HI hi hi hi hi hi!!!
I haven't done a blog post since last Wednesday, which is my worst record yet. And I'm sorry :( Things were just so busy last week that I literally had no time.
We had a fiasco with our groceries too that I was trying to deal with (ordered them on Monday for a Wednesday delivery, didn't get them until Friday, and also charged me twice). And between packing for Scotland and working on my paper, things have been more hectic than usual.
But as this week is our last week in Dublin, I am going to MAKE time to post something everyday. Each day I'm going to do an update of current goings-on, and then I'm also going to post some pictures that I have been meaning to for a while. I'm also planning some special final posts...so stay tuned! ;)
SO.
First things first. Belfast.
The girls and I made a trip to Belfast last weekend (July 23 - 25th), which seems like forever ago, now that I'm actually trying to regurgitate it. After the Book of Kells Larissa and I got all of our stuff together and headed downtown to the bus station. We caught the 7:00 pm bus so we got into Belfast pretty early, around 8:30. That night we just hung out in our hostel, which was really cool. All six of us slept in an eight bunk dorm, but we booked it out so it would only be us, which I liked a lot. I slept on one of the bottom bunks next to a window, and right on the curtain of the window next to my bed, there was a little stuffed Koala bear that clips onto things. I was really confused at first, so I took it off the curtain and it was a tiny Koala bear holding a boomerang with a green hat and a green shirt that said "Australia." So neat! So I kept him. And I'm thinking that whoever left him there meant to because they wanted someone to find him and take him along with them on their travels. So that's what I did! The whole rest of the weekend the Koala bear was hanging out on my purse strap, seeing all of the beautiful things we did!
There he is! He was quite a trooper that weekend...didn't fall off once!!
Saturday we went on a bus tour around the coast of Northern Ireland. It was BEAUTIFUL. The coast was gorgeous and green and we were even able to see Scotland from across the ocean. But the main "attraction" of the bus tour was Giant's Causeway. Which was beautiful. And huge, and "all natural." It was formed by an ancient volcano explosion right next to the ocean, and all of the rocks are hexagons. We had about a half an hour to walk around, take pictures, and just look at the scenery.
This is a good picture of the rock formations....they are all pretty tall and in perfect hexagons. It's really crazy to think that that was actually formed by a volcano! Sweet!
We also went to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, which is just a bridge that connects the mainland to the Carrick island. It is about 66 feet above the water, so it is kind of scary! I was expecting an "actual" rope bridge. You know, a piece of rope that you have to balance across while walking over; like the rope bridge from Horton Hears a Who! When he is trying to save the speck on the flower and has to walk across that rope bridge?? Yea, I was expecting that! I suppose it's a good thing it wasn't like that though. It was very sturdy. It was just pretty high, so I guess some people don't want to walk across it.
It was fun! As soon as I got on it I kind of started bouncing and making the bridge move in the middle!!! Just to make it a little more fun :)
See?! Looks sturdy huh?
After the bus tour we made it back to the hostel around 6 that evening, so we still had some time to go experience Belfast's night life, which was fun!
Then on Sunday the girls and I did a Black Taxi tour that took us to the different Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods around Belfast and taught us a little about The Troubles. That was probably my favorite part of the trip, because we were able to actually see this kind of history that Northern Ireland has been dealing with for a while. I'm still learning about all of that though, so I don't really want to give a detailed account of everything - in case I get something wrong!
This is a picture of one of the Protestant neighborhoods that we drove through. It's easy to tell the difference between the neighborhoods because, 1) they are separated by a huge Peace Wall (it's referred to as Ireland's Berlin Wall) and, 2) the Protestant neighborhoods fly English flags EVERYWHERE, whereas the Catholic neighborhoods are affiliated with the Republic of Ireland so they fly Irish flags.
In contrast, this is a picture of a Catholic neighborhood. Not the best because they don't have Irish flags all over the place, but it's inside the huge peace wall. And this particular neighborhood sits right next to a memorial of the Bombay Street fire (where the Protestants caused this whole street to burn down and kill a lot of Catholic civilians). The murals that we saw that day were all in the Protestant neighborhoods. Those specific murals are all are all biased towards the Protestant/British side of The Troubles so they highlight things like Martin Luther, King William III, Oliver Cromwell, etc.
My favorite mural that we saw was the mural of the Ulster hand - which our tour guide from the bus tour told us a little about. I'm pretty sure it was the only mural in the neighborhood that wasn't biased (at least I don't think so).
So in the Ulster flag and almost all of a family's coat of arms who come from Ulster have a red hand somewhere in the flag or the coat of arms. And that is because when the British were colonizing Ireland, they told some of their "croonies" that if they get their hands on Northern Ireland first then they will be King. And the story goes that whoever reached the island first wanted so badly to be King that they cut off their hand and threw it into the distance. If they were lucky enough to have a good "arm" (hahahahahaha no pun intended) and their hand landed on the shore, then they were King!
So this is that mural describing that myth. And there is the Ulster flag at the top, with the red hand in the middle.
Cool huh??
So that's about it! Belfast was a blast, but it seems like such a long time ago! Again, sorry for the delay in posting this...I just needed to find some time!
BUUUT this week is so hectic!! I already spent THREE hours in the library after work, and now I'm about to work on some more homework before I go to bed. Tomorrow EUSA is throwing our farewell dinner at a restaurant downtown (FREE FOOD!) and the girls and I might go The Comet afterwards, depending on how much I get done tonight/tomorrow. Wednesday and Thursday are productive days because I need to work on homework as much as I can, keeping doing blog posts, and find a time to PACK. Yuck. Yucky. YUUCK. $100 overweight limit....here I come!
Ok! Gotta get back into study mode and GET STUFF DONE. Whoopie.
Talk to you sooooon! Hope y'all enjoyed this
:D
