Eugene, our bus driver for today, collected us from the hostel just before 9am and took us out to Cobh to the Queenstown museum which features displays to do with the migration of the Irish to America and Australia.  It discusses reasons for the migration, including the transportation of convicts to Australia, and the conditions on board ship (appalling of course!).

Other displays focus on the sinking of the Titanic, as Cobh was its last port of call before it sank.  It was also nearby that the Lusitania sank when it was torpedoed by a German submarine.  Survivors were brought to Cobh and those who drowned were buried in mass graves.

We continued on to Blarney Castle, the site of the famous Blarney Stone.  The students all took their turn to line up to kiss the stone, although it is my humble opinion that they are all fairly well endowed with the gift of the gab already!  The grounds are beautiful and we all enjoyed exploring.  We had hoped to be able to buy fish and chips from a local ‘chipper’ in the village of Blarney, but unfortunately it closed down a few months ago, so we were obliged to have lunch at McDonalds, which the students didn’t seem to mind…

We continued on our way north and reached Spanish Point, a small location 3km out of the town of Miltown Malbay at around 5.30pm.  Our host families came to meet us and we all went our separate ways.  We four women have the run of a very pleasant holiday cottage near the school.  Unfortunately two of the girls were not placed with a family immediately, but by Monday afternoon they had hosts and are having a ball now!

We were collected by Michael Lyons, our bus driver, at about 11am and headed on our journey to Cork , via the town of Kilkenny.  It was a picturesque journey through what is clearly quite good farming country.  Micheal told us that we were travelling through an area that just this week had held a ploughing competition, a very popular and prestigious contest that had drawn a crowd of over 60000 people.

We arrived in Kilkenny at about 2pm and did a self-guided tour of Kilkenny Castle, one of the few places I had not been before. It was lived in until very recently so is relatively modern in its furnishings compared to some of the other castles we will visit.  The grounds were lovely to walk around in.

We continued on to Cork, arriving at about 6pm. It is a pity that we don’t get more time to spend in Cork because it looks well worth exploring.  We checked into our youth hostel which had a better location than the one we stayed in last time, then walked into the centre of town to find somewhere for dinner.  The meal was lovely and dessert included banoffee pie, one of my favourites!

This morning we visited the archeology collection of the National Museum.  This is a fascinating collection of items and I have always enjoyed visiting it.  We began with an audiovisual presentation which was a detailed account of the development of crafts in Ireland over the centuries.  There are examples of Viking artifacts and ancient gold jewellry such as the famous ‘Tara’ brooch, but the most fascinating items for me are the ’bog people’; bodies that have been preserved by the peat bogs. The examples on display in the museum are men who were either sacrificed or who were clearly a threat to someone at some point and were murdered.  Even hair and fingernails were preserved.  The bodies are stained by the peat and look like tanned leather.

Australian author Monica McInerney met our group at the museum coffee shop at 11.30 and the students were thrilled to be able to spend time with her, particularly Casey, who is a big fan!  Monica advised the students of the best places to shop in Dublin, and presented them with a bag full of Irish goodies such as chocolates and biscuits.

The students had free time for the remainder of the day and lost no time hitting the shops.  Mandy and I both noticed a crowd gathering outside a shop where a band was clearly going to play.  Neither of us knew that the other was there, and Mandy actually wandered into the shop where she saw none other than Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones!  While she was too shy to approach him to pose with her for a photo, she certainly took plenty from a distance to prove she saw him. I, on the other hand, had no idea he was there, and just stood outside listening to the band. As it happened, one of the band members was Ronnie Wood’s son.  They were alright, but I don’t think I will be rushing to buy a CD! 

Today was Arthur Guinness day, celebrating 250th anniversary of the production of Guinness.  The streets in Temple bar were crazy of course, with many crowding into the bars to raise a toast at 5.59pm (1759 was the year production began).  We went to a nearby bar later in the evening, after we settled the students in the hostel and watched the celebrations, which consisted of a huge rage of bands performing on stages throughout the city, on the television.

My day began at 1pm with the discovery that I had contracted the gastro bug that has been going around… Not happy Jan!  It made my day pretty tough, and I can just hope that no one else is in line to get it…

The group started with a tour of the Guinness Storehouse.  The centre features the methods used to produce Guinness and includes a free drink (a pint for the adults, Coca Cola for the kids, much to their disappointment) at the roof-top bar.  The highlight for the group seems to have been the spectacular views from the bar and the gift shop, who made a chunk of change out of them.

Our next stop was a guided tour of Kilmainham Gaol, the site of a number of executions of political rebels from the 1916 Easter Uprising and the civil war of the 1920s.  Its a gloomy place of course (who would expect it to be cheerful?) but there were many interesting stories.

We used the remaining portion of our hop-on hop-off bus tickets and took the route back to Trinity College where we had our sandwiches and met Shane MacThomais for our walking tour which focused on the events of the 1916 Easter uprising.  We were all pretty tired, but Shane’s humour and story telling made it a fascinating experience.

The kids managed a couple of hours of shopping in their afternoon free time and then we changed for dinner at a local restaurant.

The rules about ‘normal sleeping hours’ went out the window because so many of us were unwell and exhausted.  Most of us had quietly passed out before 9pm.  I personally slept like a log and am feeling much more human today.  This hostel has the most boring breakfast on the planet, but being able to eat was an absolute pleasure!

We landed at Heathrow at 6.30 this morning and made it onto our flight to Dublin almost without incident – for a minute there we thought we had lost Grant, but he was more organised than we thought and was already on the flight!

A quick bus transfer into the city and we were at our youth hostel Kinlay House by 11.30am.  They had our rooms ready which was lovely and meant that we could change quickly and freshen up a little before we went to Toscana, a little Italian restaurant for a hearty meal (more than any of us could eat, but very, very tasty). 

At about 2.30 we hopped onto our ‘hop on hop off’ bus tour of the city, which is a great way to see the sites quickly and comfortably, and to keep the kids busy!  Our trip included a quick detour off the bus to see James Joyce’s house so Mr Swan’s English students could take photos of it.  I am surprised that Mr Swan didn’t set a reading of Ulysses as a part of their trip homework!

We returned to the hostel at 4.30pm which gave us time for showers (deliciously hot, but the tiny size of the shower alcoves and the resulting lack of modesty is proving to be a challenging  experience for all of us!) and a chance to unwind.  We have just taken the students out for a light meal; McDonalds I am ashamed to admit, but convenience is necessary when you haven’t slept for over 30 hours, and we didn’t need another hearty meal after our Italian feast.

So now it is 8.18pm and I think I am the only one still up!  I did tell the kids they absolutely, categorically were not allowed to go to bed until 8.30pm, but I think they have all disobeyed me…  Doesn’t bode well for the rest of the trip, now does it? 

Our delegation of 13 students, 2 teachers and 3 parents met at Adelaide airport for our 12.15pm departure to Sydney.  It was a bit of a rough journey to begin with, given the thunderstorms, but we eventually cleared them and settled in… mostly.  One of our students had come down with a 24-hour gastro bug during the night. She made it to Sydney without incident, but suffered a little on the leg to Singapore (she is doing much better now).  Another had eaten something that disagreed with her just before departing, and vomited all the way to Sydney, poor darling. She is back to normal now too!  I managed to assist both girls without joining in in sympathy so am pretty chuffed with myself!

We made our connection to the flight to London via Singapore comfortably, and our flight passed without incident. I think the record for most movies watched during the flight was Casey with 6 1/2 films.  I managed to watch ‘The Hangover’ (very, very wrong, but very, very funny), ‘Adventureland’ (quite liked it), ‘My Life in Ruins’ (meh…), ‘My Year Without Sex’ (about the relationship between a husband and wife in the year after she survives an aneurysm – quite good), and ‘Young Victoria’ (had already seen it, but enjoyed it again).

I think we all survived the flight comfortably… some even managed a few hours sleep!

Its been more than 12 months but I am off over seas again, this time with 13 students, 1 other teacher and 3 parents from my school in tow.  We are a delegation from my high school who will be visiting our sister school in Co Clare, Ireland.  We live in Clare, South Australia, a town that was settled by Irish settlers from Co Clare, hence the link.  Our sister school is St Joseph’s Secondary School in Spanish Point.

We leave on Monday, flying  via Sydney, Singapore and London to Dublin.  We plan to spend 3 days in Dublin seeing various sites, before taking a bus to Kilkenny and Cork.  From there we head up the west coast to Spanish Point which is a tiny location just out of Miltown Malbay.  We will spend just over a week here, staying with host families from the school and seeing local places of interest including Ennis, the Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, Galway and Connemara National Park.

From there we return to London for two days, touring Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and either Lords Cricket Ground or Kensington Palace.

We are all looking forward to the trip, although at the moment it doesn’t feel like it. Mandy, the other teacher, and I are exhausted and are desperately trying to finish Year 12 reports, write relief lessons for 5 days and manage everything else that needs doing.  Thank goodness for the long haul flight where we can relax in a (relatively) comfy seat, watch movies on demand and have food brought to us… bliss!

I will be trying to update this every couple of days during our tour to keep friends and students’ families updated.

England apparently haven’t had much of a summer this year, but it was 28 degrees when I arrived this morning from Bergamo! I am staying with my friends Hilary and Keith in Keyworth, a village near Nottingham and we are heading to the Lakes District tomorrow morning. It does promise to be a little cooler and damper up there!

Bergamo was a very pleasant city. I was really only able to look briefly around the old town which is perched on yet another hill! The newer city sprawls on the plains below and is a very pleasant modern city with nice wide tree-lined roads. I took the funicular up to the old town, being far too lazy to climb the stairs and had a wander around the streets. It was lovely and quiet, and I like the duomo; lots of lovely tapestries hanging on the walls.

I stayed over night in a B&B in an apartment, and my host, Alex, picked me up just before 8am this morning to drive me to the airport (part of the service he offers for a modest fee) to catch my Ryanair flight to Luton in England. Can I just say here, that yes, Ryanair is a cheap airline, but that doesn’t mean we have to behave rudely people! What a bunfight. It was as if people were afraid they might not actually get a seat! Oh, and teenagers around the world are rude and thoughtless, excluding my lovely students of course – the passports might be different but the hormones are all the same…

So after a lovely meal prepared by Hilary (strawberries on the sponge cake prepared by Claudia) I am ready for a good night’s sleep, and a lovely visit with my friends!

I am in Vernazza, one of the five villages of the Cinque Terre on the west coast of Italy. I have been here before, loved it then and still love it!  One day I will come here for at least a week, longer if I can manage it, and just hang out!  The food is good, the accommodation is good, the views are lovely and the people, inspite of all the tourists are welcoming!

I am staying at the quiet end of town which suits me; no trouble sleeping here!  My room is lovely; I am staying at Camere Fontanavecchia. Just up the lane as you head out of town is my favourite cafe, Il Pirata delle 5 Terre, which is run by two Sicilan brothers who make the most wonderful pastries for breakfast and serve fresh fruit slushies, such as fresh strawberry and fresh peach. Divine!

Last night I sat near a Canadian couple who turned out to be teachers and we shared a fantastic conversation. Today I wrote out the postcards for which my English Studies class are waiting anxiously (apparently – I got a ‘hurry up and send them’ email from Sarah this week), sat on the beach and read for a while, had a bit of a nap, ate fish and chips as I watched the sun set, and generally relaxed.  I am sunburned and well-fed and not really looking forward to leaving tomorrow!

I am taking the train to Bergamo tomorrow morning, and will be flying to Luton in the UK on Sunday morning.  I will pick up my hire car and drive to Nottingham where I will be stayng with Hilary and Keith, some teacher friends of mine. While it is sad to be leaving Italy, I am looking forward to company and conversations in English with people I have known for more than 30 minutes!

So now I can tick this one off!  Yes, I have seen the leaning tower of Pisa and can verify that it is indeed on a lean!  Acutally it is quite pretty, a bright pure white that contrasted beautifully with the surrounding emerald of the grass!  It was being cleaned while I was there so had a band of scaffolding around it (scaffolding is something you accept as normal when you travel Europe!). 

What was far more amusing was the sight of dozens and dozens of tourists posing strangly for photographs, every single one of them pretending to be propping the tower up.  Even more amusing was the lone security man shooing hundreds of people off that emerald green grass; no one ever thinks those bright red ‘keep off the grass’ signs apply to them.  While it wasn’t the highlight of my trip, the leaning tower is beautiful and worth visiting.