Sunsets – Warming up the Irish Winter

The Deck of Cards

Last weekend I had 3 friends visiting from Holland and brought them to colorful Cobh for the day. On of my favorite things about Cobh is the ‘Deck of Cards’, a row of beautifully painting houses stacked up on a hill overlooking the town below. With the stunning St Colman’s Cathedral perched on a hill behind them, the houses make for some pretty amazing photos.

What do you think , fancy living here?

Flash Mob Cork: Dance into the weekend

Summer in Ireland this year fell on Friday 10th August, and what a beautiful summer it was. As luck would have it, some wise soul in Cork decided to organize a Flash Mob in Grand Parade so we could ‘dance into the weekend’ in style!

Normally flash mobs gather quickly, do something wacky, then quickly disperse. This one was different…and better! It lasted nearly an hour and everyone just danced their socks off, basking in the sunshine, and moving up and down and around the street to the beat, with not a car in the world! Here are a few pics I took before joining in the fun myself!

Happy Weekend Everyone!

 

A rainbow of colour!

316 semi-naked painted bodies…a new Guinness World Record!

Cork Naked Bike Ride 2012

Body Painting World Record

This Saturday, the wonderful people from “Cork Body Painting”, are aiming to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records by body painting more than 264 brave Corkonians (and anyone else who turns up!).

The chance to get naked (again!!) with hundreds of others and get painted by cool artists from head to toe? YES PLEASE!

As you can guess I signed up straight away and have since seen that lots of my outgoing couchsurfing friends have signed up to! I really hope the day is a success so I can tick off “Set a World Record” from my never-ending Bucket List! I have already picked out what colours I want to be painted but still need to decide on a cool design so let me know if you have any ideas!

If you want to sign up, you must do it before MIDNIGHT today!You can send an email to corkbodypaintingguinnessrecord@gmail.com or check out their facebook page. If you are feeling REALLY brave you can also sign up for the Cork Naked Bike Ride taking place on 3pm on the same day!

Some Models involved in promoting the world Record Event!

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

Some photos from my Cousin Caroline’s Wedding last weekend.

My beautiful family!

My Sister, Aoife the Flower Girl and Moi!

 

Drive on James!!

POSER? MOI?!

With the beautiful bride

 

Caroline on her big day

The happy couple in Mums garden!

Posers!

Kiss time!

Running away!

Farmers daughters!

Cake time!

Bridesmaids!

 

A Balloons Eye View

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that last Thursday I lost my amazing GoPro camera, after attaching it to 23 helium balloons, and watching in dismay after the wind snapped the rope and it floated high into the sky over county cork. (You can read about all the drama HERE.)

What you might not know is that I was stopping at nothing to get that camera back! I contacted the local radio station, and used the power of social media to get the word out to everyone in the area to keep an eye on the skies for a crazy contraption consisting of 23 balloons, a styrofoam mount and a tiny little camera!

On Good Friday I had an email from a girl I sister went to school with, Debbie Deane, saying her husband had found my camera in one of their fields, over 20km from my house! I was speechless. My parents did not know what was going on as I jumped up and down mouthing silently and pointing at the computer. We simply COULD NOT believe someone had found it. I jumped in my car and drove down to collect it, with a smile on my face that was not going to be leaving anytime soon.

I had a great laugh with Debbie and her husband as they told me about how they had been checking up on a sunburnt cow when they spotted the balloon in the field and went to investigate. They then went home, put the memory card in their computer and looked through the photos to see if they could recognize the owner but had no luck. Later, Debbie’s brother arrived, and recognized me straight away! An Easter Miracle!

When I arrived home I couldn’t wait to look at the photos and I was not disappointed! There were over 900 photos of the Cork country side, as the camera took a photo every 2 seconds on its crazy adventure in the sky. Next thing I knew I had National Newspapers contacting me, saying they wanted to publish the story! You can read the Irish Examiner article HERE, and the Irish Independent article HERE.

My friends could not believe my good luck and one remarked, “You come home for 1 week and you make the papers!” Life really is one big adventure.

Mapping the balloons journey from my house to Innishannon

How to lose 300 Euro in 3 seconds

With so many balloons and color, you would think this would be an uplifting tale but sadly it’s the devastating story of how my 3 month old, 300 Euro GoPro Camera is now floating over the skies above Ireland, or maybe even over the Atlantic!

Yesterday, the gloriously sunny day that it was, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to attach my camera to a load of balloons and attempt to get some great aerial shots of my hosue and farm. Half a tank of helium, 23 balloons and a little help from my younger cousins and our kitchen was a maze-like rainbow of colour and string!

I made a mount for the camera using some old styrofoam, and attached the mount to the balloon bouquet using 4 evenly cut lengths of twine. With one end tied to the camera mount, and the other end tied to my 10 year old cousin (my thinking behind this was unless the wind is strong enough to lift my cousin off the ground my camera will be safe!) we were ready to get going.

As we slowly let the leash out more and more, the balloons, mount and camera slowly rose higher and higher above the house, taking what I hope would awesome aerial shots of the house, garden and farmland.

Then suddenly, in front of my eyes, a gust of wind yanked the whole masterpiece, the twine snapped, and as we all jumped and screamed trying to grab the end of the line, we watched as my amazing camera (my pride and joy, ,my most prized possesion) glided quickly up into the clear blue sky. Within minutes it had risen hundreds of feet and was only a tiny speck in the distance, drifing away from me and towards the local town!

I ran inside, grabbed my car keys, and frantically drove to the other side of town to see if I could catch a glimpse of what direction it was going. The trip was fruitless and I drove home slowly, feeling a mixture of sadness and shock, in total disbelief at what had just happened! I mean the whole thing was almost comical!

 

I text the local radio station, RedFM, and they rang me back straight away, so I could speak live on air and tell their listeners my little dilemma! Within an hour somebody text in saying they could see the balloons flying over the banteer area, well over 50 miles from whereI live! Although this got my hopes up, I soon realised that within another hour, if the wind kept blowing in a North Easterly direction, my dear camera would be breezing over the Atlantic Ocean! Devastated.

RIP GoPro, at least your farewell was a colorful one!

RIP GoPro, Safe Trip across the Atlantic!

I HEART strangers!

On my way to Australia last November I had a great experience where I befriended a stanger on the plane from Cork, who turned out to be a mega rich business man who employed over 800 people in China. An experience that can be read about here.

Almost a year later and as my trip to Korea begins, I find more strangers coming to my rescue. Firstly, on the train from Cork to Dublin, 10 minutes into the journey I realise I’ve forgotten my phone. My precious other half who I honestly don’t think I can live without.

Farewell my precious...

I am devastated and the girl sitting opposite me notices and decided to help me out. The girl beside me also feels my pain and lends me her phone to try and track the wherabouts of my own. After several calls, and even an attempt to contact people via wireless internet on one girls laptop, I sadly never did get my phone back but I feel I did succeed in making 2 new friends so it wasn’t all bad!!

On to Heathrow and a dreaded 5 hour stopover. As all the restaurants were super busy so I was asked to share a table with a few other travellers. No problemo. I got talking to the guy opposite me, mainly because the cocktail he was drinking looked interesting so I decided to order the same(!), and he turned out to be a very good-looking and interesting Irish guy (if you are reading this…HELLO!). We had a great conversation about work, travel and life, as he asked me why I had decided to jet off to Korea for a year. As he stood up to leave, he informed that he had been so intrigued listening to me talk and was sad he had to depart that he  payed for my meal and drink as a farewell gift…who said chivalry is dead?!

Another great start to an adventure overseas.