Todays tour began at 730 AM in Dublin city. We woke up at the crack of dawn and dragged because it was soooo early. We left the house at 705, and got off the tram to the city at 7:30. You can guess it folks, we were once again running late. We started a dead on sprint to the pick up area - then noticed this other man running -so we did not feel alone ;) It was nice to because we have wanted to start running for a while now - what better time to start then now! We made it to the bus by like 7:35 and they immediately go - Jones, Pezzino? We must of been the last two:/ Sorry bus! But do not worry - we paid for this mistake the second we walked on the bus and there were only 2 seats left in the dead back of the bus in between two women who for whatever rude reason - refused to move their feet off our seats? It was the strangest thing!\
We were soooo squished - but we did not care because we were ready for our adventure:)
Not 15 minutes into the trip a bag flew from the upper bag holding area and smacked me in the head -- hahahah go figure - I really think this trip has showed me just how unlucky I am! Thank God Cayla came with me because she is so dang lucky it evens out and anything she does just works out so I just go along with her ;) haha! Oh but not to mention - those girls in the picture below us - were beyondddd obnoxiously loud playing a game that teaches them English (They are from Italy) - so a nap was completely out of the question -__- haha!
Our first stop was going to be Belfast per our itinerary but it was only 930 and the tour guide told us it would be dead - so it is better to go to the Carrick a Rede first. I was very much so okay with this as I was sooo excited for the rope bridge! The bus driver explained history as we were driving through Belfast. He explained how 32 areas or counties belong to Ireland, but the UK still has 6 in Northern Ireland ("The Republic of Ireland") so it is pretty divided by loyalists and then people who want Ireland as their own country. To further the division - the city is very divided into Catholic and Protestant areas with hundreds of peace walls. There is even a peace wall that cuts directly through a CHILDREN'S playground!!!! We could easily identify the different areas because Protestants have the English flag whereas the Catholics use the Irish flag.
We drove past the ship yard where the Titanic was built - it has been 101 years since it sank in 1912. Interestingly enough, it cost maybe 8 million to make the ship, but the movie was >200 million to produce - this seems a little twisted???
After about 3 hours of driving, we arrived at the Carrick A Rede. You could see Canada from here our tour guide said - which made me question his knowledge - haha but then he was like JOKE, its Scotland! How cool:) By the way - it was a GORGEOUS day - the sky and clouds are so so amazing
The bridge was not scary as long as you did not look down - only 8 people allowed on at once, and if the winds were bad, it was shut down!!!
Well there was this man on our bus who was traveling alone and asked us to be his picture partner - he would take our pictures if we took his. Well we found ourselves our dream man!! How perfect for us:) He kept taking pictures alone, so he asked if I would join him for a picture as his "girlfriend" haha - how could I turn him down;)? This will show if Jeremy actually reads this or not - I did not tell him this story yet hahaha!!
It was an absolutely gorgeous day out, but on this dang rock it was like hurricane season. It was soooo windy just on this rock. I thought I would blow over!!!!
Scotland is behind me!!
Finally, the gusts of wind stopped so I could get one normal looking picture!!!
The next stop was the Giant's Causeway. It is a large stretch of staircase shaped rocks and apparently was from lava that cooled over 65 million years ago!! Of course there are many other tales explaining how everything happened. This place was absolutely incredible though!! It is so crazy how the rocks are and how it all came together - how does stuff like this happen - really makes you wonder!
One day when Jack & Jeremy were in Pitt, they taught me hard-core-par-core? or something like that - well I tried it then and fell on my face - should have learned. I tried it here...I fell on my knees - right on the rocks. Good golly, it hurt sooooo bad! But it was still pretty amusing!
Just look at these rocks - it is not even like they aren't sturdy - you could literally kick it so hard and they will not move, you'll most likely just hurt your foot. they are not separate rocks, they are all connected and it is the most interesting site I've seen in a long long time!
At this point, we had the option to keep walking forward to that cliff behind us, or we could turn back for food since we only had an hour left at this place. We said we had to continue on and forget the food. So we continued our journey with the goal of making it to the very end of the pathway!!!
We made it back with 5 minutes left to get ourselves some food!!!! Thank goodness!! We earned this meal!!!
And finally, Belfast!:) Cayla realllllly wanted to see a peacewall, but unfortunately we only had an hour here and a peacewall was a 25 minute walk away:( so we explored the streets around city hall!!
This clock tower leans 6 feet to the right! so its their leaning clock tower:)
We saw these girls playing in the water, so we wanted to join them to play in the fountain - which was exactly what we did!!!
city hall
The titanic memorial
Poor Cayla gets motion sick, and after nearly puking a hundred times on the way up, I decided she deserved the front seat - especially given other people played musical seats on the bus! I sat in the front seat and saved Cayla a seat directly in front of the front window so she would not feel motion sick! That's a good friend award right there!
We arrived back in Dublin around 730, went home ate some dinner and got ready for a night out:)
Ailbhe invited us to her boyfriend's Canadian Thanksgiving feast! We gladly accepted the invitation and made our way over by tram and taxi - I am still quite impressed with our public transportation abilities! So so good!! Knowing our food habits, we were nervous their would not be enough food for us, so we ate sandwiches from Cayla's favorite place - Londis - and when we arrived, we noticed the insaneeee amount of food. Good thing we are bottomless pits and eat non-stop.
Ailbhe's boyfriend is in the band we watched play in the ballad - they entertained us with some music over dinner while we met new girls from the Royal College of Surgeons medical program. The girls here do not care if guys can play guitars or sing - like in America, girls go crazy over this type of stuff!!! Everyone was so nice and welcoming!!! It was so much fun here!!! After finishing up our wine, we wanted to check out Harcourt street for the first time ...
Well it was an amazingly fun night to say the least, so much fun we decided to have the laziest Sunday ever and only got out of bed for meals. I have NEVER in my life that I can remember had a day where I literally did nothing... I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I started my 3rd book on this trip and finished a TV season on Netflix - my new obsession is Dexter. It was actually very nice to have a relaxed day. I should try this more often.
For dinner, Elaine cooked us a nice homemade chicken roast with vegetables, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. It was absolutely amazing and such a nice change from our sandwich/hot dog binges. Our mom's will be happy to know we are eating well once a week;) Thank you Elaine for the amazingggg meal:)
CHEERS!!!
Irish word of the day: Snoggin' - means "kissing/making out" :-*
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