Considering the size of the museum, it also seemed quite daunting to try and look around. It is the largest museum in the world – shaped as a giant, 3-storeyed U-shape. The long arms of the 'U' must be nearly 1km long each. Once inside, we decided we would go and see particular sections of the museum, and stuck to those rather than wandering around aimlessly. After about four hours we had seen all that we wanted to see, and had totally worn ourselves out with all the walking we had done. For me the most impressive things were the artifacts from ancient Egypt, particularly the fabrics (e.g. Papyrus paper, and linen) and wooden furniture that they had there. It was in such fantastic condition. We also saw many 'must see' artworks including the 'Winged Victory' (Nike) sculpture, the Mona Lisa (who was bigger than expected – everyone always says how small she is in real life, so expectations were low) and also 'The Venus de Milo' (Aphrodite). We saw massive paintings which must have been 5m high by 10m wide – there were six in one room, all by the same artist. There were so many artists which Em had studied in Art classes.
From the Louvre we wandered back to our hotel for dinner. On the way we stopped into McDonalds, to check if they sold beer there, which they did! Unfortunately there were big queues, so we gave that a miss, headed to the supermarket, and picked up some dinner, wine, a baguette (French stick!), and cheese. Once we had eaten, we were both rather tired and had a relatively early night.
On Sunday the 8th, we were up a bit later than planned, but got out beating the pavements again. We decided to walk into town again, and then we gradually made our way on foot to the Eiffel tower, which took nearly 2 hours. We noticed that most shops are closed on Sundays which we were a little suprised about, not we were there for the shopping. But we were glad we did this, as we walked along the Champs-Elysees, and over probably the most impressive bridge I have laid eyes on, the Pont de Alexandre III. The Champs-Elysees is a beautiful cobbled street – 75m wide, and tree-lined, sloping gently uphill from the Louvre to the Arc de Triumphe. The buildings in Paris were so impressive – covered in ornate decorative sculptures, pillars, and arches. And they're so OLD! One of the monuments in the central city – a square spire gifted from Egypt - is 3000 years old.
Once we were at the Eiffel tower the sun was out, so we decided to take advantage of this and do a double-decker bus tour. We went to a number of places including Notre Dame, the Louvre, Pont du Alexandre III, the Paris Opera, The Ritz Hotel (most infamously known for being the last place Lady Diana was seen alive), the crash site of Lady Diana, a large number of museums, and a very grand looking church, which had 12kg of gold to cover the top of the dome, and houses Napoleon's tomb underneath it.
Our fourth stop was the Notre Dame Cathedral, which Em was particularly excited to see. We went inside and found a Catholic Mass in progress, with hymns being sung acapella, and also with the massive organ being played. This only added to the amazing building that Notre Dame is. The lead lights are nothing like either of us had seen before – a huge circular window (rosette) high up in the church. The outside was stunning, but paled in comparison to the interior. All around the edges of the church inside, hundreds of candles were burning as prayers for hundreds of people. There were sections where many different Saints were laid to rest.
Back outside Notre Dame, we headed across the river and grabbed a bite to eat, I got a Panini, and Em had a Crepe (full of Nutella and sliced banana). After this we got back onto the bus to finish off the tour, which in total lasted for more than 2 hours.
Following the bus tour, the Eiffel Tower was the next destination. We went to the top level, standing just over 300m high, where there was a very impressive view of Paris, although it was a slightly hazy Winters' afternoon. We walked up the stairs for the first two levels (about half way up), then took the lift to the top (squeezed in with 20 others!).
After finishing that, we jumped back on the bus to go to the student part of Paris, the 5th district, for dinner, as I had been told this was a great place to get good food at reasonable prices. After some walking, we found a nice little place that seemed to be what we were after. We ended up having a 3 course dinner with wine for under 50 euros which was great value! We thought about having l'escargot (snails), but other things looked to good to miss out on. We caught the metro home and then went to bed.
On Monday, the 9th, we went to Euro Disney, which was a 40 minute train ride from central Paris. We were both looking forward to it, as we both enjoyed the theme parks on the Gold Coast last year, but I don't think either of us were prepared for just how good Disneyland is. The detail on the rides is amazing, the Disney Castle was spectacular, and the children's part, (with the tea cup ride), really was magical. It was just like you imagined as a child. The weather however was not magical, as it rained for most of the day. We were relatively well prepared for this, and took full advantage of the lack of queues by going on nearly every ride at least once. We waited for rides for about 5 – 10 minutes which we were not complaining about. We were there from 10am – 6:30pm, which was long enough for us. We were happy we stayed until it got dark to see the park all light up, which again was very spectacular.
After catching the train back into Paris, we got some dinner, and headed back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel we were on the hunt for some Panadol for Em as she had a bad headache (from all the roller coasters). This proved fairly difficult – no chemists were open. Eventually we found a small shop with a couple of elderly Moroccan men in it, who did not sell Panadol, but were generous enough to give Em a couple of aspirin from their own first-aid kit, which was really nice. It was a hilarious exercise – with both parties doing a lot of miming to get their messages across, and Em being kissed on both cheeks many times over. Once we got back to our hotel, we had dinner, with wine and cheese, then sadly we packed our bags so we were ready to go in the morning.
Tuesday the 10th was time to come home. Thankfully all of the airports were open; they had been closed overnight due to high winds. We left our hotel, caught the metro to a central part of Paris, and got on the bus to the airport. We were back home in Limerick by 2:30pm which was great. It meant we could have a nice relaxing afternoon, and do important jobs like get groceries for the week.
Wednesday was back to reality, work. The week actually seemed to go rather slow, and by Friday it seemed like it was months since we were in Paris. On the high notes, the days were starting to get noticeably longer, at both ends. Because of this I tried driving home on the back roads, and it only takes me 45 minutes, compared to an average of an hour, so was extremely happy about that.
On Saturday we were up bright an early as we were heading away for the weekend. We left home at 7:15am, to get to Ennis by 8am, which is where Dirk and Tina live. We were heading away with Dirk for the night, in the camper van, which we will be buying in May. We drove 4 hours north, to a small island off County Mayo called Achill Island, connected to the mainland by a small bridge. There was a 'Battle of the Bands' competition on up there, which Dirk had been to for the past few years. When we got closed to Achill Island we quickly realised this was the real 'West Ireland', rugged, no fences, and peat-turf patches dug everywhere. It was quite spectacular to see, and reminded me somewhat of the west coast of the North Island at home. On the trip up, we'd seen lots of gorgeous new spring lambs in the paddocks – all with black faces and legs. We arrived soon after lunch, checked into the tiny hostel, and had a relaxing afternoon. We went for a couple of small walks, but the cloudy, drizzly day was not very inviting, so we played scrabble instead. The competition started at 7:30pm at the local pub. It soon filled up and by 8:30pm it was hard to move. There were some fantastic bands playing, 15 in total, playing for 15 – 20 minute sets. It all finished up at about midnight, by which time we were ready for bed. It was a great evening, with lots of locals, all of whom were very friendly.
On Sunday morning we got up and went for a nice walk along the roads near the hostel, which overlooked the sea. As there were no farm fences on the Island, the sheep wandered freely around. They were really shaggy, fluffy white sheep, with jet black faces and legs, and big curly horns, and fairly friendly.
At about midday we were back on the road and back to Ennis. The drive wasn't too bad, even though we were quite sleep deprived. When we arrived back in Ennis and Tina had prepared us dinner, which we were very appreciative of. After dinner we came back home and had a much desired early night.
