Tallships and leprechauns

Wow, so again it's been way too long. I seem to be starting with that almost every time I write a blog now, and I'm sorry for that. I just haven't really been in a blog-writing mood lately. Well that, and the weather gods finally realised it's well into the Summer season by now and adjusted the weather accordingly =)

So over the past two months I've been on almost every mode of transport. From a ye olde tallship to modern-day planes and trains and bicycles and cars... I guess the two modes of transport in that list that ask for the most explanation are the tallship and the plane... So let's start with the story of how I ended up on a tallship!

Earlier in the year I had bought chocolate from a fellow Better the World trainee group and thereby automatically entered a raffle with the ultimate prize being a tour through The Chocolate Makers' chocolate factory. And lo and behold, I actually was one of the winners! So one sunny blue-sky Friday in early June, I made my way to Amsterdam in the morning to learn about fairtrade chocolate and see how it is made. It was awesome to see how much passion these two guys had for making fairtrade chocolate from scratch the old-fashioned way. As luck would have it, they also just had a new batch of cocoa beans and cocoa butter delivered from the Dominican Republic the day before. You probably guessed it by now, that delivery was brought into the port of Amsterdam by an old-fashioned tallship. After our tour around the chocolate factory, we were invited onto the ship for a quick tour as well. And as we were finishing up that tour, the pilot boat had arrived to guide the tallship to a different location along the IJ river. So we got to sail along! Very awesome and very lovely to be floating along the IJ river with the blue sky above us, the wind in our hair and the port of Amsterdam gliding past =)

A day after the tallship adventure I was off on my next adventure, this time on a plane to the Land of Leprechauns with my sister Renske! (Did I mention I had two weeks off at the beginning of June? I did. And after the end of May I had just had, it was a more than welcome break too =)) My sister and I flew into Dublin for a five-day city trip early in the morning and arrived more than in time to immediately start our sightseeing with a 3 hour guided walking tour through the Irish city in the early afternoon. Good chance to get a sense of the city and learn more about its history. We had a guide who told her stories with a good mix of facts, Irish lore and sarcasm, which made it a fun tour to be on =) We heard historic tales of the Dublin Castle, heard all about Christ Church Cathedral, walked along the grounds of Trinity College and wandered through the streets of the Temple Bar district, just to name a few of the more well-known places in Dublin we saw that first day.

Day two in Ireland we took a guided day trip to Howth, a bustling little fishing village along the coast just north of Dublin. Just like our first day it was a gorgeous blue-sky day, which made it perfect conditions for all the hiking that lay ahead of us in Howth. We walked up the hills past Howth Castle, through this absolutely stunning rhodondendron garden that was just coming into full bloom and then all along the rugged Irish coastline. Beautiful =) As we were the very first group to go on the tour, it was a very small group and our main tour guide therefore forced 3 other tour guides to come along as well to make it a more substantial sized group, making the ratio tourists vs tour guides 4 to 4, haha. Definitely gave us an insight into the world of tourguiding too besides learning about Irish history! Very fun day.

After all that walking and hiking of day 1 and 2, our feet and legs were very much in need of a break. So on day 3 we had a relatively easy day of going to the Guinness Storehouse in the morning and a lazy afternoon of reading our books in the park. It was still a sunny day, so perfect weather once again =) The day that followed was mostly lazy too. Rain had finally found its way to Ireland again on day 4 of our trip, although it wasn't too bad. Bad enough for us to go to the impressive Trinity Library in the morning and continue reading our books back at our hostel in the afternoon though. Our feet appreciated the extra day's rest too =)

For our fifth and final day in Ireland Renske and I had planned to go a bit south of Dublin to Dalkey to do some more hiking along the coast like we had done in Howth. Unfortunately we hadn't done our research well enough and once we arrived in Dalkey it turned out to be completely different from what we had expected from our internet readings. Instead of a vibrant coastal town with nice scenic walks through the little town and along the coastline, we hardly saw a soul walking down the streets and we never found the starting point of any the walks. So after about an hour of walking around aimlessly, we decided to head back to Dublin again and end our trip there instead. I went up to Kilmainham Gaol that afternoon, which was interesting. Learned lots about the Easter Rising of 1916, a very important six-day rebellion that brought republicanism back into the forefront of Irish politics and was a turning point in Irish history, as it would eventually lead to Irish independence of English rule in 1922. The leaders of the rising were court-martialled and executed at Kilmainham Gaol following the rebellion. Seeing the prison grounds and then hearing stories like that always fascinates me.

Renske and I ended our trip to Dublin in style with a beautiful dinner in the city, before flying back to Holland very early the next morning. Even though 5 days was a bit much for a relatively small city like Dublin, it was so good to go away for a few days and to share it with my lovely big sis =) Can you believe it was our first trip away together as just us sisters? It was definitely a good first experience =) Loved it!

Since Dublin I've been quite boring actually. Mainly just been working and trying to enjoy a bit of Summer too. Trying to find my way in the always present background restlessness of wanting to move on from my current job at the city council without quite knowing how or where to and running into the same things over and over again. Sometimes it's hard to keep faith, because it get's so frustrating from time to time. Probably doesn't help that I can be my own worst enemy too...

But anyway, maybe that's more something for a different blog post. I won't keep you any longer and instead leave you with a whole bunch of photos of tallship and Ireland adventures =) Would love to hear how you are all going too, so please leave a message and let me know! Hope you are all well and smiling.
Much love.


PS. Fun fact: Today it's been exactly 9 years since I first landed in Melbourne! How I love I still get to keep in touch with you in some small way through this blog since my high school exchange started so many years ago - however irregular these blog posts of mine are at the moment... Who knew we'd be here, nine years later? Thank you for sticking with me =)