First stop, the big schhmoke, Dublin!!!

The Merri and Jessi adventure tour began in the completely frozen over, ice skating death trap known as Dublin.

I met a jetlagged Merri in the architectual muddle that is Dublin Airport. I'd been certain that her flight would be delayed, Merri had arrived in the middle of what the media had dubbed 'The Big Freeze', conveniently coinciding with 'The Big Freeze' on the 2009 budget.

The day before Merri arrived the Airport had been shut, in traditional Irish Style, as a nation we are unable to cope in any severe weather conditions.

She did however arrive on time, 7.30am. Merri had had the wonderful experience of flying for the first time, with our wonderful airline that is Ryanair. Luckily, every British and Irish person had forewarned her of the extra charges which the airline likes to lamp on. This however, had not prevented Merri from cramming her carry on luggage to the max, exceding the 10kg limit by .65. To avoid the extra charges, she was told to take something out, which, obviously, she put straight back in once the baggage had been weighed.

We got the slow moving Aircoach into town, Merri giggling about the irish accents all the way. Like most foreigners that come to these shores, she had a thing for the way we add H's everywhere and concentrate on the R's. Its something thats easy to take for granted, until your an Irish person abroad, I like to believe we're everybodies favourite.

It was my first time in Dublin since I got back from traveling, but it wasn't how I remembered, everything was white! It was my first time to see snow on O'Connell Street, and that was only the beginning. We got off at Trinity, and quickly learned that walking would be quite the task that day. What had started off as snow all over the city, turned into a condensed layer of thick white ice. It really is no exaduration to say it was like an ice rink. We had to walk slowly and carefully, with many near slips. The city was remarkably quiet for a time when most people should be making there way to work. I put it down to the ice, and not the neverending recession.

After a breakfast in Bewley's our next stop was good old Trinity College, the oldest and most discriminative college in Ireland! Oh and most prestigious. Secretly, I do love Trinity, putting behind the lack of Catholics in its early years, it did educate some very great minds, such as Bram Stoker, Oscar Wild, Samuel Beckett and Ernest Walton (that ones for Mark/Smithers). I rang my old Castlebar buddy Mark, who shall for this article be referred to by his nickname, Smithers, who was in his on Campus accomodation. We called up for yet more tea, a chat, and then this Physics student gave us our own person tour of Trinity. It was a good thing too, Merri had already coped on that I wasn't shaping up to be the greatest tour guide, not knowing it was Daniel O' Connell on the great big statue on the top of O'Connell Street...

Smithers showed us around the equally slippy Trinity, but because the students weren't back yet, alot of building were closed. We did see some good ones though, and hats off to Smithers, he really knew his stuff. He also got us into see the 'Book of Kells' for free with his student card, although I'm not sure that Merri really appreciated one of our national treasures by exclaiming, 'Who's Kells??'

After our lovely tour, we left Smithers back to his project and to figure out the chill factors at 3am in the morning (what Physicists do when they're bored apparently). Next stop was the Dublinia. So, I'd seen these signs for Dublinia around Christ Church when I lived in Dublin but never actually knew what they were all about. I believe its something you do in part of the Vikings Splash tour, which, like many tourist things, in January was closed. So we just went to Dublinia, which is just really a shitty museum about Vikings. Our main motivation for going there was potential warmth, and of course history. We were tragically disappointed though. It was fecking freezing in the 'museum' and the whole thing looked dated and crappy. And childish. I am a still a secret nerd however and stuck around to read about those crazy vikings. We also found one functioning radiator which we loitered about for a bit.

Having had enough of being a tourist for one day, and the below minus temperatures in the day time, we decided it was time for soup in the pub followed by pints of Guinness! We went to the 'Stags Head' and waited there in warmth until Emma rang. We would be crashing on Emma's couches for our time in Dublin. She was a wonderful host supplying unless pots of tea. That was to come though, first we met up with Emma in Grogans, one of my favourite pubs in Dublin, tiny and long and always packed. We had hot ports and then the three of us carried on to Brogans, where we met all the Graphics folk ad stayed for a few drinks before sliding our way all the way back to Emmas for more yummy warm soup and tea!!

Day one of Ireland on Tour had come to an end :)

Travelings never over...

So it took me a few days to settle back into life in Ireland.

My very lovely father helped out a very jetlagged and tired Jess in Dublin airport at 10.30am upon my return.

I'm always amazed by the things that you notice about your country after being away for a while, that are so insignificant when you live there. When I got back from living in the Netherlands, I was in awe of the rolling hilly scenery that I'd always taken for granted. In the Netherlands there isn't even the slightest mound, let alone a hill or mountain. Its below sea-level scenery bored me to tears, so Ireland was so beautiful to my eyes that I almost cried with sentiment.

This time however it was the darkness that struck me. Where the hell was the sun???!!! Coming from summer to winter is one thing, but being so far from the equator means that in the winter, we get a whooping 7 hours of day light during the winter, if we're lucky. And even at that, Mr. Sun, barely makes an effort, and meerly creeps up to a pathetic height before returning. There was no overhead sun like I'd had in the Equator. More like hip level. I'd been telling the time via the sun in South America for lack of any other device so I was really thrown off when I noticed it got dark at 4pm.

Regardless to say the weather was also an issue. Despite it being freezing, I did consider it a blessing to be greeted with snow instead of the usual rain. At least you can throw snow.

It finally felt like Christmas, and after a solid day of sleep, I was ready for the usual Christmas Eve antics, which involved drinking in my favourite Castlebar pub, The Irish House, and the usual reunion of friends that haven't been together in the same room since the previous xmas eve. Christmas in Ireland, generally involves heavy drinking, every day, until everyone returns to work. So thats what I did, plus show off that I was for once, browner than everyone else. I may not be tanned in South America but when I got back to Ireland I looked Colombian compared to everyone else. I also became that annoying person that entered 'In South America...' every five minutes into a conversation until it was pointed out to me...

After the Crazy Christmas antics I had my Tour of Ireland to look forward to with Aussie Merri who'd be coming over the 7th of January... Let the adventures continue!

Quito, and Mitad Del Mundo

Returning to Quito would not be the highlight of my trip, nor would it be the ideal way to spend my final two days in the continent but tragically pre-booked flights home from this city would dictate my fate.

For some reason Quito was the only city in South America in which I had trouble finding a hostel, so I ended up staying in the slightly shabby but central, Mitad del Mundo Hostel. My first night I met a strange ex model from Chile, who was starting a new job in a department store the next day. He'd quit his modeling career as the drug taking life style no longer appealed to him...

I've never seen anyone so anxious about a new job, and later that night he asked me to accompany him in a taxi to his friends apartment to return a key, because he was nervous of the danger on the streets.

I also met the mysterious Joannes, a dutch musician, who, in three days, I did not see without his guitar. They were an equally odd pair, and set the tone for the hostel and my remaining time in South America.

Having already visited Quito, and not being too crazy of its dangerous busy streets, I opted for day trips out for my time there. The first of which I spent in Orvato, a small town an hour and a half away from Quito, where, according to the trusty book, the best market in South America was to be found. I'd have to

disagree with that statement, but nevertheless it did provide adequate Christmas shopping opportunities. Although not very exciting, I enjoyed my time there, the small town was a 'real' South American town, with traditional women trying to get you to buy various Alpaca goods.

The following day I visited the equator, or to be more precise, the town where its located, Mitad Del Mundo. The funny thing about this tourist attraction is that, its actually entirely fake. There is a massive park dedicated to the equator, with a large globe monument, a red line going the length of this park with a stadium for dancers, and of course plenty of restaurants and overly priced tourist shops. The site was actually created when French scientists in 1700's discovered the equator. Although very close, the real equator is 240 meters north, this discovery was made 12 years ago with the introduction of GPS.

This was lucky for a small museum which was already located exactly on the equator. The Museum had originally been set up because of the archaeological remains and this spot, unsurprisingly, in seemed the Inka's knew all about the equator before us, having worshipped the sun from this point. Now the museum also has a red line, and tour guides tell you about the equator as well as the remains, although, the preciseness of their scientific information is questionable, as are the 'experiments' you do on the sight. Thanks to my brother, I now now that the Coriolus effect cannot be demonstrated in a sink, although I still don't know how she faked it. I must admit, I was suspicious when we began to replicate 'light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board' to demonstrate weightloss on the equator line...

My last night in South America was to be filled with tragedy as this was when I realised I had lost my beloved memory stick, holding ALL of my photos of South America. This by far was my greatest loss on the trip, topping a camera lens in Argentina. I became famed in the continent for losing things with almost every move, it had become expected and I'd learned not to buy anything I actually cared about (bye baby alpaca blue hat in Bolivia). This loss really broke my heart however, and I searched every inch of my hostel room, including a very smell boys bed. It was not there. After much self torture, I concluded that it had either been left in the computer two days ago, or, I'd accidently left it in my bag and it had fallen out somewhere, probably in Ortavo. It was a sad day, and my self-loathing and frustration outweighed any emotions I'd previously had about going home the next day.

Naturally, despite better judgement, I wanted to drown my sorrows. I ran into Joannes playing his guitar outside the hostel with some homeless people and we went for a drink. He too was leaving the next day, and was drowning that sorrow. We foolishly stayed up until 5am drinking, which made for a very hungover Jessica the next day.

I'd been told from home all about the snow that awaited me, which seemed lovely, until I realised that this could cause trouble to my flights. I was flying first to Amsterdam, and most of the flights the day before had been cancelled because they were snowed under. I turned up to the airport hoping the best however, to be greeted with an hour and a half delay. Not caring too much I fell asleep at my terminal until we could board.

For the record, I want to say KLM are my new favourite airline. There seemed to be a never ending supply of food and drink (although I couldn't stomach the free alcohol they were so desperate to give me), and we each had our own tv with movies, tv programmes, games, music, etc. It certainly helps when your flying for 13 and a half hours.

We flew forward in time, which meant I slept little and arrived at 6am in the Netherlands. We'd had to circle for a bit because the runway was too icy to land on (I'm happily not a bad flier). I was certain my flight home would be delayed, and waited for its status to change in the sceduled 3 hour stopover. By some Christmas miracle however it wasn't, despite the inches of snow, and we boarded shoddy Aer Lingus, and I wondered when they began competing with Ryanair in levels of cheapness and nastiness.

Finally I arrived home, a whole day later, wondering why it was soo dark all of the time, and trying desperately not to catch a cold. Despite the mandatory initial shocks, I was glad to be home, and to see my friends, family, and enjoyed Irish accents for the first time.

Next??

Hmm, getting money, learning to drive, and finding a job in a moany recession ridden country, and hopefully, returning to Dublin asap. Still, I love it, and after Bolivia, everything looks nicer, I'm even grateful for being able to get the dole!