Ireland and Northern Ireland

ireland

So after the crazy run to the bus and getting teased by some French guys I made it to the bus and the hour long bus ride to the satellite airport operated by Ryanair.com. checked in ate a sundried tomato and goats cheese sandwich then went through security to wait until I could get on my flight to Dublin. I cut down on my travel times, meaning I cut days off Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands, and cut Belgium out completely! I did this in order to see my friends in Dublin before I left, and I have to say, it was one of the best decisions I could have made. I was so happy to spend a few more days with Francesca before I made my way to the United States. So I arrived in Dublin about 11.30pm and caught the last bus in to town. I found Fra at the Siné the local pub and met a couple of her friends there and then we made our way out of the pub, as it was last call 30 minutes before I had gotten there. So we went back to the house and pretty much chatted over a tea and then we both went to bed. Angielle was visiting her family in France so she was not in so there was a free bed in the house! The following morning I went to find the office to apply for dual citizenship and was pretty much shut down. Bummer! I also went and visited the Down to Earth family and bought another salt crystal lamp. It was nice just going around and seeing the old city. The following day I took an hour bus ride out to meet my friend Ruth and see her baby. So I got to see Joey and her husband Paul came home during lunch so I got to see him as well. Ruth is a wonderful mother, she was so ready to become a mother and I am so happy for her and Paul. They have their house on the market to try and sell it and get a larger house. Ruth used to work at Down to Earth, and she tried going back but she wanted to work mornings and it just didn’t fit into the Down to Earth schedule so Ruth wasn’t sure what she wanted to do but she was just living in the moment, enjoying being a mother! And actually the day before I think I had lunch with Eileen at Yamamori. I found out that they no longer carry their turtle cheesecake, which was the best dessert in Dublin, as it didn’t contain a shitload of butter! So it was so awesome to see Eileen as well, she is studying to become a naturopath and she works part time at Down to Earth and she also sings in a country western band. I have the myspace page if anyone would like the site address, I just don’t have it with me while I am writing this bit of the travel! So she is doing awesome and healthy! I arrived on a Monday in Dublin and on Friday morning I took a bus to Belfast, to see Giant’s Causeway. The bus ride is just over 2.5 hours, so it really wasn’t too bad! We also got to go through a tunnel out of the city centre to go north of the city. (let’s go on a pigeon walk shall we…so Dublin built a tunnel so that semi trucks could get out of the traffic within the city centre, because if you have ever waited for a bus in Dublin, you will know that it does not run according to schedule, being up to an hour late at times! Which is why I wanted a job I could walk to! So this tunnel was built to reduce traffic, unfortunately the tunnel is not tall enough for the trucks and double-decker buses in Dublin! Ooops! So the tunnel is built to European standards but for some reason semi trucks and double-decker buses in Dublin are all about 10 inches taller then trucks and buses in European! So long story short I rode the short bus to Belfast (LOL) but most of the other buses don’t fit!)

northern ireland

Upon arriving in Belfast, I visited some stuff including a Botanical Garden, inside the garden was a statue of Sir Kelvin, if you scroll back to January 2007 I visited Glasgow and saw a statue of Sir Kelvin by the river Clyde! So while I was trying to find the name of the statue, a man came up to me and said “do you know who this is?” and I said, “why yes I do it is Sir Kelvin, the man who figured out the law of absolute Zero 273 degrees Fahrenheit = 0 degrees Kelvin, super necessary when dealing with chemistry.” And so we talked about physics for a little while and he started writing a bunch of books down that I need to read, in my life on earth, so we will see what happens. Cyril then told me that he as Aspergers syndrome, so he knows a lot of factual stuff, but he is nearly incapable of showing emotions or having tact when talking to people. He was fine enough though, a cool old Northern Irish guy who told me about the city, most of it I forgot, if anyone needs the necessary book list of books to read before you die, let me know I will be happy to post the book list. So I went out for Indian food this night as well as buy snack food for the trip to the Giant’s Causeway. Rachelle and her sister arrived at about 2am but we had a nice 3 bed room. The following day we had to catch a bus at 8am and then we got off at a rope bridge that the men used to salmon fish on. The rope bridge stretches over the sea from a small fjord like island thing. And just as we were about to walk across the bridge, the gale winds started to pick up. Besides, it was typical Irish weather, rain and wind! So after that we had some lunch and then started walking towards the causeway, little did we know it was more then 7 miles away! So I started walking really fast to get to the causeway but Rachelle and her sister did not make it to the causeway. I was able to find a later bus to a train station and take the train to Belfast. Rachelle and her sister were a little bit stranded, I felt bad about leaving them, but this was the one thing I wanted to see in northern Ireland before I left! So I made it to the causeway was only there for about 20 minutes before I had to got catch a bus. Meanwhile Rachelle called to find out when a bus was coming their way and they somehow missed it even though they were standing at a bus stop. So I said, people in Ireland are really friendly, go and knock on someone’s door. Luckily they picked the right door and a really nice farmer drove them to a train station. I wasn’t worried that something would happen to them, A) because there were 2 of them, and B) people in northern Ireland are friendly from my experience. So I met a girl from Chicago at a bus stop and had dinner with her, and then when we went back to the train station there were Rachelle and her sister waiting for the same train back to the Belfast! So that night we did not go out, Rachelle’s sister was none too happy about having to spend the night in a dorm room with 25 other girls.

The following morning we went on a black taxi tour of the dangerous areas of Belfast, including: Shankhill Road and I can’t remember the other one for the life of me. I just learned what to get “shanked” means in slang this year so that’s why I remember the road. We also went to the Sein Finn office (Jerry Adams…IRA) and learned about the marching season and the Orange man March starting on July 12^th so it is an amazing city the Berlin Wall has nothing on the “Peace Wall”, 2 stories high and gates that close at night that children/teens stand outside either side throwing petrol bombs and shouting obscenities at each other, of children/teens they have never met. Really interesting to be there and see how Belfast is making an attempt to have peace amongst themselves. The city of Belfast looks to me very similar to some of the cities on the Iron Range, like Virginia, especially Virginia. I found that really interesting and tried to draw a correlation but hey maybe it has to do with both being kind of poor cities now. But we went to the Catholic part of town and the Protestant part of town. There are murals on the two roads. So the Protestant murals includes a mural of a gunman with a ski mask on and if you look down the barrel of his shot gun it follows you wherever you guy, kin of like the Mona Lisa’s eyes! So that was a weird correlation. After our tour we went to the downtown part of town and then out for lunch, and then I headed for Dublin. I was so happy that Rachelle and her sister came to visit me in Belfast; it was so good to see Rachelle before she headed out on her own travel adventure around Europe. I can’t remember about the time I got into town but it was some where around 4 in the afternoon. Francesca and I went out for dinner and then we met Patrick for dessert and then we went to a pub to hear one last session of traditional Irish music played by Eoin Dillon. It was so good to talk to Patrick and Francesca before I left. Paul was unfortunately sick so he did not come out with us.

xoxo,
christie