Retake the City: Dublin

by Alex in Retake the City, Ireland

If you decide to travel to Ireland (and you should - seriously, this country is gorgeous), you're almost certainly going to pass through Dublin. While you may be tempted to skip through the capital city in a rush to get to the picturesque rolling hills and ruined castles, I'd urge you to reconsider.  

Dublin is a great city, and well worth taking a few days to explore - no other major city in Ireland is so accommodating to travellers, with great historical sites and a plethora of shops and bars and restaurants.

And as ever, I will be your sensible, responsible, mature tour guide!

New Year Resolutions - What They Really Are and How to Keep Them

by Tasha in Red Tape, Budgeting, Language

With the coming of the New Year, in amongst the fireworks, alcohol and (if you are anything like me) massive sugar highs, there comes a sweet euphoric moment where everything feels shiny and new. Mountains can be scaled, rivers forded, and all our daily problems suddenly seem amazingly achievable.

It's like, I'm told, the feeling of jumping off a bridge. Around half way down all the life consuming problems that brought you to the edge of the bridge in the first place, all now seem insignificant and completely fixable....bar the fact that you had just jumped off a bridge.

The intense high of a year renewed, a fresh start, feels like it will last forever. But like all things, there are swings and roundabouts and before too long all those resolutions you promised yourself on January 1st, start to look more and more like mountains again.

Dammit Mountains!  photo by: blmiers2

2014 - A Year in Photos

by Tasha in Photos, Ireland, Denmark, United Kingdom

2014 was a great year for us in terms of travel and working overseas. We left Denmark and spent six weeks in the United Kingdom before leaving to work in Ireland for the last ten months. Here is a compilation of some of our favourite photos from the last year, a nice little cross-section of everywhere we've been.

As always feel free to link to your own favourites in the comments and/or over on Facebook. I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them!

Happy 2015 Everybody!

Snapshots of Ireland, Part 2

by Alex in Ireland, In Transit
 
When we last spoke, our stalwart heroes were halfway through a massive undertaking: drive around the entire island of Ireland, trying to see as much as possible before Tash and I had to start our new job and Mum had to get back to Australia.

We had just left Galway, freshly clean clothes in our bags, and set our sights northwards. We passed through the (beautiful and picturesque) Connemara, stopping briefly to see what would soon be our new home and meet our new boss (albeit temporary), before climbing back into our rental car and setting off for part 2 of our epic, neatly-divided-into-two-convenient-halves road trip!

Nine Reasons To Be Happy This Christmas!

by Tasha in Epigrams and Interludes

So...as you long time followers may already know - I love Christmas!

No....I really really love Christmas.

I love the decorations, I love the songs, I love fairylights and candy canes and Christmas cookies and snow and wrapping presents and....I just love this season.

In fact a while ago I wrote an article on how awesome Christmas is.

But this year - for something a little different, I thought I'd start a list of everything that makes me so happy this Christmas.

and it's not just because I have Christmas Tardis wallpaper!

College Days: Getting our Geek on at Trinity College

by Alex and Tasha in Ireland

Whether you are passing through Dublin or using it as a jumping off point for the rest of Ireland - If you see nothing else in the city I would recommend you take a short stopover and check out one of my favourite areas in Dublin, and home to some of the most beautiful classic architecture surrounding the infamous - and the unironically awe-inspiring Trinity College.

photo by: wenzday01

Trinity College is perfectly surrounded by Dublin City - just on the south side of the River Liffey somewhat near the Temple Bar district. The College was originally founded by Elizabeth I in 1592 to help keep her loyal English subjects in Dublin from picking up any 'pesky' Catholic leanings from the Irish colleges, and it has been Ireland's most prestigious university ever since. Current students offer tours of campus every day, and by all accounts, they're well worth the money.

This, however, was not why we where there.