Ireland: A merry Guinnessmas to you all!

After 4 months, travelling from Moscow to Istanbul, Athens to Lisbon it was time for us to fly to Belfast, Northern Ireland and return to a country where they speak the tongue of the motherland - or so we thought. Going off the accent of the people in the airport we had a better chance of understanding someone speaking Spanish. After an hour or so our ears adapted to the "unique" Northern Irish accent and we were able to freely communicate with people again, although once again, the people on the plane made us wish we couldn't.

It was in Belfast that we re-united with Katherine's parents Rick & Jo for a brief Irish road trip before we settled in for a well earned rest over Christmas. Our first stop was Derry (or Londonderry depending on which side of the Catholic/Protestant fence you find yourself on) which also heralded a few big occasions for the trip: 1) We could actually order a meal with 100% confidence of what we were going to receive, 2) Tom was reunited with his great love, Guinness and 3) We could order a piece of red meat for under €30. We kicked off our Irish jaunt with a trip to the Giant's Causeway. Having seen the Causeway before we decided that a coffee in a pub was preferable to marching through the wind and rain, but we are certain Rick and Jo had a good time! Bushmill's Old Whiskey Distillery was next on the cards and introduced us all to the Irish drink of warm whiskey, definitely an "interesting" experience, not one any of us will be adopting any time soon. We progressed our way down the west coast of Ireland and were greeted with more classic Irish winter weather - on and off rain all day with a bit of freezing wind just to cap it off!

Katherine and a yeti at the Cliffs of Moher

The modern day backpacker - all about the technology - can't explain the beanie though...

Tom & Rick basking in the warmth at the Old Bushmill's Distillery

YMC what the hell is going on in this picture? KG at Ross Castle

As we finished our little road-trip it was time to pick up another travel buddy, Tom's Mum Gail, who joined our little travelling party as she came over to join us for Christmas. We set up shop in a cottage near a small town called Shillelagh where we spend an entire week without moving (quite a highlight for us!). We spent the majority of our time doing extremely little: sitting, eating, drinking, sleeping - all that important stuff. Christmas Day was amazing, we had an awesome spread and our first roast for our trip. We go to do presents with our family which was incredible and generally spent the day relaxing and doing as little as possible. A definite highlight from our time in Shillelagh was our visit to the Dying Cow pub, a pub that fit about 30 people in it and was just a room on the end of someone's house - it was here that we had a few pints of Guinness as an impromptu night of Irish music and yarn telling unfolded, an incredible experience! Two days after Christmas we met up with our friend from Latvia, Eddie Fox, at the Leopardstown horse races - although neither of us got within a sniff of winning a thing it was an awesome day out! We also made a trip to Wicklow to catch up with Fiona, one of KG's old governesses from Burndoo and her awesome little girl Clodagh.

Family Christmas shot - pre-giving of pressies

Tom post-giving of pressies with his new garb

KG, Rick & Jo with Fiona and Clodagh

Gail sampling her first pint of Guinness

KG and Gail studying the form guide to absolutely no avail

Still following us around - our buddy Eddie Fox with us at the Leopardstown races

Eventually we had to leave the comfort of our cottage and it was definitely a sad time saying goodbye to the luxury we had lived in for the last week, but it was time to move on to Dublin where we would celebrate New Years Eve. We spent a couple days in Dublin, where Tom got to visit his second Mecca, the Guinness Brewery. We decided to give the parents a taste of backpacking as we embarked on a free walking tour of Dublin and we also caught up with Danielle (worked out at Katherine's neighbour's house and had the pleasure of hosting Megan Temple during her travels in Ireland) for a quick bite. New Years Eve was spent as it should be in Dublin, watching some Irish dancing whilst sitting in a pub listening to a three piece band consisting of a guitarist, an accordion player and a fiddler! Unfortunately the band was replaced by a DJ just before New Years but the old ducks getting down to Love Shack didn't seem to think it was such a bad result. Our last day in Ireland was spent with Tom nursing a slight hangover from one too many Guinnesses whilst the rest of the family went and explored the city - we also caught up with our on again off again travel buddy Hana for our final meal in Ireland (Tom found the courage to sample one last Guinness!)

KG, Rick and Jo somewhere in Dublin

Tom & KG near Molly Malone statue in Dublin

Our time in Ireland was incredible and we realised why we loved the country so much the first time around. It was amazing to have our family with us for a brief part of our trip and will definitely be a Christmas that will not be forgotten any time soon!