Climbing Dalkey Hill. Twice.

On Sunday last week, after the market, Kalen and I went to climb Dalkey Hill, which is just up the road from my apartment (when I say "up" I really mean it. It's quite a steep climb just to get to the hill). In the morning of course it was lovely and sunny, and then as soon as we left to go climbing, it suddenly clouded up and looked as if it would rain. We went anyways, and didn't get rained on, but most of the pictures didn't turn out very well because the hill was covered in a huge cloud that blocked most of the view. Very disappointing. But the next day I had nothing to do after school and it was extremely sunny and quite warm, so I climbed up myself. The pictures turned out much better, and the views were pretty spectacular.

Here's the cloudy day first:

Starting up, it's very green this time of year.



It's quite high up, but we'll make it. Not taking that route, though. We'll stick to the path. Some people do like to come here for rock climbing, but that's a little ambitious for us.



This part of the cliff is really neat, it's like part of it fell off, but I can't see where it could have gone. Very mysterious...



This is the big cloud that swooped in and blocked most of our view.



A cloudy view of Co. Dublin.





And a cloudy view of Co. Wicklow.











There's lots of things growing on the hill. Like ivy...



And funny looking trees...



And colourful berries.



There were blackberries growing everywhere, like on Bray Head. We ate some of these ones too, but they weren't as good. I suppose blackberry season must be coming to an end soon.

These little plants were growing everywhere too. We didn't know what they were, but thought they looked like something out of Dr. Suess.



There were some pretty little flowers, like this thistle.



And what could be more Irish?...



So that's pretty much all we got because it was so cloudy and we couldn't really see much. Stupid Irish weather. Though I suppose that the misty/foggy/cloudy pictures are probably more accurate pictures of Ireland than the beautiful sunny ones. :P
But I have to show you the sunny pictures anyways, because they're pretty impressive. I'd also like to point out that on Monday, I took a more difficult path up the hill. My legs had pretty much turned to jelly by the time I got home. It was very steep.

Here I go...



On the way up...I can see Dublin through the trees.



It's very green and lovely in some places...



While other places are hardly green at all.



This is the path I took. It's actually that steep.



As I climbed up, I saw a little tiny barely-noticeable path that sort of strayed from the real path. It looked like it led to a nice view of the ocean. So, I fought my way through the bushes...



And got much more than a view of the ocean...



I also got a very impressive view of Co. Wicklow...







A very impressive view. I couldn't tell what that church (to the right) is doing way up on top on the mountain, though.





Then the problem was that I had climbed around taking pictures, and had to figure out how to get back to path without getting killed by these horrible thorny bushes.



It took some time, but I made it back to the path eventually. *phew* Alright, time to keep climbing.



Over on the other side of the hill, you can see Co. Dublin.

















I can see my apartment building in this picture. No, it's not the purple house, though I wish it was.



Things get awfully overgrown up near the top of the hill.



Back around to the other side of the hill, but staying closer to the path this time, up at the time there's a very nice little spot where I'd like to have a picnic.



This is the view:

to the right...





to the front...



to the left...





Very lovely. Now it's time to head back down.









Hard to believe I was just up there...



That white rock is so smooth...like it's been worn down by the sea. Only it's on a mountain. Odd.



There's some very pretty plants on the path back down.







Back at the bottom again. Looks like autumn to me!



So there you have it. Two trips up and down Dalkey Hill. My legs are still resting before the next adventure. I think we're off to the zoo this weekend. And the pubs. Can't forget that part. So I only get a short break from endlessly posting pictures. See you all again after the weekend, when there's another post due.

More photos! OMG so many photos.

Now that my internet is up and running, I've been very busy trying to get all my photos organized for uploading and posting. It's hard to have time for anything else.

I've just returned from my first day of teaching practice at a..."Montessori" school here in Dalkey. How they get away with calling it a Montessori school I've no idea. It's not. And none of the children are older than 3. One boy will be 4 in January, but that's as close as it gets. And there are a couple who have just barely turned 2. Can you say "chaos"? I sure can. But I guess it gives me a pretty good idea of how I don't want my own school to be run. Just sayin' is all.

Anyways, back to the photos.

I've been going to the Sunday Farmer's Market at People's Park in Dun Laoghaire/Sandycove every week, and it's probably my favourite place in Ireland so far. It's pretty freaking sweet. There are tons and tons of stalls set up with people selling everything from books to clothing to jewellery to pottery and everything in between. There are a ton of food stalls with everything you can think of, some more like restaurants, where you buy food to eat right away, and others more like shops, where you buy food to take home. Seriously, you can go for a meal there and choose between Indian, Thai, Japanese, Crepes, Smoothies, Sausages, and lots more. There's a big big organic produce market over on one side, where I've been buying all my vegetables. Yum!

Here's some pictures of the market. You can see the leaves starting to change colour on the trees now.













The produce market:



The Raw Foods stall. You've never had chocolate like this before.



So that's where you can find me every Sunday.

A couple weeks ago, Kalen and I went wandering around and exploring in Sandycove after the market. It was cold out, but very pretty.

We walked down the pier...





That funny round building is James Joyce Tower. We wanted to go in, but apparently it's only open from May to September or something silly like that. The sign didn't say why.



I love this random sculpture on the pier.



That's Sutton and Howth on the other side of the bay.



There's Kalen!



The sun setting over Dun Laoghaire



We found a little beach where there was actually some crazy people swimming. In the Atlantic Ocean. In Ireland. In October. Not for me, thanks.







We left the beach and found this bizarre pay toilet/space pod on the side of the road. I can't even express to you how strange and out of place it looked there. So weird.



Further along we came across 40 Foot, which is an area along the coastline where people swim. Again, there was some crazies in the water. It was pretty rough out there, it didn't seem like the kind of day when swimming in the ocean is a good idea.





Splash!



And that was our adventure for the day. We walked back to the DART station after that.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a big party held as the Grand Opening for the new location of This is Knit. Their original location is in Blackrock, and that's where we meet on Thursdays for our weekly knitting night which is fantastic. They recently opened a new location in Powerscourt Mall, in Dublin. Knitters came from all over to congratulate Jaqui and Lisa on the new shop, drink some wine (lots of wine) and sit down to work on The Big Knit. For those of you who are umfamiliar, the Big Knit is a fundraising campaign put on by Innocent Smoothies and Topaz Petrol. Basically, they're calling on all the knitters in Ireland to knit up as many tiny little hats as they can before October 22nd. They're aiming to get 20,000 of them. Once they have all the hats, they're going to sort through them and start placing them on the lids of all their smoothie bottles and then ship the smoothies off the the shops as usual. For every smoothie with a hat that's sold, Innocent and Topaz will donate €1 to Age Action to help elderly people stay fed, clothed, active, and healthy over the winter months. The knitting group has been hard at work knitting lots and lots of little hats.



There's lots of room to get creative, as you can see. I knit 8 all together, and they're in the process of being sent off to Innocent now. Forgot to take pictures, sorry. They were awfully cute, though.

So there's this restaurant in Dalkey, that's supposed to be very good, but I'm a little confused by the name...



What exactly to guinea pigs have to do with fish?

Alright, this is already a very long post, so I think I'll have to save the Dalkey Hill pictures for a separate post. This is what happens when I have no internet for so long. I promise I won't usually make you read this much in one day.

Finally! I have real internet!

Alright, my internet is finally fixed (no thanks to Vodafone) and now it's down to business. I've got masses of pictures that have been piling up over the past few weeks, so I had to upgrade my Flickr account.

The new apartment is very nice, but living all by myself is something I'm not sure I'll ever really get used to. To make a long, whiney story short, I don't like it. But that's not really what this post is about.

For obvious security-related reasons, I'm not posting up pictures of the outside of my apartment building. You'll all just have to see it when you come visit me. Also, I took these pictures a couple weeks ago, and I've made some decorating changes since then, but you get the general idea. I'll show you around inside. Come on in...

This is what you see as you come in the door. Straight ahead is the bathroom, to the left is the sitting room/office/dining room/kitchen, and around the corner is the bedroom.



Here's the sitting room...



And the rest of it... (the bookshelf wasn't made yet)



Here's the beginnings of the bookshelf



Ta-da! It's still standing today! Even with books on it! I'm amazing.



Here's the office area. I <3 my computer. Don't worry, that tacky vase of styrofoam fruit was one of the first things to go.



Here's the dining room area.



This my ninja kitchen. There are appliances hiding in there, you just can't see them. They're like ninjas.



Where's the fridge?



Surprise! Ninja fridge!



Where's the washing machine?



Surprise! Ninja washing machine!



This is the ninja dishwasher, but I didn't take a picture of it because it was on at the time. However, I'll never use it again becuase it's a piece of crap and doesn't actually wash the dishes.



This is my super awesome tea set. I <3 it. Except that the teapot doesn't so much pour the tea...it's more like it spits the tea. Or throws it. It kind of goes everywhere no matter how carefully you pour it. Oh well, as long as it looks pretty. I also have two mugs that match it. I keep meaning to go get two more.



Here's the bathroom. The tub is huge



Here's some more of the bathroom. I'm thinking of getting an aloe plant to put on that windowsill.



And the bathroom again.



Into the bedroom! I got these little plastic drawers to keep my stuff organized.



My awesome giant closets. I finally got a chest of drawers to put in there, but I haven't taken a picture yet. It fits pretty damn perfectly though.



I <3 my new bed linens.



I also love this big shelf/windowsill above my bed. I've since removed the stupid fake plant and put a real one there. Hooray!



So there you have it. This is where I live now. I'll try to make another blog post later with pictures of the Sunday farmers market that I go to every week, and the pictures from when Kalen and I climbed up Dalkey Hill. But now I need to go make some supper before knitting.