I'm Going on an Adventure (Alastair and Bini's Exchange Blog)

Woke late this morning at 9 to try and make up for all the missed sleep in last week or so. Breakfast was provided by the hostel and included cereal and toast. Spent a bit of time planning out today's route and ended up leaving at 11.  First stop the swatch store to get bini a new strap fro her watch. Thr lady her served us was very nice and had recently come back to Edinburgh after spending 5 years on Sydney. Has a good chat to her however bini watch strap is a little big as they refused to put an extra whole in it because it effects the strength of the strap. Australia didn't seem to care about that. Ah well it'll do and if it gets too annoying we can always ask somewhere else.  Next up we walked around the town continuing on a route. Went to a little cemetery and had an orange. Very peaceful. It's a wonderful sunny day today and the cemetery was beautiful.  Next we past went into  the elephant house Cafe. This is where J.K. Rowling wrote harry Potter. The p...

Got up at 3am for our flight at 6:30 to Edinburgh. Took a bus to airport which we had booked last night. Got to bus stop at 3:50 for 4 o'clock bus. Bus didn't come for another 30 minutes but we had plenty of time to spare. Got to airport and checked in luggage and got to airport fine. Plane was good and we both got Isle seats which was nice. We slept on the plane and had a very smooth landing. A huge contrast to our last flight.  Got off plane and had two bacon and brie panini and a lemon tart to share. Both of us were fairly slumped but revived after food. Got tram to Edinburgh and found the hostel after a bit of time. Couldn't check in till 2 (it was now 10) so we rested for a bit then went to the movie and watched Jurassic world something bini had wanted to see for a while. Movie was good although somewhat predictable.  After this we went back to the hostel and checked in. The dorm today is decent my bed is almost on the floor but comfy enough.  For dinner we went o...

Today we did a Nothern Ireland tour to Belfast, the giants causeway and carrick a rede rope bridge. We woke up at 6 and had cereal for breakfast. Got  to the bus stop at 6:50 and got really confused because a heap of bus companies picked up from here. However we found a girl from Taiwan with the same tickets as us and then asked around. The first bus that came was full so we got on the second bus. We sadly chose seats that were in the sun so we were in the sun the whole day.  Our tour guide was great. He was an Irish local who was well travelled having visited Australia, new Zealand and Brazil along with heaps of other places. He was a very charismatic and informative guide and gave us a huge amount of backstory to the Irish rebellion before we reached Belfast. The Irish rebellion war against the English was horrific and he also explains d how Belfast is split into Catholics and protestant people. The catholics in general want Ireland to be its own country where as the protest...

Woke up early for our train at 7:45 to dublin. Got train fine and noticed the difference in people going to kilarney vs going to dublin was amazing. People going to dublin were very closed and serious reminding us of London. Seems to be a trend in big cities.  Arrived in Dublin fine and got the tram to our air bnb with directions from the owner. It was our first air bnb and the owner was amazing wirh information and directions and the room is very good.  For the rest of the day we walked to trinity collage thought about going to see the book of kells bit decided not to. Then we went to the dublin museum called dublinia which slowed the history of dublin from when the Vikings first started a settlement here to current day. It was very good and very well made. Am enjoyable day and bini got some more stairs.... Her favourite. Then we went back to the hostel via a tourism shop where we bought our badges and key chains as we hadn't been able to find any information kilarney. A ...

Today we planned to do the gap of dunloe walk which involved a boat trip across the lakes of kilarney and a walk through a pass next the the tallest mountain in Ireland. Perhaps a little bigger than mount Lofty, we couldn't decide.  We woke up at 7 and enjoyed the lovely free breakfast at our accommodation. The black sheep hostel where we are staying is fantastic and by far the best hostel I've ever stayed in (thanks for the recommendation Kate). Every bed in the dorm has its own curtain, the mattreses are amazing (much better than the ones we had in leeds) and over all the people are wondeful. Sadly we never got to some of the recommended pubs as we were exhausted both nights.  Anyway onwards with the day, we first had to walk to the boat. It was a lovely walk through the kilarney national park and we saw a huge amount of bird life and deer, cows and sheep. Sadly no badger or otters. The boat left from Ross castle and the man driving was a lovely old man who'd been doing t...

Started the day with a very early morning bini woke up at 2 I woke up at 2:30 and we got an uber to the airport at 3:30am. Leeds Bradford airport was surprisingly amazing because everyone very friendly efficient and knew what they were doing. Which is very different from all the other airports. Had a chocolate croissant at 7 for morning tea.  The plane to dublin was short, sweet and empty. Bini ended up with two seats next to her so we got to sit together even though we weren't meant to. Landing in dublin was very hard but we made it.  Arrived in Dublin 5 hours until our train to kilarney. Ended up having a small sleep on the airport which made us both feel much better. Also we had our first lunch which was a ham and cheese panini for me and a caeser role. We then headed off to the train station and successfully got on our train. At the train station we picked up second lunch at 12 of another panini for me and a burger for bini.  On the train the girl opposite us was a lo...

Woke up this morning and went to the armed place as yesterday for breakfasts. We had a strawberry tart again and proffijes (little pancake things we also had them yesterday but I called them profiteroles my bad). We then went to Anne Frank's house and waited around till 10 o'clock for when our tickets were valid.  Anne Frank's house was fascinating and sad. It was amazing to see all the places she'd written about in her diary. It gave us both perspective about how they lived.  Once we finished Anne Frank's house we went a small little Cafe for lunch and had traditional bitterballen. Which is a Dutch deep fried meetball kinda thing.  Next we headed towards the central station to get a canal tour.  Just a side not the traffic in Amsterdam is chaotic, there are cars, trams and bikes going bloody everywhere and no one seems to be following any road rules. On the other side all the tourist areas have been insanely efficient and well organised. Now back to it  After l...