My story...

I left Vancouver on April 4 2010 to live one year abroad. I arrived in London- spent a week with my cousins, headed over to Ireland to see some more cousins and tour the country, back to London for a day- and arrived in Paris on April 28th, 2010. I found an apartment and started working on May 10th. From May 2010 until February 2011 I lived the Parisian life and took advantage of living in the epicenter of the world by traveling and exploring numerous nearby countries such as: Algeria, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, the south of France, Belgium, Morocco, and South Africa.
This blog takes you into the wonderful adventures of my life with stories and pictures galore.
I was due back to Vancouver on April 1, 2011- where I took my position back after my one year leave. I flew back to Vancouver on March 27, 2011. It has been good to be back- I am so blessed as I am surrounded by such great people!!! So good to see friends and family again after 1 year!
Just because I'm back in Vancouver to what was my "normal" life... doesn't mean the adventures and blogging stop here. The adventures will continue I'm sure... so
the only way to stay informed with my random experiences is to come back to this page! So add it to your favourites.

last updated: April 2, 2011.

Saturday 24 April 2010

The sights along the way..

Here is the map... on Friday morning I left Galway at 9am, drove up through the Connemara Peninsula, back down through Galway, around the coastline, saw the Cliffs of Moher, got back on the main highway, over through Limrick, and arrived in Cork at 9pm. It was a long day of driving, but I got to see so much within those 12 hours... here are a few pics of the places along the way. I have SooOOooOooo many pictures.. so must be selective.
See map above for location of destinations.

1- Galway: Favorite Irish Town

2- Aughnanure Castle- 2km off the beaten path, thought I'd drive down for a visit! I was the only one there! :)


3- Maum


4- Leenane

5a- Kylemore Abbey


5b- Neo-Gothic Church




5c- Victorian Walled Gardens. I saw them growing fruits and vegetables...so I thought I'd ask what they do with them after they are harvested...the lady said sometimes they share the crops with the nuns in the area, but with most stuff, it's just for display, so they plow them into the ground again!!!!


6- Cong- a cute little town where I stopped for some Irish stew. Also, a very scenic drive up to and beyond Cong...amazing!

I want this lil guy as a pet! So cute!
Random castle on a tiny island!
7-Burren and surrounding scenic coastal route. I could see Galway and the Aran Islands. Stunning!




Burren, which is in County Clare has a really neat history to it!!

What is it?

The Burren is an area of karst covering approx. 36,000 hectares (140 sq. miles) in north Co. Clare and a small part of south Co. Galway in Ireland. Karst is defined as "rough limestone country with underground drainage" (Chambers), and practically everything you need to know about The Burren can be described in terms of these two elements - stone and water. From its original formation, to how it appears and is used today, the interaction of stone and water has been the defining feature of The Burren.

How was it formed?

Around 650 million years ago, that part of the Earth's crust now occupied by Ireland was located near the Equator at the bottom of a shallow sea. The marine life (much of it microscopic) included organisms with hard shells composed of calcite. When they died, the shells settled on the floor of the sea. Over millions of years, these shells compressed and cemented to form the limestone rock that we see today all over The Burren. This is a simplified description - in fact there are many layers of different types of limestone reaching in places to a depth of almost 800 meters. Some of the layers are separated by thin sheets of clay known as palaeosol. The limestone was finally covered (about 318 million years ago) by the second type of rock associated with this area, known as Clare shale. Shale is formed in slow-moving water when very fine mud that has been washed down by rivers settles. The Clare shales are about 2,500 meters deep in places and once covered all the limestone in The Burren. The final phase in the formation of The Burren happened during the various Ice Ages when the glaciers advanced generally southward and stripped away the covering of shale to expose the underlying limestone. The end of the last Ice Age in Ireland is dated to 12,000-10,000 BC.

And then...from afar... I get a taste of the Cliffs of Moher8- My favorite picture so far... a castle with a view of the ocean, town, and land behind it.

And now...the Cliffs of Moher...

The Cliffs of Moher (Irish: Aillte an Mhothair, lit. cliffs of the ruin, also known as the Cliffs of Mohair) are located in the parish of Liscannor at the south-western edge of the Burren area near Doolin, which is located in County Clare, Ireland.[1] The Cliffs are currently one of the 28 finalists for The New7Wonders of Nature. (The official list will be declared in 2011.)

The cliffs rise 120 meters (394 ft) above the Atlantic Ocean at Hag's Head (Irish: Ceann na Cailleach), and reach their maximum height of 214 meters (702 ft) just north of O'Brien's Tower, eight kilometres away.[2] The cliffs boast one of Ireland's most spectacular views.[3] On a clear day, the Aran Islands are visible in Galway Bay, as are the valleys and hills of Connemara.

O'Brien's Tower is a round stone tower at the approximate midpoint of the cliffs. It was built by Sir Cornelius O'Brien, a descendant of Ireland's High King Brian Boru, in order to impress female visitors.[4] From atop that watchtower, one can view the Aran Islands and Galway Bay, the Maum Turk Mountains and the Twelve Pins to the north in Connemara, and Loop Head to the south.


Bad @$$

9- I was getting hungry and had some left-overs from lunch, so I decided to find a neat place to stop and enjoy my meal, but not in a town or gas station... as I'm driving along, the sun is slowly setting and I stumble across Ballybeg Abbey. What a perfect place for an outdoor dinner.








*Sigh*....Ireland :)

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