Dublin, Belfast and back again to Glasgow..

Our last few days in Dublin were very wet, we didn’t do much touristy stuff – except for tourist shops, the weather was quite depressing so we went to the movies and saw the cirque du freak – the vampire assistant. It was a book I read when I was younger (gran won it for me).

We went back up to Belfast for the last few days before we flew out, we stayed at the same hostel we stayed in when we arrived in Ireland. We shared the room that night with a New Zealand girl who was really nice – she was there for a night and was flying back to Bristol where she was working as a teacher till January.  The next morning we got up nice and early and we decided to go on the Belfast Bus Tour, we got student rates (hehe) and jumped on the bus, It was really good – the tour guide was okay and we saw the ‘big fish’ which is a giant salmon next to the waters edge that was awesome! ahah – on each scale held a different part of history of Belfast. We then saw the massive odyssey arena which has a massive cinema, Ice Skating Rink, Concert hall etc.  We then went through the titanic quarter. For those who don’t know Belfast was the city who built the Titanic and were back in the day the largest ship building city around. They were currently building a Titanic display/museum and wasn’t meant to be finished until 2012. We then drove to Stormont Estate which is a massive gardens and the parliament house. It’s such a massive complex is 365 metres long and has 365 windows for every day in the year.  The bus then continued back into the city and we past quite a few churches (one had the largest Celtic cross on the building). We then headed into the trouble area, this is where a lot of fighting happened between the protestants and Catholics / British vs Irish.   They had many many murals painted on the side of buildings to remember soldiers, political prisoners, the wars in general. We also saw the large walls that had been erected to try minimize the fighting (if they couldn’t see each other – they couldn’t fight each other).

The tour was really good that we did it a total of 3 times, we’ve found the lady tour guides have always been better, with stories, history and more enjoyable to listen too.  They had a really cheap cinema in belfast – so we saw 9 and fantastic mr fox.  We went into the Stormont Estate one day and spent a couple of hours in the estate and in the parliament house.

I really enjoyed Belfast and preferred it to Dublin – Belfast wasn’t overridden with Tourists and was quite relaxing and friendly, Dublin was just soo busy and loud ( I did love watching the buskers though).

So we caught the ryanair flight back on the Wednesday for our 20 minute flight back to Prestwick airport. The flight was quite bumpy as the weather hasn’t improved.

Last night (5th November) was bon-fire night which is a massive UK tradition (If you’ve seen V for the Vendetta (the movie) its about that). With Guy Faux’s attempt at blowing up Parliament. Ellen took us and Ross into the city to watch the cities fireworks. We had dinner in a nice restaurant that was under an old church – quite cool. Then we walked around to the park to watch the fireworks – They were awesome. The amount of people there, it was like river fire! Haha

As fireworks aren’t illegal to buy here, driving home we saw so so MANY fireworks just going off and hearing the popping noise they make… It was quite cool to watch.

Tonight we’re having a bon-fire party. Tom has been building this massive bon fire in the back yard which looks amazing!! The boys have invited all their friends around so its going to quite a good night, if they can get the fire to actually start with the rain – but they’ve done it in the past. So I can’t wait for tonight.

Cindy and I went to the shops earlier to get some boooooze. Cindy has started to get into Cider because wine is so variable. So cindy got 4 bottles of Cider, and I got 4 different beers (3 I haven’t tried before) So I hope I like them.

Cindy’s favourite Cider is Magners Pear Cider (whereas I like Bulmers Pear Cider better). Tonight I will be drinking a Cobra, a tiger, a Innis & Gunn and Duvel.

Cindy is putting up a Cindy’s Cider Page to match my Kath’s beer page so have a look and see the types of cider Cindy’s tried.

Anyways… Up next in our journey is a short trip to Edinburgh (again), our London trip for Tegan and Sara, a trip up to Oban, and then our trip to Mallorca.

Take Care,

Love – Kath and Cindy

btw – new photos are up in Ireland

Scotland Map

For those who don’t really know Scotland, we have put together a map with the routes that we have traveled since we arrived in September.

The RED Line indicates the route and the GREEN Dots indicates the places we have stayed in.

We will do up a new map for Ireland/Northern Ireland, once we have finished our travels here. And also a map of England (when we travel there).

Galway….

We arrived in Galway yesterday after a 3.5 hour bus trip from Dublin… It wasn’t the nicest bus trip… however the bus had free wi-fi which was awesome. We got to Galway and walked from the bus to a pub (which we had lunch and a drink at)… we then walked around for awhile trying to find our hostel… (they like to hide you see…) We found it and was a really really really nice hostel… Cindy chose well. We were in a 4 bed female dorm and our beds were really 3 beds… Cindy was lucky enough to walk in and see her bed was actually a double bed… and I got the single bed… haha. We were in with 2 german girls (mother and daughter).  We didnt really go out for the afternoon but got some dinner from Lidl and booked our way back from Cork to Dublin.

Today, we checked out and went for a walk around Galway… turns out Galway is really small and doesn’t have toooo much to do. So we walked down the main street looking at shops and then went to the spanish arch. We then went into the small museum and had a look (they had some interesting things)… We then continued to walk around and then decided to hit the pub to kill some time before our bus leg to Limerick.

We are now on the bus to Limerick (free wi-fi again). We’ve put photos of our time in Dublin up… and will put some photos of Galway up when we empty the camera.

Take care,

Kath and Cindy

Our stay in Dublin

We arrived in Dublin on Friday afternoon, after a 3 hour bus journey from Belfast. We had to hike for miles to get to our hostel (was at least a 30min walk from the bus station, which isn’t much unless y0u are carrying 10kg bags with you).

The front desk lady at the hostel was a but rude. Seemed like a total inconvience that we were wanting to check-in. We had to walk up 5 flights of stairs to our room… We met a nice English girl, Amanda and had a chat to her before going to explore the hostel. We were both on top bunks (4 bed dorm) and we had an ensuite and tv in our room.

We went to find a supermarket for dinner. We eventually found a Tesco’s and a cheap shop (where we got some 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner). When we got back to the hostel Amanda invited us to go out to the pub with her and a few other people.

We headed out after 10pm (took so long for the boys to get ready).  We headed into our first pub (it was very expensive) so we only had 1 drink each. We then went down to a pub/club (upstairs was a pub, downstairs was a club). We stayed upstairs for a while and watched the live band that was playing, then headed downstairs. Kath and I left the club at 1.30- we were buggered from the long day we had.

The next morning we decided to do the free walking tour of Dublin. It was a 3 hour tour (walking and standing non-stop). We went to the Dublin Castle, a Church, Temple Bar, St Andrews Green, Trinity College and a few other places.

Saturday we had a quite night in and just watched a movie on Tv.

Sunday we headed out quite late (the clocks turned back on Sunday) and we didn’t even realise it. We went out for a walk down all the main streets (on both sides of the river). We then went to the Photography Gallery, which was really small and only had about 20 pictures in there. We had some lunch, which was not very nice. Then headed down to the Museum. It was pretty interesting.. quite small though.

We hung out in the afternoon in the hostel trying to book buses/accomodation for our trip out to Galway on Monday.

Hope everyone is doing well… pics to come soon

Love Cindy and Kath

Giant Causeway Tour

Today we headed off to tour around the North of Northern Ireland.

We had a very stylish bus (fake leather seats and all!!). We started our tour late cause some people must have slept in – but anyways we headed off and our first stop was at Carrickfergus Castle. We didn’t go in, just took pictures from the outside. It was very windy there and we only saw one side of the castle – so not too much to report. But it was cool because they had a statue of a soldier with a gun leaning over the edge of the wall.

We then headed up the road to Carrik-a-Rede Bridge. We hiked over a km (and it really was, despite what the sign said haha!), alongside a cliff. It was pretty scary looking over the side of the cliff. It was a long way to the water and very rough sea. We didn’t cross the bridge (it was very windy and we wanted to save our money for lunch!! haha, yes as usual I was thinking about food!).

Shortly down the road we arrived at The Giants Causeway. We had lunch in the hotel (really the only option we were given). I had the Irish Stew and Kath had an Irish Burger. My stew wasn’t the greatest – mum makes a better stew (though her’s isn’t Irish haha). I am going to try another stew in a pub (I think it will be more authentic haha). We then decided to work off our lunch by taking the cliffside walk to the Causeway stones. It was a 3.5km walk one way! We saw stunning views and I took lots of photos. Looking over the cliff was very scary as there was no barriers or fences. I scared a sheep in a field and it peed itself. (I laughed for a while). The rocks were really cool, for rocks haha!. My favourite was the boot shaped rock, which we have not put a pic of * on request only*. We had a steep decent off the cliff edge (on stairs- 162 to be exact), then wandered around on the rocks near the water. We then started our long hike back to the bus.

Our next stop was the Bushmills Distillery, an Irish Whisky place. We had a look in the gift shop. There was really cool table and chairs there (as you can see in the pics).

We then  continued on down the road to Dunluce Castle. We only saw it from a distance, it was very large.

We then came back to the hostel and went for some dinner.

Tomorrow we are going for a walk around the Botanical Gardens and the Ulster Museum (which only re-opened today after being closed for 3 years!). In the afternoon we are heading off to Dublin.

We are heading to bed now because we have had a huge day and have another one tomorrow.

Hope everyone is well.

Love Cindy and Kath