Naurwen's Journey

I guess many will be aware of this anyway, but I thought I'd post it:

http://www.earthhour.org/Homepage.aspx

Cross-posting to LWC

And here goes my first offical entry... and some mainly fun photos:

We had a good journey, good flight, everything went really well. Got our car super-fast, almost didn't find it as now you have to pick up the rental cars in a parking building near the airport and let's just say it's kind of hidden. We had a silver Nissan Micra which worked a treat - and we spotted this type of car over and over again all over Ireland. Must be a favourite? It looks smaller on the outside, but actually a lot fits in. Our luggage certainly did. :)

We drove to the first house we had rented... and got SO LOST!
You really need a navigator there. Once you know your way you're just fine, but searching the house for the first time... no chance.
The lady who owns it knew we were on the way and called me to ask if we were nearby and I was like yeah, in the village you told me NOT to go to. LOL. We really ended up there. So she came by car to pick us up. I guess she found it just as hilarious. :D
Some tea was awaiting us... and a really large but cosy and lovely house. I'd take that one anytime! Plus big spacious gardens and all *on your own*. No neighbours directly nearby yet you're not really far away from the next village (...) or main road. Handy!

In the morning, Sunday, we discovered we had a couple of cats to adopt.
The lady had warned us there were cats, wild-ish ones that her husband actually fed and looked after a bit. Figured out there were 3 fluffy white cats, one without a tail, one big-ish one and then a slender one. All of them too shy to be touched but nosy enough to peer into the kitchen, especially since there was a small bowl for them by the kitchen door anyway.
So... Nurdhegilwen's familiar with adopting-cats-for-a-week-in-Ireland - we did just that. LOL.
Some while later I discovered 2 kitten in the shed behind the house - one white and one - BLACK!!! :D SO cute. Unfortunately I've no photos of them as they were well hidden and the slender cat which I soon called *mum* was always guarding them, but I saw them play a couple of times. AW!
The big cat seemed to be the guardian of the house as he mostly slept by the kitchen door and usually was the first one to visit us as soon as someone started strolling around the house in the morning. >^.^<

Here go pics:

1st week - 1st house: My Bed I had to take a photo of it because it just looked rather nice... :) AND it was super-comfy! :D *misses it*	*our* Cats How many do you spot? :D
Close up Meow They were too shy to be touched, but still adorable and one of them which I think was a male kept on guarding our house. :)	Narnia in the Garden? Well... you never know, right? :D
Our Car, our Bear, our Tiger... LOL, the bear's mum's (yes, it's a teddybear dressed up as a gingerbread-man LOL), the tiger's mine. They were posing during the whole holiday. Here they're showing off our lovely (rented) silver (no, not a Volvo, sorry) Nissan Micra. :D	Boots! We had to buy some definitely-waterproof boots for the falconry lesson, so here they are... :) In the end we had to leave them in Ireland. They were really heavy and also big, no space in our luggage... but they should have a good home by now - we gave them to the lady who owns the 2nd house we rented and she found them lovely. :)
THE Restaurant of Navan You love Indian Food? You are in Ireland? Preferably near Navan? You'd like to visit a drool-icious restaurant? Here it is!!! *waves @ Nicole!!!*	Synchro Swans You won't believe when I say that I actually WAITED for them to do something else than scratch their tums for ages... both at the same time... in the end I gave up and took THIS photo instead. :)
Mini-Birdie Who spots the Robin? :D	Natural Beauty This one was really unusual - I've definitely not seen any such flower before.

Sunday was a tiny drama-day as Ed discovered one of the car's tires was losing air. I called the lady asking if she knew where we best could get that fixed and well, she came over along with her son who grabbed the tire and went off in search for *someone to fix it on a Sunday*. Bless them for their help!!!
In the meanwhile we were told to *go somewhere and enjoy the day* so we went to the next town to do some food shopping and also to visit a small local market that sold yummy homemade jams, scones, cheese, veggies and... small packs of scrabooking crafty things. They were thrown in between the scones. LOL.
So it was a bit of a lazy shopping Sunday *only* but way ok for us as all three of us were really tired after tough times at work and then travel-Saturday...

Arrived back at the house and got our tire back immediately, fixed by whoever for 7 Euro only. Woooooooooooh! :D
Lucky!!!

Well, and my next entries will be more adventurous, I promise. ;)

Um, can anyone tell me why LJ leaves such a huge empty space between my texts BEFORE the pics? In EVERY post??? :(

Hi everyone :)
As it's late this most probably will be a short entry only (hahah, everyone sighing in relief, eh?), but I really wanted to upload a couple of the photos I took this weekend NOW. More to follow! :D I certainly had some fun with my camera...
So... basically mum and me went walking up on the Uetliberg & further which is one of the hillsides near Zurich and following down the lake of Zurich (it's a large lake and rather long. and as I usually say, it's banana-shaped. :)). Here go the photos first:

	The Cablecar of Felsenegg I don't like this sort of heights... I survived taking this cable car twice this weekend though - so go me!
	View from Felsenegg Shows part of the lake of Zurich, down to Rapperswil... :)
	Blindschleiche! So... dictionary says in english that's a *blind-worm*. OK, might be right, name-wise. :) It's NOT blind though. I can't recall where its name comes from. It's more like a snake, but non-poisonous and as far as I remember it's not a snake, either. So... whatever... LOL We *met* this little fellow right in the middle of the way, sunbathing. :) and it's not THAT little, actually it's quite large. Like a not that long snake...
	Golden... I just thought this looked so beautiful...!
	On The Planet-Way... They just had to be photographed - as always. :) The tiger's mine, the zebra's mum's. And what they're sitting on is one station of the *planet-way*. This one's Neptune, and Neptune is also what they're leaning onto. :)
	Some view... ... a farm house up on the Uetliberg...
	Narnia? Ha! Seems we've got a Narnia-station up on Uetliberg! :D
	The Best View Of The Uetliberg ... or so they say. At least it's... um... green!? :D
	Bumblebee! It took me ages to catch one on a good photo as they're so fast. :)
	Another bzzzzzzzzzzzz And it took me ages for the camera to understand I wanted this little fellow on the picture and not all of the background... :)
	Love! *aw* :)

On Saturday we took the train to Adliswil, then crawled the rather steep way up to the cable car station... the cable cars are new, just got renewed a couple of... days ago? So... they're more spacious, but what's a pain for me (and surprisingly also for mum now!): the windows on them NEARLY go to the ground. Now I'm not too happy with heights though I can manage stuff like that (by either staring into space or cursing or... well, you get the picture?). But windows that go down so close to the floor... *YUCK* that's a real killer. I really can't stand that. It makes me go sick. So I spent all the time staring upwards and cursing the cable car for going so slowly (not that I'd have been happy with FAST, hahah). And I HATE it when the cable car moves over the pillars! I hate it! Makes my stomach meet my throat! ARGH!
ANYWAY...
I survived... On Saturday we walked all the way from the upper cable car station, Felsenegg to the Uetliberg station. I can't recall how far that is, but it's a nice walk on top of the hills. It was really hot, summer weather, and we really enjoyed that! :D As you can see in the pics the views and sights are really beautiful - if you ever come to Zurich or somewhere near the lake of Zurich, it's worth it going up there for some walking. :)
We met that *blind-worm* on the way which was wow cause I've only ever seen one twice before and both times they were speeding away. This one was sun-bathing. :) Cute little fellow. They aren't dangerous by the way. :)
Also noticed that the planet-way has been repaired - some missing planets are back up now. LOL. Wonder who stole the old ones? I mean... what for? That would be like... oy, I've got Neptune! How cool is that? duh...
The planet-way leads from the main Uetliberg-station to a little further than Felsenegg by the way, starting with the sun (Uetliberg-station) and ending with Pluto. All *stations* have descriptions of the planets, so it's really interesting. :) Nice idea, me thinks.
Well, on Saturday we later took the train down from Uetliberg and got back home... and after a bit of refreshing went to the football-fanzone in the city centre. Some nice food there (although most of it is - as usual - way overpriced!!!) and a good atmosphere (apart from some major weirdos, some *ladies* waltzing the whole fanzone in hope of finding some customers, if you know what I mean, huh?), though unfortunately the Netherlands lost the game... :(

Sunday!
Again we went up by cable car to Felsenegg and then decided we won't do it for a couple of months anymore. It just doesn't do getting up there being all green in the face. :p
We walked in the other direction this time, Buchenegg or something like that... and got to a really nice restaurant up there, Chnusperhüüsli (basically that would be the Swiss-german name for the house of the witch in *Hänsel & Gretel*). They were really nice there (note: Avoiding the restaurant at Felsenegg is highly recommended as they're not only unfriendly but downright rude and overpriced anyway) and we had some salad with grilled chicken. Though - as often - how they can call a meal *with fresh salad* and then have 1/2 of it from tinned stuff is beyond me. But it's a nice place and kinda affordable enough (for one up there etc.) and as said, friendly and special too (the house is really lovely inside, all wood and *old*).
We then followed a route down the hill which prooved as quite a challenge as it was VERY steep and very stoney thus slippery... managed though won't take that one again as it's not really fun walking there, and also near the road.
We had to ask some old man with dog how to get to the wildpark Langenberg and he seemed like SO surprised to see us there at all, he was almost stuttering. LOL. Dunno. C'mon, we didn't look THAT bad. LOL.
So finally we arrived at the wildpark. It's this one here (though unfortunately the page is in German only... duh!):
http://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/internet/gsz/home/naturraeume/wildpark_langenberg.html
It's one housing only animals that either live or have lived in Switzerland and the areas are rather large (for a Zoo...) so there are high chances you might only see about 1/3 of all animals or as today... hardly any as we had such hot weather. The entrance fee is non-existent, it's for free, but you can donate some money if you like.
What we ached for was some water to refresh ourselves and the restaurant to get something to drink AND ice cream. :)
After that we walked through the forest there to get to the train station and saw the wildcats on the way *awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww*!!! 2 not that brilliant (but at least some!) photos to follow! Never seen them before as usually they've been hiding. :D
And then saw the bunch of wolves lazying in the sun. *awwwwwwwww* Heeheeh. They SO couldn't be bothered. :)
Well, and finally hopped on the train to get back home.

It was brilliant to be outdoors both days, enjoying the sun and being out and away from everything. Might mean that I'll throttle someone at work tomorrow. LOL.
And yes, I'm aware of this actually being a LONG entrance. LOL. :D