I went out to meet a Spanish friend for lunch yesterday and ended up staying out til past midnight, thanks to all the free TradFest events in Temple Bar. I met up with a load of awesome couchsurfers and spent hours walking around from pub to pub listening to all the great traditional Irish music and even had a free Irish dancing lesson in The Arlington Hotel!

Today was awesome. It made me realise how easy it is to make a big impact by doing something really simple; by looking up! As I only found out about the Global Flash Mob event 3 days ago, happening in 18 cities all over Europe (and perhaps elsewhere), I knew it would be difficult to get a big crowd. However through promotion on couchsurfing and facebook, over 50 people turned up this afternoon for ...

Phil emailed me today. Bad news. He made in from Uganda to Kenya but missed the only bus to Ethiopia. He is now planning on hitching a ride with some Somali truckers he met at a camp in Nairobi…sounds seriously dodgy! So I guess I will have to wait here in Addis Ababa until he at least makes it over the border, then I can make my way South.

So I have been in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, two days now and I’m happy to say I’m alive and well! It is the 12th August 2007 Western Time, but the 1st of December 1999 Ethiopian time. Confused? Yea, me too! Ethiopia uses the older Coptic Calendar which is 7-8 years behind the Gregorian calendar used by most of the Western World. They also have 13 months, 12 months of 30 day ...

So last weekend I organized a FREE HUGS day in Dublin. About 10 or more couchsurfers showed up, and despite the cold wind, we had a fantastic few hours hugging randomers….I must have hugged over 200 people! Free Hugs is a funny thing. At the start, people are nervous, or scared or embarrassed. But once you get or give your first few hugs, you start smiling more, become relaxed and really op ...

Okay I just saw a video on the RTE News that made me catch my breath, and not in a good way. The exact bungee jumping experience I blogged about a few days ago, the Victoria Falls Bungee on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, caused mayhem today when the cord snapped and an aussie girl plunged into the crocodile infested waters below. She had to try to swim to safety with her legs tied togethe ...

(Taken from my Kenyan Diary which was written 5 years ago…the musings of a somewhat naive  20 year old, with big dreams of someday being a published travel writer! Enjoy!) Imagine a small cowboy town in northern Kenya, ten hours away from any form of civilization. The atmosphere of this outback town was ecstatic; Turkana tribesmen adorned in animal skins, and hundreds of coloured beads, her ...

White water rafting down the mighty Nile, Bungee-jumping the Bujagali falls, tracking Gorillas in the mist…to name just a few of the things we did not do in Uganda! It was a last minute decision we made to venture west out of Kenya and cross the border into Uganda. A 30 hour bus journey with armed gaurds, some random shooting, and a bus that smelt like vomit and we arrived in Eldoret. We had ...

Hidden away in central Africa, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe lies one of, if not the greatest, natural woders of the world. Known locally as “Mosai O Tunya” or The Smoke That Thunders, Victoria Falls is the most awe inspiring sight that I have ever seen.

I have to wonder sometimes why we put ourselves through hell, why I chose to endure sky rocketing temperatures, no electricity, no water and a culture unlike anything I have previously experienced rather than staying at home in Ireland like most sane people my age?! How is it that we can endure such body ache, such frustration, such pain and keep coming back for more? We don’t just simply gi ...