From Snow to Sun

This last weekend in Galway was really cold, and on Sunday it snowed a bit. Surely it is not really colder than New Zealand gets, but I am sure it never gets so slippery back home. I wasn't expecting the ice, it was all over the footpaths and if you didn't watch where you were stepping you could so easily fall over.


I did a very small amount of Christmas shopping because this year I am using the whole being in Ireland thing as an excuse to send no presents (and thus buy no presents). I will do presents next year. But I will definately get them early, you should see the crowds here!


One thing that I have really noticed as being different from Christmas in New Zealand is the huge number of buskers, carolers and people just collecting money in general. They are everywhere.


Anyway the travel was nothing new. I had never been to Heathrow before but really it was nothing special, not like Singapore Airport. Plus the people at the security check were rude and really rough with my computer. You would thing that if they want to bang them around like that they would make the trays out of foam or something. And the internet wasn't even free! I didn't sleep at all which was not very good. But on the Etihad flight they gave us Haagen Daaz ice-cream, it was really good. Although I think Basking Robbins and Ben&Jerrys is better. If only they sold it all in bigger tubs like back home.


Now I am in Abu Dhabi where it is winter but still about 25 degrees. Yay. Except that Abu Dhabi is really smelly and full of people. Lots of tall buildings, lots of cars, heaps of tooting. As if that's actually going to help. It's warm out but not too hot for the most part, and sometimes even a bit cool. I am very tired though, I think it must be harder to move forward through time zones than backward.