Day 7- 10k walk through New Quay

January 1st,

Ooh I like the sound of that….It's 2014!!
This morning I had a waffle dolled up in maple syrup and butter. Drum roll please…Then I started and completed the 10k walk through New Quay! That's about 6.2 miles!

I was with the village girls- one of them who had been doing this annual walk since she was 7. 

Yes, it was raining. Yes, there were hills to walk up. Yes it was beautiful!

There were lots of lovely dogs

Everytime we came near cows it smelled like bad cheese, but I was still excited to see them. 

I told myself that I wanted to have an exciting, adventurous, risky, fun year, and this was an excellent start. 

**

It's now almost 10 at night and I'm feeling quite gloomy. 

I wanna be back home, be back in my room. I wanna be able to pet the cats and go bike riding. I wanna go to school even though I hate it most of the time. I at least wanna have some great friends at school and have more confidence. Last year I shut a lot of people down and was shy and quiet. I'm sick of that. I need to have fun. 

Day 6-New Years Party

December 31,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We came back from Effa's house. I got stuck with making a lego spy house for HOURS. And then later at night it was crushed, destroyed, pummeled.

I had some Haribo gummies.

Also, I had some of Aunt Karen's ham and chili, which were both the bomb dot com.

I got stuck into sitting on the couch watching news bloopers and America's funniest Videos for a while…

Also, I saw a huge double rainbow around mid-day.

Ugh, and I got stuck eating leftover mac and cheese for lunch (too much of it).

All the village girls and it seemed all the village adults were there too.

In particular, my favorite village adult is Ellie. She had short grey hair and wore a red sweater. She greeted everyone with a hug, and sat in the kids' area at the couch. When asked what she would like to drink by Kevin, she responded with, "Whatever the kids are having, what is it these days, 7up?"

Also, she goes swimming EVERY morning. Reminder: the summers here in New Quay are around 60 degrees…So the winter water seems unbearable.

At 12 all the adults joined in this hand holding thing with a song.

Zoe got home around 2:30 and had a super eventful evening. She went to the 18 or older concert, got front row seats, met the band, went to a super fancy hotel in the minister's car, got served free awesome food and a strawberry dessert by guys with silver trays and white gloves, saw fireworks twice, and got to have crackers… Sigh…I wish I could've done that...

Day 5- Shopping in Galway

December 30th,

At least I think this was day 5….

Effa, Zoe, Amy Sweanie, Shiela, Sarah, and I all went on a train station to Galway to go shopping. It took 45 minutes. This was literally the most beautiful train station I've ever seen.

This train station was quite the change from busy London trains. Once we got to Galway, we went in a store called New Look, then Penny's, and a ton of other stores. I usually like to shop best when I'm by myself, but this wasn't too bad. Here's what the outdoor mall parts looked like:

I especially loved the colorful shops. 

I ended up getting a velvet shirt for 9.90, a pair of shades for 6, and two pairs of earrings each 2 euros. Ooh, I also got frilly knee high pink socks for a Euro. I can't believe how cheap I am, if anything was 15 Euros I didn't give it another glance.

Then we went to Effa's house for a sleepover since Karen had guests over. We watched Despicable me and it was awesome!

Day 4- Gallery and driving

Decmber 29th,

Today mom and I took a walk while Karen, Kevin, and the kids were at church. Wrong choice. It was cold. Reguardlessly we went to the pier and back, here's a few photos of that:

After that, Kevin took us for a drive. We went to the Abbey from 1212, and around water and cliffs.

Then we went to the Russell Gallery. We had hot chocolate and played Farkel and Jenga. Karen was really nice and got me some watercolor papers, and my mom got me a silver lizard bracelet. 

Day 3- Skating and Limerick

December 28th,

Apparently Limerick is the worst Ireland city because it had slight gang activity. Whatever though, the gangs aren't in the center of the city.

Today I woke around 8:44-ish and by the way, Miriam's mattress that I'm sleeping on is LOUD and SQUEAKY. I toss and turn when I sleep and Zoe sleeps like a rock so I made her switch.

The mornings in Galway out the window are gorgeous! I had three pancakes with maple syrup, two pieces of bacon, and a sausage for breakfast. Miriam put nutella on two of her pancakes, and whipped cream on the third. Ew… She ate most of it though. And then she kept touching and begging for the last piece of bacon, even though I think her Dad ended up eating it.

We got dressed and had a race down the hill in the front yard. The car ride to the market was filled with Miriam trying to play silent games and fall asleep games with us. She was a bit hyper. We got to the market and I left my gloves in the car. :(

The streets with lights reminded me of London's Regent streets.

We met two guys,  I don't remember their name. Karen got cheese and ham. Other people got sandwiches filled with sausage, ham, beef, cheese, and a ton of other stuff. Zoe and I got hot  chocolates in these cute green, red, and orange cups.  I think the marshmallows on top were strawberry or peppermint (they were pink and didn't taste normal).

We then went to buy skating tickets. We had to wait, so we went to Penny's. I should've been super excited to go in there,  but it was claustrophobic and I was scared I'd get lost. Zoe got a skirt that I really wanted, and it was only 5 Euros. Effa got a jacket for 15 euros. Miriam got  really cute leopard hat!

Skating was crowded on a little square of ice. We got Miriam to steer away from the edge. There were orange seals for people to hold onto while skating, and we all practiced pushing each other. Poor Aiden sat out and watched us and held our phones for us.

When we got home we played hide and seek, and Miriam kept trying to get us to watch a movie but we didn't necessarily want to. We had chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and cheese, and broccoli for dinner.

Oh wait! How did I forget! We had Moody Cow- a delicious milkshake place. You pick from the wall of candy and they crush it into your vanilla milkshake. I had M&Ms in mine and it was delicious!

PS. Today was mom's secret birthday. She didn't tell anybody, so yeah, weird…I'd be telling people if it were my birthday. She claimed the best present she could have was being in Ireland.

Day 2- Family's house in Ireland

December 27th,
Mom drove quite successfully to Aunt Karen's house. We didn't hit anything or die. Alond the two hour way, we saw sheep with green and orange butts. Apparently farmers paint the sheep's butts to keep track of whose sheep is whose. Horses and cows were also on the way. I'm quite surprised at this transition from city in London to the peaceful grass, hills, rocks, and bay that is Ireland.

Everyone seems happier here and less chaotic. Zoe blames part of the London stress on the red tour buses. The tour buses in Dublin are green.

I feel really stupid for thinking this, but I thought Irish was an accent. It's odd to see English as the second language below Irish on signs, rather than first on signs.

Once we got to Karen's, we settled and had a fun and eventful night of playing pingpong, eating chick chicks (as Miriam called them- they're nuggets though) and pepperoni pizza with Amy.

We met Amy Malonie(oldest, and had her hair in a bun), Amy Sweanie(athletic and wore an Einstein shirt), Sarah, Rachel, Jemma (funny and likes strawberry cheesecake brownie stuff), and Effa. Effa is the closest to my age and she likes to cook. I'm sure I butchered the spelling of all their names, and maybe forgot a few names.

We played Pictionary and Sorry with Amy and Miriam before the other village girls got here.

For dinner we had green beans, beef, and mac and cheese.

Aunt Karen's cooking is the bomb!!

Alright, my mom is getting nosy about what I'm writing, goodbye for now.

Day 1- Ireland Castle Hotel

Dec 26th,

The people that were staying next in our place showed up. The father didn't speak English so the girl had to translate. They put their bags in the kitchen, and then Mom, Zoe, and I had to scramble to leave before 12.

It wasn't until we in the cab on the way to Heathrow Airport that I noticed I left my London subway passes behind. I had wanted to keep those as souvenirs. The cab, by the way, didn't even look like a cab. I thought I was getting abducted.

My mom was thankfully chatty to fill silence. We found out hat the cab driver is from Ethiopia (I think that's what he said). He used to live in Miami and Tampa Florida. And he's been in London for 24 years now.

We gave him plum pudding, some hot chili stuff in a jar, and some chocolate.

The airport ordeal was different than America. We first of all had to change our flight since we were there like 5 hours early. It ended up being free since "friends" were flying to Dublin too. Otherwise we'd pay 40 pounds and another fee just to switch flights for each person. We flied Aer Lingus, and had seats 7A-C. I had the window seat!

Before all that though, I had three forms of potatoes(hash browns, Zoe's fries, and chips). Mom had a burger with fries. Zoe had an omelette and a brownie later.

Also,
security was crazy.
Thank goodness we got the nice immigration lady. She asked us why we were staying:too see family; and stamped our passports. The other lady was taking like twenty minutes with each person.

Hmm
Okay so Mom got her baggage checked because her I-pad was in it, and my tube of toothpaste (oops)- which got taken away!
Zoe got stopped and "lightly touched" because she was wearing a tampon,
And I got stopped and had my bag swabbed to check for a bomb.
What the heck.

As soon as we got to Ireland we had to wait a whole hour (after changing Pounds to Euros) for us to get the rental car. We had to get on FaceTime with Dad and ask him about which car service it was, and yadda yadda yadda. I got grumpy and had to pull out my last London Cadbury chocolate bar, a shame, I know.

We got it, and well…
We didn't know how to open the trunk
two lights wouldn't turn off
the roads were on the other side
and mom had her shoulders tensed up the entire time while driving.

Eventually we got to the castle hotel. It was only 5 miles, but it took us longer.

The castle looks like it was built up recently.
They have a gymnasium.
And they put butter or goat cream or some mysterious cream on my smoked ham, lettuce sandwich.

Hopefully tomorrow's drive to Gaulway will be better. PS. I WANT TO GO TO PRIMARK HERE!:)

Sorry, no photos for this blog. It was dark and the few photos I took were craptastic.

Also PS. The castle was thankfully not haunted (at least my room wasn't).