I left some of Mexico out

(2 whole months, that is). But I fully intend to update it when I get a chance.

Home for Christmas

We arrived into Dublin airport on Christmas Eve with the parents waiting for us, very very happy to be home. It was pretty nice driving home and being met by Grandpa and Muirs and a fire. The house was lookin´only gorgeous - christmassed up to the max.

The first week was spent purely relaxing. The internet wasn´t working at home, I didn´t have a mobile phone and Mum has disabled calls to mobiles cos the little ones spend to long talkin´ to boyz. So, as a result, I couldn´t contact my friends easily, so I hung out drinking tea and having baths until I realised I only had 3 weeks left and should get my ass in gear and see everyone.

There were a few boozy nights out in town which were quite fun and a couple more in Dalkey. I also made it down to see Vicks and John in Kildare for a sumptuous dinner with old school mates followed by a bit o´ karaoke. And the next morning we headed into town to shop for bridemaids dress shopping. There wasn´t much as the sales were on, but we had lots of fun looking.

Christmas dinner was great. It was Micheal´s first Christmas, so he was the centre of attention, though he had a fierce snotty nose and a cough (which I managed to acquire a couple of days later). Grandpa was over from Manchester and Granny and Uncle Pat were also there for Christmas dinner.

Aislinn had me, Mum and Emma over for lunch. She made lovely quiche.

Yeh, it was deadly to be home and I was a wee bit sad to be leaving but seeing as I planned to return in July, it was all good. And of course, I was all excited about meeting up with Stefan, who had finally left 'his friend' to meet up with me.

I need to get a very cute photo of Micheal wearing a ridiculous llama hat for here.

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.

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.

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.

The motorbike

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

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.