Northern Ireland and Belfast

During my last weekend in Ireland, Caitlyn and I took a final weekend trip up to Northern Ireland. We stayed in Belfast and signed up for a day tour trip through Derry and the North shore. The bus ride to get to Belfast was over 7 hours and we had to change buses 3 times! I was so happy to finally get off the bus.

We decided to tour the city our first night there. They had a christmas fair and there were lots of food vendors! Everything looked delicious. I got a slice of 3-layer chocolate cake! Soooo good!! Caitlyn got a chocolate muffin with truffles on top. You can't get that back in the States. Nope, you can't!

On Saturday, we took a bus tour through Derry and the surrounding areas. We went up the Giant's Causeway and toured through the country side. I didn't think the tour was that great, but it probably would have been much better during the Spring when everything was green and in bloom. Our first stop was at the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge.  The bridge was used by fisherman to catch salmon. It's no longer in use, but you can pay to cross it. I didn't do it, but it looked pretty cool.

When we were done at the bridge, we got back on the bus and moved on to the Giant's Causeway. When we got there it looked like being at the mini Cliffs of Moher. The views were great and it was a cleary day. The Causeway was supposedly made by a Giant who was in pursuit of a woman he loved who had left Scotland for Ireland to marry someone. The Giant built the Causeway to connect Ireland to his home island.

In truth, the Causeway was created by underwater volcanos. You can't really see the causeway in my photos because the tide was high but the cliffs were cool. We walked the entire length of the causeway and it took over an hour to make it to the end. Such a hike! And Caitlyn actually fell in the mud OOPS!

We left the Causeway and headed to Derry. Derry wasn't exciting at all. A dark city with a stone wall, that was about it. At that point, we were tired and didn't want to walk around. I  just wanted to get back to Belfast to the hostel and to my bed.

When we got back to Belfast we went down to the Christmas fair again and saw the lights on everyone's houses and buildings. The lights made me miss home a bit and driving around looking at all the houses where a christmas truck seemed to explode all over them with lights and plastic snowmen and blow-up santas. 

 On our last day in Belfast, we planned out our day on a map and wanted to see the Botanical Gardens and soem Titanic sights. We got up in the morning and headed over to the Gardens. It had frosted that morning so all the plants were frozen in a winter wonderland. But there was a greenhouse where there were tropical plants inside and it was really warm!

Belfast was great, but it wasn't as spectacular as I have heard from others. When our bus came to get us, we had another 7 hour ride to look forward to back to Galway. Half way back, we had to switch buses and found out that the next bus would not be there for another hour. We ended up hanging out in a parking lot with no lights, a cold bench and the bus station closed for the night. Perfect. Well the bus finally came and he guy was probably one of the nicest irish guys I have met. He was so nice and made the rest of the ride back to Galway smooth and fast. When we finally got back to our apartment it was about 12:30 in the morning. I was ready for bed!

Well it's Tuesday now, 4 more days till I'm back in the States. So EXCITED!!