London and Beyond!

We are now sad to report that we have left our lovely little emerald isle and are moving on to the next phases of our European experience; London, Austria, the Balkans and Turkey.

We had a great year in Ireland, and our pub, the South County, sent us off with a memorable party that involved betting on our coworker's dogs at the races, being serenaded over more than one pint of stout/cider, receiving an autographed framed mini hurling jersey complete with ball/stick (slitter/hurley) so we will never forget Ireland's odd but great national sport, Mike being pulled up to dance to Neil Diamond with the ladies in the cafe (he is such a good sport...and there were so many of them that resistance was futile). If you are brave enough to view the photos, here they are. Thanks to everyone at the South County for the teaching us all about the craic, and to Michael and Niamh and Caro and all our flatmates and hospitality club friends for a wonderful year.

And to make our last weeks in Ireland even better, Lisa and Tom visited for the last two of them! We had fun showing them around our city (10 months of scoping out Cork's sights, and 500 and some bars, peaked in our pride of bringing them to the very best), and while they patiently waited for us to finish up work, they visited some of the villages around Cork. We all trucked out to one of Ireland's oldest fairs, Puck Fair, which involved catching a wild goat in the Kerry hills, crowning it as the king and a 12 year old girl from the village as the queen (?!), and displaying it on a caged platform for the duration of the fair (the girl was allowed to roam freer than the goat). Lots of trading and selling by the locals and visitors, and drinking and music in the streets (think 'Snatch'), and turning around blind corners to find a whole village lane packed in with cows and bulls (and their mess) being traded by the tweed suited farmers, poking them testingly with their canes. Kilkenny and Dublin were fun too, Tom enjoyed being exposed to a whole new series of Gaelic sports, chasing donkeys, and drinking Murphy's stout, and Lisa was thrilled to explore castles and abbey ruins and being given impromptu bodhran (irish drum) lessons. It was easier to see them off to Canada knowing that it was only a few short months till we will see them again in Alberta for Christmas.

And we thought we wouldn't see anyone from Canada for two year...here we are in London visiting not only with Grandma Betty Germain's hospitable cousin Jim and his family, but also with Auntie Norma and Matt and Amy who we nearly coincidentally bumped into in the Portobello Market! We are off to spend an afternoon at Picadilly Square with them again today, and then off to the continent for a spell before we settle down again to work in England. We'll let you know when something else exciting crosses our path!

Yay!

Yay! Lisa and Tom are coming to visit us here in Cork in 3 days! They have been racing about the continent as well these last few weeks and are making us their last stop, and we plan on showing them some of the irish craic (fun, fun, fun). We'll be going to Puck Fair in Kerry, which is Ireland's oldest festival, the arts festival in Kilkenny, and Dublin, which is always a gong show! We've been busy the last few weeks seeing as much of Ireland as we can before we leave in 18 days (went by sooo fast!), working to save as much money as we can for our 2 or 3 month trip through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia/Herzogovenia, Serbia/Montenegro, Bulgaria and Turkey at the end of August, hosting guests from the hospitality club, and trying to imagine what our next year working in Britain will be like. In the last few months we had a lovely visit with Gren and Beryl from Cheshire who we stayed with before we came to Ireland, so it was nice to show someone around our new, temporary home, and check out some of the 2005 European Capital of Culture events with them, and explore the Blarney Castle and its famous stone. We cycled around the Ring of Kerry and its blue-green mountains, and took a little nausea-inducing boat out 12 wind-lashing kms into the ocean to Skellig Michael, the 1400 year old monastic ruins perched on the tiny craggy island. It is famous for its beehive shaped huts made of stone and no mortar which have stood the test of time, as well as being a home for thousands of sea birds, including puffins who were guarding their nests, hopping about picking flowers, preening each others feathers, and not really minding us photographing them from only a foot away! Another childhood dream accomplishment to scratch off CarliAnn's list! We hitchhiked around another of the peninsulas, Beara, last week, camped in the gardens of the friendly irish folk who picked us up, and saw dolphins and seals lounging in the bays. One doesn't have to travel far to see some amazing things in this country. Let's see, what else...we visited the medieval city of Kilkenny for the comedy festival, and watched the international comedians get whupped by the irish comedians in a football (soccer) match...Not bad for just a few months of chilling out on a little island off a little island off the continental coast! We moved from our place that we were sharing with our German flatmates a few weeks ago, and are now in really pretty student accomodation in the shadow of the city's cathedral, living with 2 french guys, 2 irish guys and an italian. We will only be here for another 10 days or so until we finish work, then off with Lisa and Tom, a few days with family in London, and then we are off to the land of kebabs! We will have new mobile phone numbers after we leave Ireland but we will be checking our email lots more as we start picking up some momentum. We'll be in Alberta for a month at Christmas too, so save us some snow! We already have a few hospitality club invitations in the Balkans, as well as friends to visit, so I think that we are set. Hope you are all getting the sunshine that we are missing here, and we'll start updating more often now that we have a few adventures coming our way!