Well it's been a busy few weeks! My apologies for not writing sooner (and smaller pieces) about what's been going on ....The beginning of March saw another trip over to London to farewell Aaron before he headed off for the blue skies of Queensland. It was a crazy weekend, flying out of Dublin early Saturday morning and fleeing straight to the pub to meet everyone in Fulham. With a few quiet beers in a nice little pub "the Fulham Mitre" we headed to Belushi's around the corner for a bit more of a dance scene. We stayed for a while and danced to the sounds of the DJ and his accompanying saxaphone player before ending the night with a house party at the infamous Delorme flat. Sunday was a rather cruisey day with most of us relaxing and nursing hangovers in anticipation of Moira's big cook up. We had roast pork, chicken and veg ... a much needed Sunday roast after a big night on the town. I flew out early Monday morning but once everyone had boarded the plane the captain announced that we would be delayed due to the horrific winds in both London and Dublin. 3 hours in and out of uncomfortable sleep later we finally departed Stansted and was pleasantly surprised when we landed in Dublin in under an hour. I was a good 4 hours late for work but eventually made it in. The following week I was most excited to host my first visitors in Dublin, Annie and her sister Lis who were making the trip over for Annie's birthday and St Patrick's weekend. After a late night at work on the Friday and a sleep in on Saturday I woke around the time I was meant to meet the girls at the airport. I convinced them to get a taxi to my flat and it wasn't long after that that the mayhem started. With a big Irish Fry and some beers to start the day, we were under way for a big weekend in Dublin. With Annie on cold and flu tablets and too many pints of whiskey (!) she decided to sit the night out whilst myself, Lis, Peter, Mike and one of Mike's friends headed towards the south of Dublin city to a strange bar called Carnival ... decked out like a mini circus. We met Emma in town and moved to a bar called the Village €10 to get in but a nicer crowd and much dancier music. After a few drinks in the Village we were asked to evacuate because the building had caught fire. I didn't believe Mike at first when he told me, I thought he was pulling my leg but sure enough the smoke started to seep into the main bar and everyone very slowly started making their way out onto the street. One fella lit a cigarette on his way down the stairs and was told by security that "you can't smoke in here!" the young fella gave a slight smile and replied "mate, the place is on fire ... like a cigarette is going to matter". The security guard shrugged his shoulders and let the man continue to smoke while the remaining crowd poured out on Dublin's very wet, rainy streets. It wasn't too long before we managed to get a taxi home but not before we were absolutely saturated by the freezing cold rain. Sunday was another great day, with a little bit of sight seeing we headed back to the flat for some light drinks before hitting the town again. It was just the girls this time and we started off at the Porterhouse. Everyone was in high spirits with St Patricks day just a few hours away ... the city was painted green, orange and white and people were flaunting their novelty hats, flags, streamers, silly string and anything else green they could find. We had covered ourselves in temporary tattoos and were wearing shamrocks on springs for a headband. Before the night was over we ended up at a little local place on the quays called Shanays. Monday was mostly spent in bed before we finally struggled out and heading to Phoenix Park, the largest city park in Europe, such a beautiful amazing place, unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy much of it before it was time to head to work. But it wasn't so bad, everyone was in a great mood and there was a fantastic vibe all around. The girls left on Tuesday and before I knew it another week had passed ... Easter already! This year is just flying by! It was a spur of the moment decision late on Friday night to get a bus up to Belfast to meet Emma and her flatmate Elizabeth for some road tripping of the north. We started of with a Black Taxi Tour through Belfast including the Falls, Shankill Road and checking out the very moving murals, the Peace Wall, the memorials for those who were killed during the Troubles and many other memorials for the Bloody Sunday victims and the Hunger Strikers. I was very surprised at the Taxi driver's knowledge, he was in his forties (or maybe even fifties) and had lived through a lot of it. Whilst having a tour of one of the cemeteries where all the IRA members were buried, he pointed out many of them he had known and was friends with before their deaths. The taxi driver himself was a Catholic and at one point on Shankill Road, he told us we could get out of the taxi to take photographs but he refused to get out ... it was a dodgy looking area, even though the Troubles have been over for a couple of decades, it was very scary! Next it was up north to the Giant's Causeway, stunning! Photos just don't do it justice!! We then went along the Antrim Coast to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge ... Mum, Dad you would be proud. I made it over (and back!) on the bridge despite it being a bit of rope from one very high cliff to a small island off the coast. It wasn't too bad until the people in front of me stopped to get a photo on the bridge ... I nearly kicked them to get them out of my way! All I wanted to do was get off the darn thing ... but very proud that I made it! We followed the coastline as much as we could before stopping off for a night in Derry (Londonderry). We stayed in a hostel just near the centre of town and wandered into Peadar O'Donnell's, a very traditionally Irish pub with a 3 man band and all. We chatted to some locals before being kicked out by the police ... I think the pub had exceeded his licensing hours ... the police went up and down the street emptying out all the pubs in the area. We got up early on Easter Sunday for a traditional "Ulster Fry" (Ulster being one of Northern Ireland's counties) before looking around the walled city. We walked around on top of the walls getting a brilliant view of the sad little city and all it's murals and Bloody Sunday Memorials. It was very strange to see the street corners painted either blue, red and white for the protestant areas or green, white and orange for the catholic side. We found mostly through the north that the catholic areas generally looked safe while I couldn't say the same about the protestant side. We got in the car and headed up the coast to Malin Head, catching a glimpse of Ireland's most northern point. The countryside was amazing, it went from rolling green hills, to grassy sand dunes covered in sheep, then to barren rocky mountainous landscape with lakes (or Loughs) in the valley of the mountains. I was amazed at how quickly it changed from one to the other. Our final night stop over was in Letterkenny, a tiny city in County Donegal. We stayed at a hostel in a dorm room with about 15 other people, needless to say we didn't get much sleep that night. Unfortunately most of the people in the room were Australians, a lot of whom were working in Dublin and doing the same thing as us. Anyway, we wandered down into town and the first bar we went to (the Cavern) was ... hmm ... lets say interesting. Before we had finished our first drink and watched a bunch of the locals chasing each other around the beer garden and knocking everything over, one of them had come to talk to us and had proclaimed his undying love for me. I could only stand about 5 mins of his nonsense and his very thick northern accent before we got up and walked away, as we did so he held onto my hand and screamed (so everyone could hear!) "Don't leave me Jacinta, I love you!!" Very embarrassing but the girls found it quite amusing. We headed to what was a much better pub called McGuinleys where we finished our night around 1.00am. Monday and time to head home, we didn't do much looking around Letterkenny as it really is a one street town so instead we headed south west to a small fishing village on the coast called Killybegs for lunch then started the long drive home ... most of which I slept through :-) So this is Ireland thus far ... 4 weeks until the boys get here and I get to do it all over again together with the south, east and west of this magnificent country!! Hope you are all well. Love xox