So, as you can tell from previous posts, I was very apprehensive about driving in Ireland / Northern Ireland due to this "wrong side of the road" deal. But I was determined to do it since everyone mentioned that the Northern Coast is hard to get around via bus and public transportation and it gets pricey quick. Plus, Amy was visiting for this trip so I had a great navigator; and my Aunt Bonnie had given me an atlas of Ireland which thankfully also contained Northern Ireland for my birthday so I felt ready to go! We got to the rental car agency bright and early Wed morning to find that we were getting a compact 4 door car (whose tail you see in the photo next to me): a bright red Nissan Micra with a spedometer and odometer in kms and the gear shift on the "wrong side" but the pedals on the "right side". It was parallel parked in the lot, but I was a silly American and asked the lovely Irish bloke working the counter to pull it out so my first experience in the car wasn't bumping into another car trying to unpark the dang thing. And we hit the road.
We thought we were lost in Dublin - but after going off any map we had trying to find N1 (or M1) or any route to the airport since I knew that was off of N1, we finally found the little plane marked signs. I had been convinced we were going south rather than north and that we'd be stuck in Dublin all day. The drive was then uneventful until Belfast where I think I made every bad turn possible - but which Amy saved me from getting lost when we finally spotted our hotel. 3 hours later, and we were there.
We got our room and set out to orient around Belfast. That first day we just walked to the city centre and then decided to walk ourselves by the murals on Falls Road which depict the political and social leanings of many of the people and struggles in Belfast. It wasn't at all odd or scary or anything that most people would think. Our little tour book gave some decent explanations and we walked a few miles checking out the landmarks (including a chipper which Clinton made famous by shaking hands out side of it with some IRA political figure). Both of us were amazed by the anti-Bush murals and the pro-Palestinian murals. The other ones of the recent struggle that has been so publicized in the states were also rather interesting since they were real - covered in grafitti and oh-so-emotional.
We headed back to the city via bus and decided that since like in the Republic of Ireland, everything closes at 6pm, we'd act like the locals - when in Belfast, act like a Belfastian (or something) - and go to a pub or two for the rest of our evening. We hit up White's Tavern first which the friendly gentleman at the tourist information center had recommended highly to us. It was great.
We then went to the "most famous" pub in Belfast - rumored to be the oldest (which we later learned was untrue) - the Crown Liquor Saloon. It's an old men's only saloon with mirrored windows on the outside and cosies with bells for ordering on the inside where you crawl in and have the option of closing the little door for privacy. We had a few pints before giving up our corner nook where we'd sprawled to head off to another pub closer to our hotel - we were heading towards home. After another Irish Coffee for Amy and a Stella for me, we were done for the night and went back to the hotel to plan our next day in Belfast.
We got up and headed out to catch a bus tour of Belfast and the surrounding area offered by a local youth hostel. We found out that our book had the wrong times for it, so while waiting we headed to Queen's University to hang out in the botanic gardens and see the rose garden.
Then we hopped on the bus to have our tour guide give us a great history of the struggles in Belfast, the beauties of Belfast and an awful lot of talk about the Titanic. Yes, the Titanic. The city of Belfast is apparently famous for making boats - the most famous being the Titanic. "They didn't sink it, they made it. The iceberg sank it." I could not get over my hysteria at the stories they told. One great little excerpt from Lonely Planet Ireland about Belfast's enthrallment with the Titanic was pointed out to us later in our trip when we were staying in our Ballycastle hotel by a hysterical German man:
The Iceberg Cometh
Will the city that launched the Titanic become the city that lassoed an iceberg? Belfast artist Rita Duffy hit the headlines in 2006 with a plan to tow an iceberg from Arctic waters to Belfast Lough and moor it there as a sort of art installation.
To her, the sinking of the Titanic marked the beginning of Belfast's decline; the iceberg would symbolise all that has sunk Belfast, in particular the sectarian conflict that has blighted the city for decades. She hopes that as the months pass, the gradually melting berg will symbolise the possibility of a thaw in the hardened attitudes on both sides of the sectarian divide, and the melting of the currently frozen peace process.
Our driver gave us a very interesting take on the Belfast political and religious tension both as it was and how it is now - he was great in that he didn't seem to color it from my perspective at all with his own opinions. We also got to go to Belfast Castle, to some random buildings, to see the murals again and to cross the border between zones a few times.
Having seen some interesting statues and sights from our bus: a leaning clock tower, a Big Fish, the cranes used in making the Titanic: Samson & Goliath, and a beautiful hope statue, we wandered to see those before figuring out what to do for the evening.
We headed off to grab a quick bite to eat before joining up with a pub tour of Belfast for the evening where we stopped at 6 historical or interesting pubs in Belfast and had drinks at half of them. Crown Saloon, White's Tavern (both again), McHugh's, Bittle's, Kelly's and one other I can't find in my photos. We ended at McHugh's and having bonded with our fellow pub tour crawlers, we stayed there for quite a while drinking and laughing: it was an American Air Force gentleman stationed in Greece, 3 Norwegians on vacation, a random Brit and a Scottish Stag Party that left us with no end to our laughter the entire time. We got drunk being fed drinks by our newfound friends - and at the end of the evening I found the bathroom with it's Ladies ("seats down") sign on the door and not for the reason I would've liked. I give you this gory bit of detail because when I returned downstairs to our merry band, I asked Amy if we could head back to the hotel where I continued to be violently ill until 7am in the morning and sleeping on the bathroom floor miserable and unable to hold down water. Not only had I gotten myself drunk, I found out via the course of the evening after there was no chance that there was anymore alcohol in my system that I was utterly dehydrated and burnt to a new shade of red that would make tomato(e)s envious.
After an hour of sleep, I woke up when we were supposed to check out and drive to Ballycastle to our next destination - the Antrim Coast. I wasn't sure I could get out of bed, but I managed. And we proceded up to our hostel in Belfast. I was drinking water - but that was it - the world was green with my dehydration and I couldn't get enough fluids into my body. Before stopping at our hostel, we decided that we'd test Yvette's going power (it was vacation and it was gorgeous) so I put on full skin covering (long sleeves in 80 degrees aren't fun, but they were necessary) and we started going from picturesque spot to picturesque spot.
We climbed illegally down to a castle ruins, stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which Amy crossed (I was too dizzy to handle that one with my fear of heights) and went scrambling over some rocks before I was too exhausted to continue and we went to find our hostel. By the time we reached the hostel at 5pm I thought I might die (or need to go to the hospital) as the lovely hostel keeper greeted me literally with the first words coming out of her mouth being "Love, you look horrible." Amy and Siobhan, our hostess, got me settled into our hostel room which Siobhan was nice enough to give us a private eventhough that's not what we'd booked since I looked like death itself and I promptly passed out at 5:30pm and woke up for 15 mins in the middle of the night for a rehydration session before promptly falling back to sleep till 10am. Yes, I needed that - I was human the next morning. Thankfully, this didn't mean Amy got stuck in the hostel as she went out with the random other people staying in the hostel to hear some traditional Irish music at a local pub.
The next day, being a new person, we went to crawl and climb all over the Giant's Causeway which is this gigantuan basalt rock formation formed by the rapidly cooling volcanic rock, basalt, being dropped into water. It forms geometric towers of rock that look incredibly unnatural along the coast and in this one location, there's so much of it that it looks like only giants could've made it (thus the name). We then headed to another castle's ruins to see more coast and finally to the beach for a nice flop in the sand. We ended our day on the Antrim Coast with dinner and then I figured out our route home.
Driving back to Dublin, we decided to take the Eastern Coast scenic road that's windy windy windy (both curvey and full of wind gusts). We also took a detour to see Glen Arriff with it's waterfalls on a 4km hike (yes, I was obviously nearly human - although still tired). The drive was just as spectacular as anything we'd seen and I was thrilled beyond belief to be driving right on the edge of these coastal cliffs through quaint towns and gorgeous farms and countryside. We didn't get lost again even entering Dublin and that was the trip.
I'm human, and my coworkers claim that I should never again be allowed to travel since I seem to either get massively ill or detained at the border. But this coming weekend I'm going on another adventure where all I know is that I'm flying el-cheapo to London with only a backpack; camping outside the grounds to Wimbledon in the line to the grounds in order to try to get one of the 500 court tickets or 6000 ground tickets they reserve for the day-of sales; and then hopefully making ti back up to the airport outside of London to stay in a hotel before returning to Dublin on Sunday. Who knows what'll happen - who knows if I'll get in, or what people I'll meet in the line or if it'll rain??? But I've got my sleeping bag, backpack, flashlight, clothes and Crazy Creek Chair so it'll be "a story". And at least this time I don't have to fear reentering the country...... because..... I was APPROVED for my work permit to stay in Ireland officially!!! So I'm here homesick or not - until I decide to flap my wings and return to the states. But before I do that, I'm going to WImbledon (at least to camp), to Galway, to France (the trip's all reserved) and whereever else I get the whim to go before I turn into a bird and return to Seattle.
And if you're still curious about more photos of our adventures in Northern Ireland, find them in my Northern Ireland Flickr Set.
3 comments:
So you dont have the whole only three months thing anymore?
Are they planning on keeping you there longer?
Well, it started out as 6 months originally - but I wasn't approved for a Visa... so then it went down to 3 months. But now that I have a work permit it's up to 6. And right now, I'm feeling positive so today it looks like 6!
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