A Look Back at 2017

We're all seeing these Snapchat memories of our best bits of the year (although I can't find my own yet) over on our stories and it's made me think back over the past year. I started out thinking "I haven't actually done a whole pile", to know smiling to myself while I'm writing this in the corner of the room while my boyfriend and his brother begin celebrating and feeling very proud of myself and all I have accomplished throughout the year.

It started off last year pretty much how it is exactly on this New Years Eve, we were both dosed with the flu but from then on things got better and better.

One of my biggest things to get over this year was finishing my one year course in college in Monaghan. Being so far from home by myself was a challenge but I got through it to when I took this photo after coming out of my last exam.. which I passed with Distinctions.

And then drove home for four hours by myself, after passing my driving test in the same week.











From then on it was adventure after adventure...
From Sligo to Derry and Donegal, Cork, Cavan, and Monaghan in between.

One huge adventure for me was traveling to Aberdeen by myself for a college interview. This was incredibly huge for me as a nervous flyer and have never gone anywhere by myself, and what an experience it was.

There's been plenty of parties and celebrations including my boy graduating from college and celebrating Kurdish Newroz with my besties and making it to Sea Sessions Festival for a third year... 

In March we celebrated our one year together, in style <3 

We moved into our first apartment together in Letterkenny.

And to finish off the year my best friend gave me a new best friend... 

It really was one incredible year and I appreciate every step off it.

Heres to 2018 and making more dreams become reality. 

Discovering Derry

Travelling is what runs through my brain pretty much 23/7 (the other hour being about food). I am so ready to give up everything I own to travel the world but realistically I'm going to finish college first and try and have some form of traveling money to my name. So while we wait to explore other countries, we're exploring as much as we can of our own, Ireland.
Since I got my full license I don't think we have stayed at home more than two days in a row as the traveling bug just doesn't stop itching us to find new places. And this week Derry was that new place.
Neither of us has ever been there before and since moving up North we actually haven't been to a lot of places nearby so it's been exciting to take off for the day not knowing what we'll come across.
Turns out Derry is only 25 minutes drive from us so it was a must on our list to explore and that we did.
We arrived into the city completely lost and not knowing where to go so we pulled up at a car park by the river and from there explored on foot. It being a Sunday, we expected shops to be shut (and also neither of us really like browsing shops) so we aimed at discovering the streets and outdoor attractions. First, we came across the city wall which really amazed us both as surprisingly we don't hear about this in Irish history (at least I didn't) and couldn't believe the size of it stretching most of the city and in such good condition with cannons placed throughout the walk along it. Not only was the city wall amazing, the views from on top of it were even more breathtaking. We walked along the wall for ages, being blown away around every corner until we decided to come off it at a stairway and take some old cobbled streets.

There we did give in to the window shopping curse and browsed some huge shopping centers that were so Christmassy with the snow outside, Christmas songs playing inside and ques of children waiting to see Santa (who had an incredible Ice castle I must add). With a book for my brother and some games for himself (and me too) bought, we grabbed some food as it was starting to get dark and made our way back to the car.

Some distractions later and it was nightfall. We came across the most beautiful building called Guildhall and had to pop inside to check it out. Outside it was all of the Autumn/Winter feels with the deep red of the building and leaves with snow on the ground and inside it was golden and warm with the colorful windows and green Christmas decorations wrapped beautifully around the staircases.  After meeting a lovely man that told us we had to see what was upstairs we found the most breathtaking grand hall with a huge organ. What was really exciting about this was we were the only people there so it felt even bigger and special to us.
We also found a council chamber although we're still not sure if we were meant to be in there.

Outside we did what we said we would do from the moment we saw it, walk across the Peace Bridge. It is such a unique shape and absolutely ginormous we couldn't miss it and it was the first thing we saw as we arrived in Derry and Rich said "we're crossing that", so that we did. It was dark now and chilly but so peaceful crossing the calm water along with lots of people and their dogs. After strolling across halfway (well we did have to come back) we finally got to the car and headed home, this time taking a different route than we came which was one thing I loved as a kid, my dad would always take 'the long way home'.

Another day, Another Adventure

The road trip from our hometown to our new town is some trek (3 hours) and we pass some beautiful sights along the way. We've done the trip quite a few times now and every time we say 'gosh we have to go there some time' but every time we're just aiming at getting home... until recently. We specifically left home early to spend time stopping at all the places on our route. I mean yes we could have done them on separate days and we could have waited until Summer and not during an orange weather warning in the middle of winter in Ireland, but Yano yolo.

First stop was Mullaghmore in Sligo. I remember passing through here years ago on holidays but the main reason we went here was because from the main road you can see this incredible castle on top of a hill looking out to sea and we wanted to see it up close. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to the castle as its actually still in use with some people living there but we pulled up by the pier to take a walk and nosey around the village. Now I don't know if this is due to the weather warning, it being so windy we got blown over or if this village is always like this but it was DESERTED, like completely no one else around, all business closed no other moving people as we pulled up it felt pre-apocalypse. As we piled on all our layers (while fighting the wind) this beautiful collie came out of nowhere and sat beside us then proceeded to follow us around our whole walk, it was emotional leaving him. We took a walk down to the pier very briefly as the second we rounded the sea walls we were getting blown away but we had enough time to take some photos (which I don't have many as they didn't save for some reason) and spot a cat very randomly chilling on the rocks down by the water (he was okay I checked, just enjoying his trip to the seaside). We then went up the road a bit to take a quick walk along the beach before the clouds got even darker and our hands froze.

After this very cold adventure, we then went back on the road heading for Ballyshannon. Now no offense to the people of BS but gosh this is another deserted town. We took the quickest walk around looking for somewhere to eat (and pee) but everything was shut down and old so went back on the road heading out of town but came across a massive bridge that Richard just had to cross over (with me hanging on to him terrified of all lorries that went over us). On the bridge, we looked out on a massive dam which we had seen from the road and always wanted to check out so it was one thing ticked off in this place. 

We then went on to Donegal town, which was again a little bit of a let down as we expected it to be the heart of Donegal but it was more like the fingernail. We did find a lovely little cafe down an alley (not dodgey) and had lovely soup and sandwhiches before getting back on the road and heading home this time. 

This is what lifes all about isnt it? getting out their when ever you can and exploring, seeing and doing as much as you can. And we hope to do alot more of this.