soft-ice? why, i'll take three!

hi, my name is jess, and i'm a swedish soft serve ice-cream-aholic. 

phew. that feels better. i'm definitely not cured though... swedish soft serve, or 'soft ice', as they prefer, is something else.

 its divine. 

tonight is our last night in stockholm. let me tell you, stockholm is the most beautiful, friendly, clean, deliciously eclectic and atmospheric place that i have ever been. the moment i arrived, it took my breath away, and i still haven't got it back. the best part about stockholm is that its spread over fourteen islands, all varying dramatically in size. this means that there is water absolutely everywhere. its the Baltic sea, so its brackish water (fresh and salt mixed) and it sparkles like it might be the last day it ever has to sparkle! the main city centre is quite large, but then you have 'old town' which is on a different island, and there's also a suburb called 'sodermalm' there are many more, but these are the three main centres of the city. my favourite is definitely old town.

 

old town is a maze of little cobblestone laneways all which have different quirky little shops and cafes. its quite modern, but in an old setting. the main city is also very nice, but a lot like any other centre of town. busy. sodermalm is like the leederville of stockholm except much larger. its very fashionable and diverse, but like leedervile, it hasn't yet become too wanky. 

one thing we found is that we'd been walking around all day, exploring the city, and we didn't even notice how for we'd walked. that because they have set the road and path systems up so well that it all just flows easily. all you need to do is cross a bridge and the setting has changed so dramatically that you just walk around with your mouth open wowing everything and at the same time eating a mouthful of midges.

stockholm is a lot like amsterdam in that it has millions of bikes. we got a three day pass which was only $24 which enabled us to have the bikes whenever we like for three days. they have these bike terminals all over the city and you just go to it, swipe your card, and grab a bike. then when you've ridden all over the town and are on the other side, you just find another terminal and put it back. it is really awesome, i recon its something perth should have.

so i guess you can surmise from this that stockholm is definitely an amazing place. i think the best part of it is that we wouldn't have ever come here if we weren't going to the lindy hop camp next week, and it has very quickly turned out to be one of the most beautiful and enjoyable cities i've been to in the world so far!

so yeah, stockholm has been cool... you know.. lots of water, lots of bikes, lots of really really tall platinum blonde uber tanned swedish people. even the emos are blonde! we got to our hostel on the 24th (what day was that? i cant remember. lets just say its a saturday, because every day's a saturday!) so we got here on saturday at about midnight and jess nearly fell down the stairs when we opened the door to the hostel. HILARIOUS. especially because she cant walk on account of her being shot in the foot at waterford. ANYWAY... so our hostel is underground. weird, right? we didnt think so, until we woke up at four in the morning and it was pitch black, only to look at the time and realise it was 10am. there are no windows underground, hence the pitch black! thats ok, we didnt realise either. it completely throws you when you wake up and its dark and it doesnt get light. apart from the lack of windows, and the minor detail that there is no stove or oven, this hostel is really nice. its so clean, and the showers have taps, not push buttons! hooray for showers that last more than 15 seconds!

we set off to explore, heading first for gamala stan, or old town. that was awesome! we walked the whole island in about half an hour, pausing at every tourist shop and taking millions of photos. we walked into town and through the shopping district to the dear old tourist information office and rented bikes for 125 sek ($25) for three days! how cheap is that!! we rode them through the city. never, ever again! it was so scary. im still not used to the whole driving on the right side of the road thing. that night we found a cool pub in old town playing rockabilly music and talked to some random swedish guys who told us herrang was tiny and they thought it was hilarious we were spending a whole week there...

yesterday we went on a boat cruise called the archipelago race. that was cool. it went really fast, like 24 knots (whatever that means). we saw lots of little, privately owned islands. one had a retractable bridge to the mainland! in winter if the children cant row their little boats to school helicopters come and pick them up. how sweet is that? i want to be a little swedish child living on my privately owned island being flown to school in a helicopter.

 today we rode around the national park djurgarden, or something like that. we had a picnic lunch overlooking cliffs, boats, ships and people sunbathing. we're getting better at riding on the right side of the road, less people yelled at us today. tonight we went in to sodermalm for dinner. we got greek kebabs and then went to a funky looking bar for a drink. i had a gin and tonic and jess had a czech beer and it cost us 144 sek. which doesnt seem like a lot, but then we worked out it was 14 euros. which means it cost us $28 for two drinks. TWO DRINKS! our jaws hit the floor and we enjoyed our drinks for a very, very long time. $28 worth of time, in fact. excellent. 

we're bussing it up to herrang tomorrow; if we get the right buses. we checked it out today, but it could be interesting... we'll talk to you on the other side. 

my goodness, my guinness!!

the waterford crystal factory was awesome! we saw them make a jug!!! soooo cool! we only bought a few glasses... we swear... we got in to the tour for free, so we could kind of justify it. haha we got to dublin 4 days ago, and it has

 rained for three of the days we've been here. on saturday we took a day trip up to belfast, because that was our favourite place and we had a few extra days on our eurail passes because they forgot to stamp it... oops. we went back to all the places we liked in belfast except for cyprus avenue because it was raining too much.

on sunday we were walking back to our hostel and stumbled across o'sullivans pub (squashed between murphy's bar and murphy's bistro) we could hear some awesome blues music so we went in, stole some bar stools and listened to ditch cassidy and his band for 3 hours. it was awesome!! there was a lady next to us who was really getting in to it (slightly TOO much) and kept trying to steal the microphone. hilarious. it was great! 

we went to temple bar yesterday. that was cool. we walked around all the streets and saw the 'oldness' of it. the guinness factory was definitely worth going to - it was amazing to see how they made it! we could now open up our own guinness factory; we're experts! (and we took pictures of the recipe, but that doesn't count, does it?)

at the waterford factory i got to hold a tennis master trophy, and also a replica of the ashes and also a golf one. i held the golf one for uncle john. i tried to bring it home but they shot me in the foot so i couldnt run.. (you should see her trying to walk now - HILARIOUS!!!) its the thought that counts.

dublin has been awesome, its the cleanest city we've been in. i recon it could almost beat singapore. everywhere you look, they're cleaning something. my favourite place in dublin was temple bar. its a district thats very funky and with it. it has awesome shops and music places. i possibly spent lots of money there...possibly..

like ange said, the guinness factory was awesome. it really was something else. it wasnt even that much to see, because there are 4 ingredients, but it was done so well, you could spend ages there, which we did. mainly because we paid for a ticket and we are stingy... hehe nah, it was great. then we got a sample at the end, but it was mid-strength. what a let down. but it was such a 

great experience. my favourite was when they showed you how they used to make the barrels. awesome. after that, for some strange reason i felt like a guinness, so we went to THE temple bar, which is in temple bar, and had a drink and played cards. we know how to roll.

off to sweden tonight, looking forward to stockholm!

ps - mum, i am sick and i want a googie egg.

left, then left, then left again!

first off, to uncle tom, gwen, ken and iain, i'm thinking of you, and also granny and grandad. i hope you are all doing ok.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the ring of kerry tour was great! the bus driver was hard to understand though, his accent was so thick. we got the gist of what he was saying though, which was all that mattered. we went to a traditional bog village with thatched roof houses and saw what the houses used to be like. we tried an irish coffee for the first time, and it was the last time i ever have one. YUCK! i only had one sip; i'm so glad i didnt finish it as the bus ride was so bumpy it would have come back up. the second stop was a sheep dog demonstration. we saw what real border collies are like (no offence monty and stolly) each dog had its own commands for left, right, forward, stop. they had different whistle commands also. the farmer got the dogs to bring the sheep down the mountain; then separate them and then take them back. very impressive. the scenery was amazing; there were so many mountains and lakes and cliffs and green stuff. and the roads were SO narrow. at one point there was a larger coach ahead of us manouvering around a four wheel drive, and then the four wheel drive was coming directly at us. i dont know how they do it! we also went to 'ladies view' where queen victorias ladies 'paused' to look at the view. and tom cruise did a movie there, but we dont know which one because we couldnt understand the driver.

** a note from the night before:

we went to murphy's ice cream shop (there are at least 3 places called murphy's in each town we have been to... crazy) and they had a promotion on: guess the mystery flavour and get a free scoop of ice cream. so miss foodie sitting next to me HAD to have a go! she made me ask for it though, so i got the tiny sample of ice cream and dutifully passed it over. it was gone in half a second. jess' face changed from a curious look to an 'examining the flavour' look, to 'breaking down the different ingredients' look to wonder: what is this mysterious flavour. then, SUDDENLY, just as i thought she was going to say "oh, what IS that? i know it so well..." she comes out with "is that baileys??" the girl behind the counter was shocked! "oh me god, yer te firrrst perrrson all day!" and looked very impressed. jess got her free scoop of icecream and came away looking very pleased with herself, because jess doesnt even like baileys!

after killarney we made our way to kilkenny. i say made our way because it was a freaking long journey. we went from killarney to mallow, mallow to dublin heuston, dublin heuston to kilkenny on the waterford line. we left at 0950 and arrived at 1705. crazy train system. anyone going to ireland do NOT get a eurail pass! the buses are SO cheap and they go everywhere! we passed a few railway bridges on the ring of kerry tour and the bus driver pointed them out like antiques. "oh, that theres the old railway bridge, hasnt been used for 50 years after we got the bus system" but thats ok. we got here in the end. at kilkenny train station we stood at the map for half an hour trying to find the big YOU ARE HERE label, but alas there was none. do they expect us to be able to find a tiny square on the map that says bus and train station? clearly we knew to look... we met some american guys at the map who were going to the same hostel as us. we asked a local for directions and we got the famous "well you go down here a fair way, then turn left at the yellow building, not the blue one, if you see the blue one you've gone the wrong way, but thats ok, you can turn left at the third roundabout and you'll get back to where you started" directions and managed to find the hostel fairly quickly.

the hostel is very nice. the owner lives here as well, so it feels very homely. it also has two gorgeous dogs named tilda and sonny. the town itself is a lot smaller that we thought, with only a couple of main streets. we went to the castle with nate and jake and wandered most of the town in a couple of hours. then we just played cards for hours and last night we went to the pub to see a local band. it was awesome because it was just a tiny two person band with three hundred different types of instruments. very irish, very nice.

today we pretty much walked around the town again, until the rain set in and we decided to mosey on back to the hostel. we might go to a pub called Ryans (next to murphy's) tonight because the guy who owns the hostel said the music would be really cool.

all in all, kilkenny has been ok, but i much preferred killarney. off to waterford tomorrow for the day which will be nice to have a change in scenery :)

we now have the gift of the gab!

cork was certainly a lovely place. its a lot like perth, but without the highrise buildings. the hostel was pretty good, and we got the room to ourselves for two of the nights which was good. the highlight of cork for me was when we took a day trip out to Blarney Castle. we went by the normal bus, which only cost €5.50 return, as opposed to €28 just to go an a cushy tour bus. it took about 20mins to get there, and then another 10 or so to walk to the actual castle. it is really a beautiful place. the castle itself is a bit of a ruin, but is still enough in tact to resemble a castle. the surrounding area is gorgeous. lots of green hills and trees and streams. we went into the castle and into a little cave thing, but it was too small for us to fit, so we went through the castle and up the VERY narrow and steep spiral staircase towards the blarney stone. to our delight there wasnt a huge line, which meant less chance of fresh spit. i went first and kissed the stone. you have to make sure you kiss the very bottom because that's the actual stone. ange went next and left a nice big glob of lip gloss for the next person. hehe. we then explored all the gardens, and took loads of photos. the rest of the time in cork was relaxing and consisted of lots of roaming around. all in all, a great place.

we're in killarney now, we arrived yesterday. the hostel is pretty cool, and the room is huge which is nice. last night we made this delicious veggie thing, which our mums would be proud to see because it had lots of veggies. today was a really awesome day. we hired bikes and took off to the killarney national park. it is breathtaking. there is a castle which is really the starting point, and then there are hundreds of little trails leading off the main trails. we'd start riding through dense forest, then turn the corner and a huge lake with the most amazing mountains behind would appear. the water was like glass, it looked so clean and pure. then we ket going, and found a nice clearing to have lunch..ham and cheese rolls made ourselves.. delicious. then took off down a winding path and found some mines. we trekked throuh the hillside and eventually found the path again, which took us back the the castle. we still have the bikes so i think tonight we're going to go to the waterfalls etc because it gets dark at about 11pm here. crazy!

yeah, blarney castle was great. i'd hate to have to walk up those steep steps when it was raining though! they were slippery enough as it was. i tried to bring anti bacterial wipes with me but jess wouldnt let me, so i hope i havent contracted any diseases from the general touristy public. yuck. rock close was pretty cool too. there were lots of rocks (fancy that) and little plaques with random druid stories. every time we got to a rock that said something like 'witches rock' or 'druids circle' jess was like "what a load of crap! that looks nothing like a witch blah blah blah" and i was like "its just a legend! deal with it!" haha.

we are going on a tour around the ring of kerry tomorrow; that should be really good. there are lots of pretty hills and lakes here, so im looking forward to more of that tomorrow. hooray for greenery!

carsick anyone?

the cliffs of morher were nice. very cliffy. the bus ride there was awful; i had never felt so sick in my life. then we got the bus back, and i felt even sicker! awesome! damn those cute little country roads winding down ridiculously steep and rocky paths. we got some awesome photos of the cliffs (check flickr). we did the legal thing for a while, but then we did what everyone else was doing and climbed over the fence to get better photos. oops!

we met some crazy dutch guys at the hostel. they were hilarious! they taught us to play a card game called 'shit head', and every time we asked the rules they replied "to not be the shit head!"

yeah they were pretty hilarious. dutch people sound a mix between south african, english, irish and chinese when they speak english. i mean that in not an insulting way, its actually quite a nice mix. the game is really cool that they taught us, and then we made some new friends when they left and taught it to them!

the cliffs of moher were super cool. but also super scary... we went past this sign that said do not go past (following everyone else of course) and found ourselves on a tiny path winding along the edge of the cliff. the edge of the cliff i'd say was about a meter away. no more. there were people lazing about on the edge of the cliff, with their feet almost hanging off. and these were serious cliffs. triple the gap in sydney for sure. so i had this huge urge to scream at these people to move away from the edge because i was actually feeling sick that they'd fall! but then i thought this might startle them, causing them to fall, so i kept quiet. one guy even climbed out onto a ledge overhanging the cliff to get a good photo. i had an instant vision of the road-runner cartoons, you know when a corner of the cliff suddenly falls off when kyote is on it? yep, i was pretty terrified.

last night we went to a jazz bar which was awesome. it was the swing dancing night, and we actually saw a leprechaun.... or mabey it was a little guy...who was wearing rediculous sparkling shoes...BAAHAHAHAHAHAH

it was awesome to finally see some jazz, and all the locals were very welcoming! we're in cork now... and our internet is running out!

adios!

to be sure, to be sure

so we JUST got the bus in time to get from oughterard to galway. we practically ran up the longest street in the world to get there. which is very hard with your whole life on your back! the bus ride only took about half an hour, and was very nice. we got to galway, and found the hostel easily. the hostel is awesome. its huge, but it has a really nice warm feeling about it. its one of the first places we've had to share with people, but they are really nice too so its all good.

yesterday we pretty much walked the streets of galway, exploring. we went down the main shopping street which is called 'shop street' very original i thought. we walked along the river, and down through to the other side of town. its a very beautiful place, and the people are very nice here. galway is definitely a great place to be. i think we like it so much because it's like the Perth of ireland..

shop street is nice. we went shopping on shop street. i like shopping. my parents bought me a claddagh ring for my 18th, so i decided yesterday was the day to find it. we went to a few jewellers (not a few. everyone there is in the whole town..) and i ended up getting the first one i saw anyway. its lovely.. we went to murphy's bar for a guinness before dinner. that was really nice. the guy at the hostel reccommended it to us, and explained the whole physics side to guinness. after we finished we walked outside and it was raining. ireland has a tendency to change the weather on you just as you get comfortable. we walked through the rain too stingy to buy the 11 euro umbrella. after dinner we went to the crane bar. that was awesome. the whole street was deserted, it was 9.30 at night and still light, and we walked into this dingy dim lit bar. as we walked in everyone got 'shhh'd' and a guy sitting at the bar started singing. he sung a traditional irish song and it was amazing. the atmosphere was great, the pub was warm and cozy and we sat squashed between some french and irish people. the band was sitting in a semi circle jamming in the corner. we were right next to the door and a guitar player walked in to join them, and then a harpist. she didnt have as much luck as she couldnt squeeze the harp through everyone and had to evacuate and come back through the side door. walking home we came across the roisin dubh, a venue for rock bands. we saw the line up for next saturday - stiff little fingers. aargh! i cant believe we miss them by a week! sooo annoyed!!

today we are off to the cliffs of morher. that should be good. its just a half day tour, so we're leaving at 12. must get coffee before we go, so adios!

what did he say??

on our last full day in enland we went back to colchester to see uncle kit. we left fairly early and had a very long train ride to get there. we finally made it and uncle kit picked us up from the station. from here we went to an awesome pub and had delicious food. there are photos on the flickr i think. we then went into the town of colchester, and walked through this park which was amazing, and all the while uncle kit was telling us about all the things that they did as kids. this usually was kit nearly drowning.. at the edge of the park was the castle. this was the castle that was reigned by queen Bodacea. my mum used to play in there when she was a kid, so that was a pretty cool feeling to think that my mum had been there so long ago. we went into the castle and did a bit of a tour around. it was amazing, i've never seen anything so old.

we carried on into the village and, of course, i found a lolly shop. only they thought it was hilarious we called them lollies. apparantly the correct term is sweeties. ahahahaha. the lady gave me this lolly which is meant to be the sourest lolly in the history of the world. when you go to flickr, you can see that obviously i was too good for the lolly and it didnt affect me at all.. we looked around the town and kit told us lots about granny and grandad and we went and had a coffee at the george hotel which grandad painted. we went to Catchpool road which granny has told me a lot about. she was born here, along with many of the arthey clan. it was very nice to see where granny is from.

i was very sad to say goodbye to uncle kit. we had such a great time with him. i choked back some tears and we got on the train from the journey back.

the next day pretty much consisted of packing and getting everything together. we said goodbye to the wildgeese, which was also quite sad, because we'd had such a great time with them and they had really looked after us like we were part of the family.

we got to belfast late on saturday night. and it was still light! it gets dark at around 10.30 here. cool. we got to the bus station and asked someone for directions:

"hi, im looking for kent street... i have a map..."

"i KNOW where kent street is! what yer doo is ye goo down that street and turn left and then right and then goo THROO the traffic lights - two sets not one - and go to the top of the street and then its a left and a right and a right again."

"oh ok, thanks!"

(walking away) "what did he say??"

we found the hostel and were told we had to go to the other house down the road and around the corner. he started to give us directions but i said we had a map...

the hostel was nice, much nicer than the one in london. on sunday we got up and went out around 10.30. the whole town was dead. there was literally no one around. we found an awesome cafe down a side street and had breakfast and the best coffee since leaving australia. hooray! we finished breakfast around 12 and then went on a quest to find cyprus avenue...

ok, so this was probably one of THE best moments of my life. i know it seems a bit silly, but if someone had said to me, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? i'd always say Cyprus Avenue. for those who don't know, i'm a die hard fan for Van Morrison, and he has written about Cyprus Avenue in countless songs. so we set off to find the avenue, which wasnt too far from the city. we took a bus out there, and walked the rest of the way. when we saw it i was so overwhelmed. i couldnt believe that i was actually on Cyprus Avenue, the place that i had listened about for so long. it was as beautiful as Van had described, and i felt so lucky to be there.

when we got back from cyprus avenue the town centre was buzzing. we then realized it was sunday and nothing opened until the afternoon. go figure. we went on the belfast wheel, seeing as we missed going on the london eye. it went so fast and im scared of heights and jess laughed at me for the whole ride. we saw the whole city though, so that was pretty cool. we caught the train to bangor which is a little seaside village and had fish and chips for dinner.

the next day we went through western belfast and saw all the murals. that was pretty cool. it was such a contrast to eastern belfast - you could see how much poorer this area of the city is. it was really good to see all the memorials for the people that lost their lives because of their religion.

after that we went and saw indiana jones... the second best thing after cyprus avenue in jess' opinion. haha

on tuesday we caught the train from belfast to dublin and then dublin to galway and then had to get to oughterard, 20km north of galway. it took us all day! (happy birthday dad, btw) the hostel is really nice, its just out of oughterard and the grounds are really pretty. its nice to be out of the city. all the people are really nice, but we cant understand anything anyone says. they all talk so fast! we have perfected the art of the smile and nod...

this afternoon we might go to the glengowla mines or just walk around and look at all the pretty hills. its all so pretty.... we're going back to galway on saturday and staying a few nights to check out the music scene..

to be sure, to be sure