Dublin: a city full of drunks with nothing to do.

When it is Easter and you have to choose somewhere to go, where else is there but Dublin. Ok, so you could make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, undertaking a triumphant journey on donkey only to find yourself nailed to a cross . . . . actually I think Jerusalem is the last place I'd want to be at Easter, so Dublin seems a pretty good substitute. Also Ryanair prices Stansted to Dublin are a lot cheaper. We got ourselves a 1p flight leaving about 6 in the morning. Now, to digress for a minute, in airline speak 1p flights actually cost much more than 1p. This is because of taxes apparently. The government here, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that taxes on 1p need to be approximately 250 000%. This seems a little excessive when compared with normal taxes, even VAT (sales tax) here is only 17.5% in comparison. Whether this is a ploy to make VAT seem cheap is undetermined, but it prevents the poor airlines ferrying 300 passengers per flight across Europe for the 3 pounds that it costs them to run the plane for an hour. It is the best demonstration I have seen for the arguments in favour of government non interference in the economy. Still, we got return flights for around 60 pounds all up, or would have if we didn't need to take a bag, which costs a little more. 33 percent more actually. As our bag weighed much less than 1/3rd our combined weight the maths left us a little puzzled. Still cheaper than driving and training though and that's all that matters.


We arrived in Dublin around 8am on Good Friday and made our way into the city. We found ourselves some breakfast, wondered about the 60m phallic symbol in the main street and took a bus tour around the city. After lunch we took a taxi to our hotel and realised we shouldn't have spent our money on the bus tour. Our taxi driver was the friendliest, most talkative but informative ride either of us have ever taken. We definitely would have been better just giving him money to drive us round for an hour. That said the people in Dublin were generally extremely friendly, far more so than you find in London. They still had their share of Eastern Europeans, who generally aren't suited to jobs in the service industry, but overall it was one of the friendliest places we've been to so far, maybe apart from Bangkok, but not in the same way.


The hotel we stayed at had one of the most impressive facades I've seen for a hotel anywhere. The hotel was called Clontarf Castle and the main structure was certainly part of a castle that has been in the area for many centuries. We chose it because Krystle said as she was a princess she needed to stay in accommodation befitting, whatever that means. The most tragic occurrence that happened while we were in Dublin, brace yourself this may be hard for some of you to handle, was the discovery that despite everything we've ever learnt about religion, Dublin is effectively a dry city on Good Friday. NOOOOOO!, I hear your shout, whatever will our intrepid heroes do. Sorry I was just musing on the intrepid heroes part. . . . luckily a Princess is not without her power and she was able to declare an amnesty on serving alcohol at the aply named Knight's Bar that was part of the modern addition to our castle. So we were able to have ourselves a bottle of wine (Jesus's blood) on Good Friday, and lived happily ever after.

The front of the hotel.

The guardhouse that protected us from maurading vikings and the like.

On the Saturday we went up the line (on the train) to a coastal village named Howth (said Hoth). It was a sweet and picturesque fishing village and despite the weather, and also because of as the day oscillated between sun, rain and hail, we had a very nice day. We had a look at the fishing boats, were entertained by the the seals that swam in the harbour and marvelled at how such a small town had so many hairdresses. It was similar in character to somewhere like North Haven or Laurieton with more appealing pubs.


The seaside town of Howth looking from the fishing wharfs across the prot to the main street

One of the smaller fishing boats, very rustic!


We saw a number of seals frolicking in the harbour that entertained crowds of people.

A friendly dog covered in hail. From our admittedly limited experience it seems to hail in Dublin every afternoon at 1.30 pm.


A graveyard near our hotel that we explored as we walked to the station. We thought it may have been the resting place of brave knights slain in the defence of their castle, but some of the graves were from as recently as 2003 (and not BC). In the background you can see the remains of a church.


Here is the old church steeple still intact.

And here is the rest of the church no longer intact. Being Easter I was looking for somebody to take confession for me, but nobody seemed available.

Update and snow

So once again we have gone several months without an update so I will preface any future updates with the following warning. I recently saw the movie version of Atonement and found it really difficult to follow the time line of it and figure out when you were watching the future, past and present. Despite this the movie has been critically acclaimed, so not wanting to be ones to be behind the trends, Krystle and I have made the decision to no longer be concerned with when things happened, but just to write when we get the chance. That will mean that you'll have no idea when events occurred in relation to others, but you can pretend to your intellectual friends you did and therefore declare our blog a triumph and a modern classic. Eventually we should be able to sell the movie rights and live fabulously rich forever! Amen.

That sorted out I can declare that there has been snow and it was white. There should be some photos and video included here but I doubt that it will sufficiently capture the genuine and enthusiastic excitement generated by the sight of something you can scrap from the side of your freezer any day of the week falling from the sky.

The ice on the car when we arrived back at Stansted from Dublin. It was very hard to see while we were driving back to London.

The snow on the ground that had fallen before we arrived where we'd parked the car at Stansted.

Snow falling on the Easter Monday.

Xmas, New Year and An Overdue Update!

Hi all,

Thought it was about time for an update, although not that much has happened in the scheme of things. The biggest being our change of address. Before Christmas we decided it was time to get out of shared accommodation; we know we didn't last long but at the end of the day it's hard enough to live with one other, let alone 7. And it's not costing much more to rent a place on our own, although I'm sure lots of people have bigger garages than our flat ... but it's cosy!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. Both were fairly quiet, but given the weather it takes a lot of motivation just to get outside. We spent Christmas day in a cosy little pub for lunch which was nice, although quiet strange. It's weird for it to be so cold over Christmas when all i've ever known is warm, Aussie Christmases.

Our first real Christmas tree;


My favourite present, Harrods Bears (aren't they cute!!);


New Year was spent in front of the telly watching the New Year entertainment going on in London. Mike was sick and it was cold and raining. So fairly uneventful.

The question of homesickness keeps coming up, and generally speaking neither of us has been overly homesick (no offence to anyone who thinks we should be pining for them). I miss Murphy and Monty, but other than that we're both fine. Having been here for a few months now, certain food and smells seem to cause lots of memories and daydreams from home. Australian wines tastes better, and taste more distinctly Aussie than we thought when we first arrived. I haven't had vegemite on toast for ages because it send me into a weird daydreaming trance, which I just don't have time for of a morning, and Dixie Drumsticks are a delicacy (extremely expensive to buy over here, and rationed when we recieve them!).

So that about all to update on, see I said not much had happened. In the near future we're off to France and Dublin (booked), and possibly somewhere a little warmer for a weekend if the budget allows. Hope everyone is well and we'll try to update again soon.

Mike and Krystle xoxo

The Best Experience in the UK (so far)

So, having established that the website does still work, prepare for a torrent of posts.

Also in November Krystle and I went to our first Premier League game. Football is about the only thing that people in England really care about. Now that religion is dead, people worship at the alter of football and it is fairly much a 24hr a day, 7 days a week, media driven phenomenon. Everything is news and there is little that people talk about other than football. Tickets go for upwards of 150 pounds, so I was pleasantly suprised when Hamish, who I work with, found tickets for Fulham v Blackburn for 32 pounds.
Fulham are the club owned by the man who would have been Diana's father-in-law (if not for the French, or the Queen or whoever you blame). They're not a team doing particularly well but Blackburn are certainly a good team consistently in the top 6. We made our way to the ground for a 4.00 Sunday afternoon start. The ground is set in parklands on the Thames and is certainly a very nice spot to watch sport. Our seats were excellent, about 10 rows back behind the goal (in the picture just in front of the bottom of the letter L). The game was nil - nil at half time but really came alive in the second half. Both sides scored 2 goals, so it finished as a draw, but it was really enjoyable, and hopefully not the last game I see!

This picture is of the Fulham FC ground looking towards the cottage in the left hand corner.

On the road again

With winter rapidly arriving we took the opportunity to take the mini on another road trip before the snow set in and buried in the car in massive drifts. Having spent 12 months in the area in 1993, I was keen to revisit Oxford and so Krystle and I set off on a mild Saturday morning. Spring was holding in there, but not enough to take the roof off the mini. I had booked a pub room at a place in the little town of Dorchester-on-Thames, about 9 miles away from Oxford. First though we went to Oxford and took a trip down memory lane, visiting Cothill where the school I worked at is, and the surrounding area. We had lunch at a pub near the school that I used to visit and then drove back through Abingdon which Krystle liked and wants to go back to.

The pub was very nice, warm and welcoming. Our room was large and comfy and we decided just to have dinner at the pub as nights were now becoming less welcoming for travel. Dorchester-on-Thames is a tiny little town with a population of only a couple of hundred. It is really only a street, but has a large church, post office and no less than 3 places to drink. Always get their priorites right.

On the Sunday we went into Oxford and had a look round the centre of town. Everything looked much smaller than I remembered it. We took an historical visit to Oxford castle, parts of which are almost 1000 years old and was until recently used as a prison, one of its many functions over the past millennium. You actually climbed the tower, the oldest standing part of the building and got a really good view of Oxford and the surrounding area. We also ate donuts at Krispy Kreme which I'm led to believe has been part of the complex for most of the past 1000 years. So its traditional!

We headed back having decided to steer clear of the freeways, giving the little car a break. It cruises along at 100-105 km/hr but because its only a 4 speed manual starts to struggle above these speeds. That and most other cars are doing 125km/h +.

Happy Devali!!!

Hi all,

Apologies for not updating sooner, but here's what we've been up to in the last week and a bit. This week has been busy, and very noisy due to Guy Fawkes (some dude who tried to blow up Parliament a few hundred years ago) night, and Devali (some kinda religious thing where they blow stuff up). Last week we also had Halloween, which is a far bigger deal than at home. We had trick or treaters for 4ish hours so I was extremely impressed with the turnout. Anyway, it sounds like we live in a war zone as I type, and we were able to have fireworks one night.

We went to Cambridge last weekend. Had a look around on Saturday before going to the pub on Sat night. We enjoyed a leisurely trip up the canal on Sunday, before finding a pub for lunch and heading home. The boat trip was a great way to see all the old universities, bridges etc. We're off to Oxford this weekend, which hopefully will be nice too.

Thought I should answer the question everyone keeps asking too... yes it is cold, but so far I think we're coping okay. I've learnt from experience that despite there being blue sky, it is too cold to go out without a coat. I thought it was hilarious the first time i heard kids at school being reminded of the 'no coat no play' rule ... but where were their hats? I've since wondered whether this rule will get me out of playground duty.

Think that's about all for now. We've recently discovered that we can film stuff with the digital camera, but I will warn that the quality leaves a lot to be desired. If you're short of time, not reading at work on your employers time, or suffer from motion sickness, maybe give the filmed pieces a miss.

We drove down this street in Cambridge not realising it was blocked at the end.

And ended up like this:






The river at Cambridge (with the kind of boat we went for a cruise in):

A sign we saw that reminded us of the dangers of swimming in shallow canals that are easily comparable to the surf we know at home.

Our tour guide Paul who was informative, entertaining and very good at making the boat thingy go.

This is how our 'war zone' sounded. Our neighbours are either really angry with each other, or love their Devali, as this went on for over 5 hours.

This was the grand finale at our own backyard Guy Fawkes celebration.

Who Could Resist ... ?

On Wednesday night we headed to the Cambridge Theatre in London to see Kelly. Mike doesn't have kids at school this week (an inset week), and has next week off. I have this week off and go back to school when Mike has time off, so it hasn't worked out too well, but it's okay. Anyway, we went into London, found a pub for an hour or so, then saw the show. Believe it or not, Kelly appeared to be quiet talented.

Other than that, not much has happened this week. We went to dinner tonight with the year 3 teacher Mike works with, Sara and her husband Will. What could be better than a tradition English meal, in a traditional English pub?

We hope you're all thinking of us while you're enjoying 30 degree days. We're lucky if it's hotter than 10 degrees, and Mike has noticed cars are having a layer of ice form on the windscreen in the morning.