Belfast and Northern Ireland- Saturday/Sunday

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early to get going for our big day of sightseeing.  We grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out to our first stop: Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.  This is about an hour and half drive from Belfast and normally to do it, you have to book a bus tour which takes you to the three places that we ended up going to.  Luckily for us, Gary and Valerie drove us so we could spend as much time in each place as we wanted, and we had our own built in tour guides because they had been to all these places before.

It was raining when we got to Carrick-a-Rede, but we are used to it by now so we did the 20 min walk to the bridge no problem.  The nice thing about the rain was that not many people wanted to be out in it, and its not the tourist season, so we didn't have any problem getting to the bridge itself or having a turn on it.  The bridge stretches out to an island in the sea where lots of fishing used to occur, so the fishermen would use this bridge they built to get across to get their fish.  These days, it has wood reinforcements and rope on both sides, but back when they were using it, there was only one line for them to hold onto as they crossed, and they would hold their catch in the other hand.  The island is open so you can go explore it in the summer months, but the combination of rain, wet grass, huge cliffs, and mating birds, prevents people from exploring it all in the winter.  We beat the rush and were the only ones on the bridge for most of the time we were there.  Then we took a slightly different path back to the car to give us some more beautiful views.  Once we were back at the beginning, we went inside their little cafe for lunch which was very good, and very nice because we were cold from being outside.

Entrance to Carrick-a-Rede

View of the Bridge from the Island

Side View of the Bridge

Me, Tierney, and Steph on the Bridge

Our next stop was Giant's Causeway.  There is a whole folklore tale that goes along with how Giant's Causeway was formed.  Here's a link if you're interested: http://www.causewaycoastandglens.com/Folklore-and-Legend.T1153.aspx.  This was another walk down from the Visitor's Center, but again beautiful.  We spent lots of time exploring the causeway.  We then realized that the Castle we were going to visit next probably closes earlier than normal because its winter so we hopped on the bus back up towards the car and rushed to the Castle to get there before it closed.

Walking down to the causeway

The Rock out in the middle of this bay is called Camel Rock because it looks like a camel

The Causeway from a distance

Valerie, Tierney, Me, Steph and Gary

Steph, Tierney and I

The Castle that we went to was Dunluce Castle, which is a Medieval Castle situated on the coast overlooking the sea with cliffs that go almost straight down into the ocean.

The entrance to the main castle

Walking into the bigger rooms

This is the hole they threw garbage or dead bodies down and it goes straight to the ocean

The big family room area

Protective tower

Kitchen Area

After that we made the journey back to Belfast and had another amazing dinner cooked by Valerie.  We then played a 3 hour game of Phase 10 and went to bed.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church with Valerie and Gary and then when we got back, Valerie made us a full Traditional Irish Breakfast which was so good!  After we were done with Breakfast, we rushed to the train station to catch the 2pm bus because we wanted to make sure we could connect with the last bus to Cork even if the first bus had some delays.  We made it to Dublin right on time, so we had an hour and a half to wait until the next bus was leaving for Cork.  We got on at 6pm and were back in our apartment around 10.  Overall a great experience and we were able to make some new friends.

Belfast and Northern Ireland- Thursday/Friday

This past weekend, two of the other people that I am studying with and I decided to take a trip to Belfast and Northern Ireland.  One of them, Stephanie, had family friends who used to live in Minnesota that we could stay with.  They had moved to Ireland a little over a year ago and are planning on staying for four years working for an organization.  This worked out great for Tierney and I because we were able to stay with them as well which not only gave us a free place to stay, but also we all got tour guides who have gone to all these places we were planning to visit.

We decided to leave on Thursday after we were done with classes to give us two full days in Northern Ireland, plus a little bit of Sunday.  We hopped on a bus to Dublin at 4pm which got us to Dublin after a few stops around 7:45. We then found where the bus to Belfast was and got on because the buses to Belfast leave on the top of the hour.  We got into Belfast around 10:20 Thursday evening and were greeted by Valerie and Gary our wonderful hosts.  They drove us back to their house which is right on the border of the city and the suburbs.  In traditional Irish fashion (Valerie is originally from Dublin) we were offered tea and biscuits almost immediately after getting into the house.  We ended up sitting around for a while chatting and getting to know each other a little better and then headed off to bed.  Gary still had to work on Friday, but Valerie had taken the day off since we were going to be there, so the four of us decided to head into Belfast the next day.

Friday morning, we slept in a little bit, and then Valerie made us a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast.  Once we were done with breakfast, we all walked down the street to the ATM so that we could take out pounds.  Because Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, they use pounds instead of the euro.  Then we walked down to the nearest bus stop to take the bus into the city center.  We then got to ride in the front seats on the top of a double decker bus!  We decided to start our day at St. George's Market.  It's kind of half a flea market and half a farmers market.  It is only open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but on Saturdays they also have live music.  We walked up and down all the aisles looking at everything they had for sale, and then by the time we were done it was almost lunch time so we decided to just stay there and eat.  We found amazing Traditional Irish Stew for only 3 pounds!  It was so good, and we were all happy to get some real traditional food finally (even if it was technically in the UK).

Flea Market Side

Food Side

Irish Stew!

Our next stop was Victoria's Square Shopping Center...I mean who doesn't love to shop right?  Well Victoria's Square is unique because it is an open-air, indoor mall.  There are no doors so all of the hallways open up to the streets outside, but once you are inside, it feels as if you were walking around any mall in Minnesota (although slightly colder with no doors).  One of the other unique things about Victoria's Square is that it has a dome at the top and you can ride an elevator up to a platform within this glass dome.  Once you are up there, you can see a 360 degree view of the entire city.  This platform is also its own freestanding structure so on a windy day you can feel it move slightly because of the wind passing through the mall below.

the center structure which you go to the top of to overlook the city

Looking down one of the hallways

Albert's Clock Tower from the dome

H & W shipyard where the Titanic was built are the big yellow things

Me and Albert's Clock Tower in the background

After Victoria's Square we wandered around the city for a little bit with the intention of eventually getting to city hall.  We stopped in Carroll's which is an Irish gift shop that is in EVERY city, but it is the best place for post cards that I've found so far.  Then we walked up to City Hall which is interesting because not only is the building itself used for normal administrative duties, they have a lawn outside with a big projection TV which they have the news playing on often, but they will also show movies at night in the summers when its a little nicer, or have other documentary type things playing and people are free to come and go as they please.  We decided to go inside and found out they give free tours, so we decided to go on the one that left 40 min later.

Belfast Street

City Hall at the end of the Street

Inside the City Hall Lobby

City Hall's Grand Staircase

Inside City Hall's Lobby

To fill our time, we decided to leave City Hall and walk a few blocks the Albert's Clock Tower.  It was built either on top of a river, or a water reserve and so because of that, the ground under it has shifted since it has been built and it is slightly tilted to one side.  Its like Belfast's own Leaning Tower of Pisa.

We then returned to City Hall, and took our tour.  It was very interesting because we were able to learn a bit of the history of the building as well as the earlier history of Belfast.  Our tour guide seemed very knowledgeable as well, and we got to go into the City Council Chamber which was very interesting to see. Outside City Hall is the Titanic Memorial Garden which we walked through on our way out.

Windows at the top of the grand staircase

Councillors Bench in the Council Chamber

Gallery overlooking the Council Chamber

The Lord Mayor's Chair and Councillors Benches

Sitting in the Lord Mayor's Chair

The Great Hall

Titanic Memorial Garden

We decided that we had seen all we wanted to see in the city center and it was time to go home to start making dinner.  Valerie made Lasagna for dinner with garlic bread and it tasted amazing.  After dinner, we went to the Titanic District of the city because Belfast is where the Titanic was actually built.  The saying in Belfast is always "She was fine when she left here".  This is the area where they have built the new "Titanic Experience" like the one that we did in Cove, but this building is about 5 stories tall.  The reason we went though, it that outside of the building, they have a dock like area where they have the outlines of the Titanic and its sister ship the Olympic next to each other with the exact size that they were when being built.  They then also have shown how big things like the lifeboats would have been and where they would have been placed on the boat.  This allows you to realize how big these boats actually were.  On the other boat outline they have a section of alternating decking and grass.  Each set of decking and grass represents one of the classes (First, Second, Third, Staff).  The decking represents the people from that class who lived, and the grass represents the people who perished, and they have divided each of these numbers to create a percentage of the entire number of passengers so you can see the breakdown by class of who survived.  First and Second classes seemed to be almost 50/50 but as you moved to the Third class and the staff, there is a much bigger difference.

By the time we got back, it was around 9:30 and we decided to play a game.  Somehow it was brought up that I knew how to play Farkle (a dice game) and Valerie and Gary realized that they owned it and had never played so we decided to take this opportunity to teach them.  For those of you who don't know, I play Farkle at the local coffee shop in St. Joseph where my school is located with a group of retired men.  Long story short, one day they asked if a friend and I wanted to play, we said sure, and we've been going back ever since (they play everyday Mon-Sat). We had lots of fun playing and stayed up until midnight.

My Farkle Group at home

Cobh-January 12th

Sorry for the delayed posts everyone, the internet only seems to work well between Midnight and 7am around here so I'm doing my best but I'll hopefully be totally updated by Monday or Tuesday.

Last Sunday a group of us decided to head down to a coastal town called Cobh (which is really pronounced cove).  One of the main reasons we decided to visit was because this was the last port where the Titanic picked up passengers on its way to America.  123 passengers boarded the ship in Cobh which at that time was named Queenstown, and around 77 of them actually survived.

We set out for the train station and it was pouring rain, by the time we had made the 30 minute walk we were all soaked, except for under our raincoats.  We got our tickets and got on the train for the 20 minute ride.  Once we got there, we were still wet, and now the rain was blowing sideways at us because of the strong winds off the water.  We did eventually figure out where we were going and made it to "The Titanic Experience".

This building which houses "The Titanic Experience" was the old ticket building for White Star Line so it is the actual building that the passengers would have passed through.  When we got inside, we were given a card with a person's name and information on it, and it looked like what they would have received as their ticket.  The unique thing about these cards was that they were all passengers that boarded the ship in Cobh specifically as opposed to any of the passengers.  We then watched a few movies, saw the dock that the people launched off of to get to the Titanic (we ran through this part because it was still pouring and the walkway was outside).  We then entered a third class cabin and then moved to a first class cabin to see what the different living arrangements would be like.  The Third class cabin was like staying in a hostel now days, while the first class cabin was more like a five star hotel.  We then watched one more movie, and moved to the exhibition room where we were able to read everything at our own pace.  This was also where we found out if we lived or died.  In our group of 7 people, we had 6 females who were third class passengers and 1 male who was a second class passenger.  All but one of the females survived, while one female and the one male did not survive.  

Pictures from around town

All these houses are connected and lead from almost the top of the hill down to the water

Same houses from a different angle

The street right along the water

Flowers in January!?!?!

Shipyard

Stephanie, Emily, and I on steps leading to the water

We then ran across the street (still raining) to a little cafe to have lunch.  I had a nice chicken panini.  By the time we were done eating the sun was coming out and we decided to explore the city a bit.  We starting walking up the hill the cafe was on and as we wandered, we found our way to a big cathedral, St. Coleman's cathedral.  It was beautiful inside and I probably took about 100 pictures, but I'll try to pick out the best for the blog.

The Organ with Stained Glass Above It

These are their stations of the Cross, and they are outside of the church, each with its own little cubbyhole

After that we walked around Cobh a bit more, visited the visitors center and walked along the coast.  We found a nice little park area next to "The Titanic Experience" and wandered around there.  We got a better view of the outside of the building and the pier. 

This pier is nicknamed "Heartbreak Pier" because so many people left their families from here to go other places like America and they either knew or expected that they would never return home.

Then we took the train back and went our separate ways for the evening to make dinner.