Easter Break: Week 1...

My Easter break started at 6:30AM on Sunday, April 5 when a taxi picked me up and drove me to the Europa Bus Centre in Belfast. From there, I caught a bus to the Dublin Airport where I met up with my dear GCC roommate and best friend Laura! It was so good to finally see a familiar face from home! The whole bus ride to Dublin I kept thinking to myself how I couldn’t believe Easter break was already here. I had been looking forward to this break for so long!

As soon as Laura got off the plane, we immediately walked to the buses to catch a bus into Dublin City Centre because we had a free walking tour of the city to catch. After a quick walk across the River Liffey to Abigail’s hostel, our accommodation for the night, we walked to City Hall to catch the tour. There were hundreds of people waiting for the tour, undoubtedly because it was a beautiful spring day in Ireland. Our tour group consisted of about thirty people and our wonderful guide, Daniel, or as Laura and I like to call him, Dahnny Boy. The tour was great! We saw all the major site in Dublin, including Dublin Castle, Dubh Linn, the medieval walls, Viking remains, Norman and Georgian Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral, Adam and Eve Church, the National Library, Temple Bar, U2’s restaurant and hotel, as well as the site of their first performance in Dublin, Ha’Penny and O’Connell Bridges, Spire of Dublin, City Hall, Trinity College, Leinster House, St. Stephen’s Green, and the site of the 1916 Easter Rising. Whew! The best part, other than Dahnny Boy’s stories, was that all of it was free. Of all the sites, St. Stephen’s Green and Trinity College were my favourites, perhaps because they were the only green parts in this thriving city of pavement and concrete.

Laura made it through this three hour tour having not slept a wink on her flight across the Atlantic, so we decided to head back to our hostel to get settled in and take a short nap. After our nap, we headed back outside to browse some souvenir shops and grab some dinner. We quickly discovered that everything in Dublin is ridiculously expensive! For example, because Laura was craving a burger and fries, we decided to check out TGI Fridays; the entrees were all over 20 Euro! We finally found this 1950s American diner and had some cheap, but delicious, burgers there. After dinner, we wandered through Temple Bar hoping to find some live traditional Irish music. Unable to find any, we stopped at a Spar to buy a couple drinks to enjoy at the hostel later. When we got back to the hostel, we took some time to check emails and watch TV. Some of the other guests at the hostel decided to put in the Simpsons Movie. That movie, or at least the part of it I watched, is so random. We decided to go up to our room to enjoy our drinks before bed, but that plan was foiled as neither of us had a bottle opener. Instead, we threw on our pajamas and climbed into bed. Both of us had some trouble sleeping as a couple of the girls had the light on for a while so that they could read before bed. Another girl from Spain snored all night long. At one point, Laura tried to nudge her to get her to stop and the girl woke up! She immediately asked Laura what was going on so Laura had to try and explain to her that she was snoring. The language barrier was a bit of an issue and the only way Laura could explain what snoring was was to make the snoring noise – honk-sh, honk-sh. It was comical to say the least!

Monday morning was really exciting. We ate breakfast at the hostel and then dashed to the bus to get back to the Dublin airport where we met mom and dad! It was so good to see them. Mom cried just like I knew she would. Dad’s hug felt so good.

We had a lot of ground to cover that first day, so our reunion was pretty brief. We spent about an hour and a half dealing with the car rental. First, we waited in line for a long time. Then we had to wait some more while dad got his bearings sitting in the driver’s seat on the right side of the car instead of the left. I can’t tell you how many times he walked to the wrong side of the car to get in the driver seat. One time, he had to parallel park. That was quite the production. Apparently he got really used to driving on the left side of the road, however, because mom told me he drove on the wrong side of the road just the other day when they were back in the States…oops! We also had to wait a bit while we programmed the GPS. We named her Gaelica. She was worth every penny and saved us from getting completely lost and wasting tons of time. Oh Gaelica!

Anyhow, the first day we drove from Dublin to Kilkenny. We stopped in Kilkenny for a few hours to see the castle there, as well as the Dominican Black Abbey and another very old church there. We had lunch when we first arrived at this Irish sandwich café. It was there that Laura fell in love with sweet chilli chicken. After touring the castle and before checking out the churches, I made sure Laura, mom and dad all had their first taste of tea and scones. We ended up having tea and scones for lunch the rest of the week they liked it so much!

From Kilkenny we drove on the first of many windy, narrow Irish roads farther south through Waterford to Tramore. Originally, we had planned to tour the Waterford Crystal Factory, but it has closed its doors forever, so those plans fell through. We stayed at a decent hostel in Tramore on Monday. Laura, mom and dad were all really tired from their flights and jet-lag, so we ordered a couple pizzas for delivery and called it a night early.

Tuesday we drove along the southern coast of Ireland from Tramore to Cobh to Kinsale. We took some time to explore the beach in Tramore in the morning. It was a sunny but very windy morning. A little while into our drive we pulled off the road at a look-out point right on the coast. It was so beautiful! The grass was so green we all thought we were on a golf course. The wind was absolutely crazy, though, nearly blowing us off the cliff and into the crashing waters of the ocean below. In Cobh, we had tea and scones for lunch, explored a huge cathedral, and toured the dock museum. Cobh was the last port of call for the Titanic and the Lusitania. Thousands of Irish immigrants left from Cobh as well. It was an interesting exhibit, but I don’t think I can handle reading about any more boats for a while. Our short trip to Kinsale was slightly disappointing. I’m sure it is a very nice town, but it was pouring rain the entire time we were there, making it pretty miserable. The main reason for going there was to buy myself a Celtic cross made by a company in Kinsale. Having bought that, we loaded back in the car and followed Gaelica’s directions to Killarney.

We made it to Killarney just fine, but had quite the adventure finding Dan Linehan’s B&B and Pub. Someone (ehem…dad) didn’t think to look up the address of the B&B before coming to Ireland and then proceeded to get all mad when we couldn’t find it. At least we were all able to laugh about it after the fact. While we were driving in circles and trying to navigate the one-way streets, however, no one was laughing. Tension was at its highest.

Once we finally found it, we quickly unloaded the car and made ourselves at home in our very nice, very clean bedrooms (Laura and I had a room all to ourselves…fun to be had later) and then walked down the street to Squire’s Pub for some pub grub for dinner. Laura and I both had shepherd’s pie. Mom and dad had equally Irish meals and some wine and a Guinness. After dinner, we walked back to the B&B and Pub, enjoyed some Jameson and Cranberry and then went to our rooms to veg in front of the TV – we found an episode of the European version of Law and Order!

The next morning we were up fairly early for our full Irish breakfast at 8:30am. It was so good! We had bacon, sausage, hash browns, eggs, toast with jam, tea, and white and black pudding. We were all a bit leery of the black pudding, and for good reason – they put blood in it to give it its black colour. As soon as we discovered that, we suddenly didn’t like the black pudding anymore.

Having had our fill for breakfast, we piled into the car and drove to Killarney National Park for what was to be my favourite day of the week. We spent about 7-8 hours hiking through the park. I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful it was! We were surrounded by fields, mountains, all kinds of vegetation, and a beautiful and calm lake. The weather was perfect – sunny and even kind of warm. We also took a hike to a waterfall and up the trail to the top of it. Laura had a little spill at the waterfall when she tried to bend over to test the temperature of the water and ended up soaking the bottom of her right leg in the water. That was quite comical! We also took a tour of the Muckross House (or Muckruck House as mom likes to call it), which is a huge mansion located on the grounds. For lunch we enjoyed some tea and scones while soaking up the sunlight outside the cafeteria. There were also artistically groomed gardens surrounding the Muckross House, which Laura and I had some fun exploring. When we’d had our fill of hiking, we decided to try to drive further into the park to a lookout point called Lady’s View. We didn’t make it there, however, as the roads got ridiculously narrow and curvy and Laura and I started to feel carsick in the backseat. I think dad was kind of irritated that we told him to turn around, but I’d rather get back in one piece than be crushed by a tour bus hogging the whole road! I really can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that day. To make it complete, we went out for dinner at a crappy restaurant for some mediocre burgers and then Laura and I had a great time hanging out in the hotel room, laughing the night away.

Thursday morning we were up fairly early as well since we had a long drive ahead of us. Unfortunately, it was a rainy and dreary day, which made the day seem very long and somewhat disappointing. The hours upon hours of driving on narrow, windy, curvy, hilly, bumpy Irish roads didn’t help the mood in the car either. We again had our full Irish breakfast before hitting the road to do a driving tour of the Dingle Peninsula – (sing the following, our theme song for the day) dingle, dingle, dingle, hear the sleigh bells ring… The scenery was really beautiful, despite the rain. We got to see plenty of vividly green fields spotted with sheep. We drove through mountains as well and right along the Atlantic Ocean coast. We also stopped at an ancient church built thousands of years ago that, to this day, is a stable building that keeps almost all the rain out. From the Dingle Peninsula, we drove up to the Cliffs of Moher. In order to get there, we had to take a ferry across a bay, which, of course, we missed by just two minutes, leaving us to wait an hour for the next one. The only positive to our delay was that we met a cute guy on the later ferry who was touring Ireland over his Easter break as well. As our discussion continued, we found out he is from northern Minnesota and has been studying for the past three years in Rome to be, yes, you guessed it, a priest. He was way too cute to be a priest! Darn!

Finally across the water, it was another hour’s drive to the Cliffs of Moher. Thank God for Gaelica (the GPS)! She had the most random, middle-of-nowhere roads programmed into her that we never would have found without her directions. The Cliffs of Moher were indeed a beautiful sight, although a bit less majestic than each of us had imagined. We only spent about forty-five minutes taking in the scenery before we had to hit the road again to finish our drive to Galway. Our drive took us on yet some more windy, hilly, narrow roads through The Burren and other parts of the Irish countryside. Laura and I were both feeling pretty nauseous by the time we made it to Galway. Thankfully, we didn’t spend an hour searching for our hotel once we arrived in Galway. Perhaps the luck of the Irish was finally on our side!

We had the best dinner of the entire trip in Galway. We went to the restaurant part of a lively Irish pub. Mom had the biggest plate of fresh battered cod and chips I have ever seen! And her mushy peas were abnormally green. I had a huge bowl of chicken curry. Laura had roast chicken and ham and dad had carbonara. We all had food-babies by the end of that meal; but just to top it off, we decided to get dessert and a couple drinks in the pub while listening to the live music. What a wonderful evening!

The last thing I wanted to do the next morning was eat. I was so incredibly full the night before that I didn’t think my stomach could hold another bite. But, lo and behold, I managed to eat breakfast. After breakfast we spent about an hour walking around Galway before getting back in the car to drive to Derry. Thankfully the driving was much better that day, as we made sure to stick to the main roads, rather than following Gaelica’s directions to take the back roads. We had so much fun on this day’s drive as opposed to the day before. It certainly helps that it was a beautiful day outside. It also helps that we had Laura in the car. When she and I are together you never quite know what to expect! For example, every time we’d drive through a town, our windows would get rolled down and we’d start yelling in made up languages to people on the sidewalks. At one point, Laura was sounding so funny that mom and dad were in tears from laughing! Our only stop on the way to Derry was at the Belleek China and Pottery Factory in Belleek, Northern Ireland. We spent a good three hours there, browsing the gift shop, making plenty of fabulous purchases, watching a documentary on the making of the china, and fulfilling our daily quota of tea and scones.

Upon our arrival in Derry, we checked into our B&B and then embarked on a walk to the inner city and to dinner. After dinner, we did some shopping for souvenirs and then decided to take a stroll on the top of the city walls to get back to our B&B. We were nearly to the gate we had to exit the walls from when we discovered the gate was locked. Suddenly, we were walking at a very brisk pace to get back through the open gates we had already passed. We were all very relieved to find we hadn’t been locked inside! That night we watched The Patriot on television before going to bed.

Saturday was our last day together, as Laura had to fly out on Sunday. I tried not to dwell on that fact though! Since this is a really long post, I’m just going to quickly list the places we went: city walls of Derry, Mussenden Temple, ice cream and tea stop in Portstewart, Dunluce Castle, and the Giant’s Causeway. Fortunately, the nice weather lasted right until we got in the car to leave the Causeway. From the Causeway, we drove to Jordanstown where we stopped at Elsie’s house. Mom and dad stayed at her house for the night, so we had to drop off their suitcases before getting back into the car to drive to Carrickfergus. Elsie took us to dinner at the Wind Rose, which is a casual restaurant right next to the marina in Carrick. It was so nice to introduce Elsie to my parents and for them to be able to thank her for her kindness to me. It was also really nice to be able to show Laura, mom and dad where I’ve been spending my time these last four months. Saturday night Laura and I stayed in my apartment and went to bed pretty early (after I did laundry and finished packing for my trip to Italy the next day!).

At 6:30am on Easter Sunday, Laura had to say goodbye. We had such a great time together, but I think we both miss each other now more than after having had a short reunion. I can’t wait to live with her again next year! After she left, I slept for a couple more hours before mom, dad and Elsie picked me up for a speed-tour of Belfast. Elsie directed us to the Belfast Dry Dock where the Titanic was built. Then she took us into the heart of Belfast so mom and dad could see the Botanic Gardens, Queen’s University and City Hall. Then we drove out to Stormont where the Good Friday Agreement was signed. And finally we drove up to what I call monument hill, a hill that overlooks Belfast Lough, Belfast and its surrounding cities and the university. We had the best weather of the week on Sunday, so the view from the top of the hill was spectacular. There’s a great place for a picnic up there, which I plan to make it back to at some point before the semester is over.

After our speed-tour, we said goodbye to Elsie and then drove to Carrickfergus for Easter service. I’m so glad mom and dad got to be part of my Northern Ireland church family for a day. They got to meet all my friends following the service, which I think they both really enjoyed. They were also really impressed by the full worship band at church – trumpets, piano, flute, violin, drums, bongos and more. I guess it really is impressive!

The only things left to do after church were go back to my apartment to finish packing for Italy, grab lunch at a café in Whiteabbey Village, and then drive down to Dublin Airport to catch my flight to Italy. I have to start writing a paper that is due on Friday, so the details of that trip will have to wait until this weekend.