Sheep don't care
Good evening!
Well I'm finishing up my last day in Belfast, tomorrow I drive back to Dublin for a very short night before I fly to Paris!
Back to the story.
So Galway was a bit of a bust. Most of what I saw were Stag and Hen parties! I ran in to 4 of them! Apparently Galway is the Vegas of the British Isles. I left Galway quite early because I had a long day of driving ahead of me.
My first stop was the beautiful Estate of Kylemore Abbey, but first I had to get there. Now my GPS has taken me down some questionable roads before, and today was no exception. This was Ireland's equivalent of a gravel road, quite bumpy and with random sheep standing in the middle of the road. And let me tell you, sheep are not bothered by anything. You drive up to them, they look at you, you honk, they look at you like "What? You need something?" Eventually in their own time, they wander off the road and you can continue on. This happened at least 3 times.
Eventually I made it to Kylemore Abbey. Now Kylemore Abbey has 2 main parts, the Abbey (the house) and some (I'm guessing) beautiful walled Victorian gardens. Well Norther Ireland hates me, so it was cold and rainy and windy, so I only went to the house. It's a beautiful house. It was originally built as a wedding present from a man to his wife, later after their deaths, it was made in to a prestigious girl's boarding school run by nuns. Eventually the school closed and the nuns still live in the upper part of the house. You only get to tour the bottom part, but in one of the sitting rooms they actually had a fire in one of the fire places!
After Kylemore, I tried to go to the Belleek Pottery factory, but my GPS brought me to the wrong place, and I was too tired to drive back to where it actually was. So my next stop was to be Glenveagh Castle, which my GPS had no record of, so I just went to Derry. It was a long day of driving which I was glad to be done with, I guess I'll have to go to those places next time I come to Ireland.
When I arrived in Derry I was a little early for check-in so I sat in my car and read my book a bit. Well when it was way past the time I had arranged and no one came to check-me in, I asked a very kind lady who lived next door if she could phone for me. Well apparently some signals got crossed and someone would be coming in about 20 min to let me in, so Paula (the nice lady) took me out for a cup of tea.
Did I mention that Saturday, the day I arrived in Northern Ireland, was Orange Parade Day? This is the day that loyalists march in the streets to show their support for being part of the UK. This is normally a very politically charged time, but this year was the first year that none of the Orange Parades had any incidents. Thank god!
So after checking in and getting a good night's sleep, I spent the day in Derry. I took a walking tour on the walls, Derry is a walled city, the oldest part of the city has a wall all the way around it, and you can walk on the walls, they're more than 15 feet wide. Then I took a walk along the Bog Side. The Bog Side is where the political murals are. Northern Ireland just feels different, like there's something brewing under the surface. It could be my imagination because I know about the history or it could be there is a political unrest just below the surface, but I never felt unsafe or unwelcome so...
After another night in Derry, I drove along the Antrim Coast. I had 4 stops planned, but they were all outside and it was a truly crap day. I did go to the Giant's Causeway, but I wanted to stay like 2 hours, and actually spent about 45 minutes on the causeway. It was so cold and windy and rainy it was miserable. I'd like to go back when it's not raining.
I scrapped my plans to go to Dunluce Castle and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge because of the weather, so I made my way to Belfast. Outside of Belfast is Carrickfergus Castle. I did visit the castle as the weather had calmed a bit. It was really neat because they had statues in costume in the places that you would find them int he castle, I like cheezy stuff like that.
Then I got to Belfast, I checked in to my hotel, and well...
It's a cute place, clean, breakfast is included, but since I'm in a single room, my bed is a twin bed, and the comforter hangs about 1 inch down either side of the bed, then if you get under the comforter...well I spent most of the night trying to cover all of me with the comforter, because apparently in Nrothern Europe, they don't know about top sheets, seriously, only 2 of the places I stayed had a top sheet and a comforter. I try to tell myself they wash them between every guest, but I'm not 100% sure that's the truth...I just don't think about it.
Yesterday I took a site seeing bus around Belfast to get the lay of the land, then this morning I took the same bus to get out to the Titanic Belfast. It's in the same spot where the Titanic
was built. It's a pretty cool exhibit, They have a green screen feature, so I now have a picture of myself standing at the base of the grand staircase on Titanic. And next to Titanic Belfast is Titanic Studios, it used to be warehouse space for the shipyard, but now it's where they film Game of Thrones. I went over tot he fence to see if I could see anyone, because they're back filming already, but I didn't get to see anything, though I know that The Iron Throne was in the building I saw, so that's cool to know.
Then I had to get back to my room and the Wifi so I could call home, today is Meredith's 5th Birthday. So I called my mom and dad and got to have breakfast with everyone and even got to sing Happy Birthday to Meredith. Thomas was being a poop and wouldn't wave or say hi to me, until the very end when he did wave goodbye.
Which brings me back to now. Doing my final pack so I can transfer my bag from my rental car to the transport bus that will bring me to my hotel by the airport, because my flight leaves at 6:40 on Thursday morning, which means being at the airport before 5...short night indeed, but then I'll be in Paris! and on Sunday I fly home!
I have had an amazing trip, but I'm ready to go home.
Well I'm finishing up my last day in Belfast, tomorrow I drive back to Dublin for a very short night before I fly to Paris!
Back to the story.
So Galway was a bit of a bust. Most of what I saw were Stag and Hen parties! I ran in to 4 of them! Apparently Galway is the Vegas of the British Isles. I left Galway quite early because I had a long day of driving ahead of me.
My first stop was the beautiful Estate of Kylemore Abbey, but first I had to get there. Now my GPS has taken me down some questionable roads before, and today was no exception. This was Ireland's equivalent of a gravel road, quite bumpy and with random sheep standing in the middle of the road. And let me tell you, sheep are not bothered by anything. You drive up to them, they look at you, you honk, they look at you like "What? You need something?" Eventually in their own time, they wander off the road and you can continue on. This happened at least 3 times.
Eventually I made it to Kylemore Abbey. Now Kylemore Abbey has 2 main parts, the Abbey (the house) and some (I'm guessing) beautiful walled Victorian gardens. Well Norther Ireland hates me, so it was cold and rainy and windy, so I only went to the house. It's a beautiful house. It was originally built as a wedding present from a man to his wife, later after their deaths, it was made in to a prestigious girl's boarding school run by nuns. Eventually the school closed and the nuns still live in the upper part of the house. You only get to tour the bottom part, but in one of the sitting rooms they actually had a fire in one of the fire places!
After Kylemore, I tried to go to the Belleek Pottery factory, but my GPS brought me to the wrong place, and I was too tired to drive back to where it actually was. So my next stop was to be Glenveagh Castle, which my GPS had no record of, so I just went to Derry. It was a long day of driving which I was glad to be done with, I guess I'll have to go to those places next time I come to Ireland.
When I arrived in Derry I was a little early for check-in so I sat in my car and read my book a bit. Well when it was way past the time I had arranged and no one came to check-me in, I asked a very kind lady who lived next door if she could phone for me. Well apparently some signals got crossed and someone would be coming in about 20 min to let me in, so Paula (the nice lady) took me out for a cup of tea.
Did I mention that Saturday, the day I arrived in Northern Ireland, was Orange Parade Day? This is the day that loyalists march in the streets to show their support for being part of the UK. This is normally a very politically charged time, but this year was the first year that none of the Orange Parades had any incidents. Thank god!
So after checking in and getting a good night's sleep, I spent the day in Derry. I took a walking tour on the walls, Derry is a walled city, the oldest part of the city has a wall all the way around it, and you can walk on the walls, they're more than 15 feet wide. Then I took a walk along the Bog Side. The Bog Side is where the political murals are. Northern Ireland just feels different, like there's something brewing under the surface. It could be my imagination because I know about the history or it could be there is a political unrest just below the surface, but I never felt unsafe or unwelcome so...
After another night in Derry, I drove along the Antrim Coast. I had 4 stops planned, but they were all outside and it was a truly crap day. I did go to the Giant's Causeway, but I wanted to stay like 2 hours, and actually spent about 45 minutes on the causeway. It was so cold and windy and rainy it was miserable. I'd like to go back when it's not raining.
I scrapped my plans to go to Dunluce Castle and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge because of the weather, so I made my way to Belfast. Outside of Belfast is Carrickfergus Castle. I did visit the castle as the weather had calmed a bit. It was really neat because they had statues in costume in the places that you would find them int he castle, I like cheezy stuff like that.
Then I got to Belfast, I checked in to my hotel, and well...
It's a cute place, clean, breakfast is included, but since I'm in a single room, my bed is a twin bed, and the comforter hangs about 1 inch down either side of the bed, then if you get under the comforter...well I spent most of the night trying to cover all of me with the comforter, because apparently in Nrothern Europe, they don't know about top sheets, seriously, only 2 of the places I stayed had a top sheet and a comforter. I try to tell myself they wash them between every guest, but I'm not 100% sure that's the truth...I just don't think about it.
Yesterday I took a site seeing bus around Belfast to get the lay of the land, then this morning I took the same bus to get out to the Titanic Belfast. It's in the same spot where the Titanic
was built. It's a pretty cool exhibit, They have a green screen feature, so I now have a picture of myself standing at the base of the grand staircase on Titanic. And next to Titanic Belfast is Titanic Studios, it used to be warehouse space for the shipyard, but now it's where they film Game of Thrones. I went over tot he fence to see if I could see anyone, because they're back filming already, but I didn't get to see anything, though I know that The Iron Throne was in the building I saw, so that's cool to know.
Then I had to get back to my room and the Wifi so I could call home, today is Meredith's 5th Birthday. So I called my mom and dad and got to have breakfast with everyone and even got to sing Happy Birthday to Meredith. Thomas was being a poop and wouldn't wave or say hi to me, until the very end when he did wave goodbye.
Which brings me back to now. Doing my final pack so I can transfer my bag from my rental car to the transport bus that will bring me to my hotel by the airport, because my flight leaves at 6:40 on Thursday morning, which means being at the airport before 5...short night indeed, but then I'll be in Paris! and on Sunday I fly home!
I have had an amazing trip, but I'm ready to go home.
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