Guess who's back?

Yep. It's the return of this blog from the dead. As i'm sure you've all gathered, i got out of London alright and made it home safe for the Holidays. Had a great Christmas and New Years. Made it down to Florida to see my mom and then despite worries of immigration made my way back to London for Nick's wedding and the reunion with the love of my life (ha! that sounds so corny, but it's really true). Matt and i met up and despite a rocky start on our journey to Ireland. We made it here. Let me back up for some of you. I decided awhile ago that Ireland was going to be my next stop and Matt decided he was going to join me.

So we got into Dublin. Which is a very neat city. The layout reminds me of Amsterdam in someways (i suppose theres more bridges in Amsterdam but). Lots of italian restaurants but definetly expensive. We looked a few places here but all of them were total dives.

After a few days of searching we realized that our budget was a lot higher due considering what we had been paying in the UK for our respective plaeces. But we wanted to keep to our schedule and opted to leave Dublin to go visit Matt's relatives in Clonmel for a bit. Clonmel is this beautiful town between Cork and Dublin (although much more inland). Driving you really gain a sense of just how beautiful Ireland really is and that it really is *the emerald isle*. After a few days of hanging there we made our way down to Cork.

Cork is the 2nd largest city in Ireland (with like 130,000!) and was named the European capital of Culture for 2005 (yes, there is actually a European capital of culture award). We hit a lot of stumbling blocks trying to find a place here as now one was willing to give us a 6 month rent. But after finding a beautful place we decided to give it another day of searching and low and behold found a cute little one bedroom apartment up on top of a big hill in Cork. We have an amazing view of the cathedrals of the city and the heiniken brewery in cork (nothing like the smell of malt and hops on the morning air!).

We then had to tackle the big problem of how do we get our stuff. I had left 3 suitcases and my turntables in London and the entirety of Matt's worldly possessions were there. After swallowing just how expensive the ferry was and realizing that we didn't have any other options we then looked at renting cars and discovered that it was impossible to rent a van in Ireland with out insurance. So we decided to craft this which became our master plan---

We flew over to London on Monday and stayed with Matt's family out in Maidenhead. Then Tuesday morning we went to Reading and rented a van (a Mercedes sprinter which was about 7.9 ft tall and dunno how long) and then drove to west London and got Matt's stuff, then down to South London and got my stuff and then to North London and got the rest of my stuff. After a short 45 min break we got back on the road and drove west and didn't stop. Through England into Wales and all the way through Wales to the coast to the town of Pembroke. Wales looks an awful lot like Pennsylvannia i've decided. There after a COLD sleepless night in the van we boarded a ferry for Rosslare. The ferry was uneventful and then we started the fun drive from Rosslare to Cork. Here's where it was interesting as we'd opted not to tell the rental people about leaving the country. Long and the short we made it safe to Cork and unloaded.
Yesterday Matt started the return trip back as the van wasn't one way (obviously) and i headed up to Dublin to do some errands.

Ireland is beautiful. There are little differences such as plastic bags you get at a grocery arent free (15 eurocents). Speedlimits are in km/h. But these little things aside and all is good.

So there you have it. I'll post more soon. I promise.

Love
Lindz