And we're off...again (and finally)!

Hello long lost blog followers!  We are on the road again (internationally), and hence, we're updating our blog.  Despite having tons of fun in the States, we've decided that this blog will chronicle our international adventures, and here we are on another!

It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since we returned from New Zealand, but, as you know, the travel bug bit us hard.  We've spent the past 10 months saving and planning our future adventures.  We're thinking that we'll travel internationally in the spring and the fall and save the summer for domestic fun.  We've got ideas of places to go through the fall of 2013 (though more suggestions are always welcome) and decided that 2012 will take us to...Ireland and Berlin!  Berlin is the fall trip, so we'll save that for later.  Right now, we're sitting at Logan Airport in Boston ready to board our flight to Dublin!

We'll be in Ireland for 8 days and are very, very excited to see, what we think will be, the New Zealand of the northern hemisphere - a green island full of cliffs, sheep and stunning landscapes.  We look forward to blogging from the road when we stumble upon Irish wifi and have stopped drinking Guinness and hanging out in pubs long enough to compose our thoughts.

In case you''re like Mama and Papa Barrantes and want to follow our itinerary via Google Earth, here's a quick preview of what we'll be blogging about.  We're flying in and out of Dublin, and while in Dublin, we're doing a free walking tour (that comes highly recommended - thanks, Aeriel!), touring the Guinness brewery (obviously - recommended by everyone), and eating fish & chips (oh how we have missed thee, let me count the ways).  We're taking a day trip north of Dublin to Newgrange (the Stonehenge of Ireland) and then renting a car and heading west to Galway.  After a few days doing who knows what (in addition to the Cliffs of Moher and catching a provincial rugby game), we'll drive on down the road to Limerick.  From there we hope to explore the Dingle Peninsula and a few castles.  After a few days, we'll drive back to Dublin and then head home.

Aer Lingus...take us away!

One of the things I love about Facebook is that when you post questions like "We're going to Ireland - what should we see?," your fabulous friends respond with lots of good suggestions.  The west of Ireland (Galway and Limerick) won by a landslide, so that's where we're headed.  People also warned us about driving - on the left on skinny roads - but we had a year of practice at that in NZ, so that's the one thing we know we'll do fine!  We're looking forward to hanging out in pubs, drinking delicious Guinness, and listening to Irish music. 

Emerald Isle, here we come!!!