Saturday, December 22, 2007

Hanging out in Buenos Aires


Well I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed with Buenos Aires though I can imagine lovin´it in different circumstances. I had notions that I was going to stay there at some point in my travels and teach English but yeh, the Buenos Airians seemed to have a problem with my marvellous Spanish. Now I know pronounciation isn´t my forte, but seriously, they weren´t even trying to understand me, the rude feckers. I´m sure there´s some lovely ones, but on the whole, they´d walk over you in the street and look blankly at you when you attempted conversation with them. Admittedly, Buenos Aires wasn´t that much fun from the start as it consisted of visits to the hospitals and angry phonecalls with the hugely incompetent insurance company, so maybe I wasn´t in the right frame of mind. But there was an awful lot of rude feckers.

Once Emma was released from hospital (after running up a hefty 500 euro phone bill in a week), we moved into a hotel nearby while Emma convalesced. She convalesced quite quickly and was out shopping the next day and most days after that. I must say, Emma and Sarah are the best shoppers I´ve ever met - they could shop for Ireland. Though there´s only so much shopping I can do before I get grumpy and require tea.

The last week before heading home was much better fun though. We decided to have a few outings to sample the Argentinian food. There was an excellent place called Olsen which had an super 4 course brunch served by the rudest staff ever, but it was marvellous, as was afternoon tea in the hyatt. Little did the Hyatt know that any McDonnell can eat their bodyweight in dessert in a single sitting, when they showed us to the dessert buffet. We also caused a few epileptic fits due to the amount of photos we took. It´s safe to say that I´m the most unphotogenic person in the world.

Anyway, the insurance company after arsing us around, finally agreed to fly Emma, Sarah and I home with a medical escort(to ensure that Emma didn´t explode on the flight) after some gentle persuasion from Dad. I was pretty damn glad to be getting on the plane even if it was the day before Christmas though Sarah and I were relegated to peasant class while Emma and the sunburnt doctor enjoyed the luxury of a space bed. Two space beds, that is, not just the one.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Emma´s stay in the Suizo Argentinian


So poor wee Emma got herself one of the more glamourous traveller diseases, a deep vein thrombosis, from doin´ too many long haul bus journeys. After falling over a couple of times, being misdiagnosed several times, spending time in a unequipped hospital in the back o´beyond, she got airlifted to Buenos Aires. I flew down from Quito the day after I heard, to find her all wired up in intensive care. She was in grand form though but not loving the fact that she was attached to the wall with tubes and had to holler for the nurse when in need of the loo. But after a week in intensive care, she was moved upstairs to a regular room - and when I mean regular, I mean with a little living room, a monster bathroom, a bedroom with couch and tv and of course room service. Anyway, she lived it up there, while Sarah and I hung out in a hostal nearby.

Emma has made me update this to take out a reference to a bed pan which I did and to correct her illness. Apologies, she actually had a dvt and a pulmonary embolism too.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A brief visit to Ecuador

Didn´t get to do much in Ecuador as my Emma, me little sister fell sick in Patagonia, but I spent a week there and it was only lovely. I went to a Panama hat factory there and found out how they were made - my interesting fact of the day is that the Panama hat was originally from Ecuador but as the workers of the Panama canal all wore them, they became known as Panama hats - interesting, eh?

Besides the hats, I checked out the old city of Quito which is stunning, not at all what I imagined, though by all accounts a wee bit dangerous. And what visit to Ecuador would be complete, without a trip to the Equator. Tis only a line on the ground (and there´s two rival lines) but it was marvellous to see and I did go to a little museum where I was awarded a certificate for being able to balance an egg on a nail - now there´s something I can put in my cv.

Friday, October 19, 2007

The motorbike

Here´s Stefan´s lovely shiny motorbike that he thought me to ride. I only fell off once.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Colombia


I spent 2 and a half months in Colombia and it was only excellent. I found myself a lovely Swiss boy called Stefan and we hung out in the north of Colombia drinking delicious jugos and riding around on his motorbike. It was pretty hard to leave, but there was mountains to climb and ancient ruins to see, so I finally got the bus down to Ecuador.


Think I´ll expand on this one a little later. Too much to write.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Salsa-ing it up in Cuba


Markus and I had a marvellous time in Cuba. After drinking a small swimming pool of mojitos in Havana, we headed west for a little bit of limestone action in the mogotes, then east to Trinidad, a UNESCO town for mucho mucho dancing and then I, after a brief meeting with my little sister Emma, headed off on my lonesome to the far east of Baracoa to eat chocolate.

The Cubans were lots of fun. The lads were only lovely (see pictured lad) and very good at dancing, though I wouldn´t trust them as far as I could throw them. On the whole, everyone was fierce friendly but did view you as a walking ATM. Cuba is exactly as you´d imagine - music drifting round every corner, stunning old cars sauntering by and wizened old men smoking cigars. The countryside was far more beautiful than I imagined though Havana was falling down and in severe need of a wee lick of paint.

We managed to work out a nice little routine as follows; get up in the morning for a mighty breakfast, head out to do some touristy stuff for the day, have a wee afternoon nap, then some beers and maybe an episode of Planet Earth or My Name is Earl while getting ready to go out drinking our mojito-bucaneero combos while been enthranced by the salsa dancers.

There´s lots more I want to say about Cuba but in an effort to actually get this goddam blog up to date, I´ll skip on to Colombia. Yay to Cuba though.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Boozy times in San Diego


June and the girls were having a girly weekend in Los Angeles, so I met up with them and cruised down to San Diego in June´s shiny convertible. I had so much fun meeting up with all my college mates who I hadn´t seen in years and years. I managed to squeeze loads of things in; went swimming with the sealions in La Jolla, drinking wine in the zoo with June, playing pool in the Blue Foot, hanging out in the park with Serious Will and learning to salsa dance with Marty. June and Steve were the perfect hosts. Hopefully, I´ll be heading back for St Patrick´s day - woo hoo.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Hangin´out with the stars in LA


I flew to LA to meet up with Muirs, me little sister and her boy Collers. We had a splendid time on our wee road trip and visited Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I think the highlight would have had to have been driving into Las Vegas late at night, with Mika blaring, covered in muck from camping with the bears, and checking into the Bellagio. That and the marshmallowful campfires in Yomesite where Colin told ghost stories in a nacker accent.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Falconry in Co. Offaly


Naids, my second littlest sister and her French boy, Axe-L, were determined to try out falconry. So after a rather big night out, we headed down to Kinnity Castle in exciting Co. Offaly to check out the burds. It was pretty cool having these massive birds perched on your arms though terrifying at the same time as I was sure they were going to peck out my very hungover eyes. And Kinnity Castle is only lovely.

The whole falconry practice is quite interesting. The birds are trained from a young age by rewarding them with some tasty chunks of raw meat – bits of cute little bunny rabbits mostly. Initially, they are tethered to the trainer. As the training progresses and they learn to hunt, the length of the tether is increased. When they are confident the bird will not fly away, they remove the tether altogether. The birds are weighed every day and if they’re even a few grams under or over weight, they’re not allowed to hunt as they’re pretty thick and very unloyal. They never form a bond with their trainers and will disappear off for good if they’ve had too much to eat.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Micheal's Christening


After leaving a rainy Manchester, I headed home in time for wee Micheal's christening. The actual christening was in Glasthule church, followed by a reception in Aly and John's beautiful grey house which they had been madly finishing off for this auspicious occasion. Naidi, the Dalkey branch of the paparazzi, was responsible for taking the hundreds of necessary photos - we're still sifting through them.
The weather was only gorgeous which was marvellous because we were all sitting outside at Aly's wearing inappropriately light summer dresses. After the delicious food, the lads (and Muirs, my youngest sister) decided to head down to Monkstown for a quick swim - clearly a ridiculous idea; it wasn't that warm.
Micheal was a very well behaved baby even in the church and only let out a few squawks. He had three outfits for the day including the christening gown that Granny, Dad and all of us wore when we were christened. I don't think I know any other baby who is passed around as much as Micheal.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Dublin in summer


I spent most of my time hanging out in Dublin drinking tea, enjoying leisurely lunches, boozing with friends and gorging on desserts - nice. Ireland in the summer is only gorgeous (though it wasn't the best summer - it never is when I'm home. I always miss the heatwaves by a couple of days, hmmm suspicious). The nights are so so long and you can happily sit outside until ten in the evening in the light.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Visiting Grandpa


It appears that I'm bringing the lousy weather around the world. After leaving a miserable Sydney, surviving a chilly Katherine, wandering through an overcast Singapore, Manchester had equally rubbish weather. But it was great to see Grandpa. I spent 3 leisurely days with him. We visited a stately home, 'Tatton Park' (which had a scullery for anyone interested), played scrabble and had dinner with the cousins - all very relaxing.

One day in Sinagpore

So after a teary goodbye in the pissing rain and the coldest June day recorded in Katherine (it's meant to dry season), I headed on the bus back to Darwin and then onto Sinapore. I had 18 hours there so thought I would have a wee look around. It was great - they're fierce friendly there and there's loads to see. I wandered around Little India for 3 hours or so, then on to a wierd resorty beach place and then had a Singapore Sling in Raffles where I ate my body weight in monkey nuts. Big thumbs up to Singapore.

Aideen and Damo livin' it up in Katherine


Well I left a rainy Sydney coughing and spluttering and flew up to Darwin. After a 4 hour stay in a hostel room wrecking some poor girl's head, I got the bus down to krazy Katherine. It was so nice to see Damo and Aideen and hang out with them in the strange town that is Katherine. There was mucho tea drinking and delicious meals going on along with a trip to Kakadu.

The first day I took the beast of a ute out for a spin to see some nice waterfalls. I managed to take a wrong turn and found myself off road with no map, no mobile reception and memories of that crap film Wolf Creek. But once I retraced my steps (30 odd kilometres down unsealed roads), I found myself at Edith Falls where I did a lovely walk accidentally wearing Damo's flip flops and with no suncream and not much water, marvellous.

The next day we headed off for a weekend in Kakadu where we camped under the stars. I can never really decide whether I like camping, but what with more room than you could shake a stick in the back of the ute, Aideen and Damo's best tefal frying pan and the good knife, it was pretty comfortable - glamorous camping I'd say. We saw some beautiful sunsets, crocodiles and some splendid rock art.

I was pretty sad saying goodbye to Damo and Aideen but sure I'll get a chance to see them sometime soon and go on a intrepid four wheel drive adventure in their beast.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Last week in Sydney

I've got all my shots for exotic tropical diseases, purchased my shiny new hiking boots and am off in one week tomorrow. I'm just a wee bit excited. And there's a week of goodbye dinners and drinks to look forward to. Nice.