Alright so this week was pretty awesome! It was very low key, not much happened during the week, but I had an amazing baking success! So the roommates have been pushing the whole "bake for us" thing and I caved, especially when I found a recipe for chocolate chip cookie covered Oreos! They turned out absolutely perfectly, the oreos cream melts and becomes all soft and the dough was perfectly golden and soft...I was pretty proud of myself as you can see. And all my neighbors and roommates were fans so no complaints here :)
I have also discovered that Irish weather HATES my hair. And yes, the all caps was quite necessary. Seriously, like I step outside after I've gone through the whole effort of straightening and doing my bangs and within 10 steps there are flips and my bangs are going all funky. Not ok. And then I get to class and every Irish girl has awesome hair, and I'm over there like why won't it just stay in one place?!
This weekend was really where the magic was, because we went up to Northern Ireland! We caught the 8:30 am bus on Friday morning to Dublin, then on to Belfast and arrived around 3:30 pm. We walked to our hotel which was a short 10 minute walk from the bus station. The website described the hostel as "Alice in Wonderland shops at IKEA" and it was fabulous! First off-free coffee and tea all day! Also free breakfast, and the people who worked there were all super friendly and helpful. Austin - I definitely saw some decorations that could've come from the Warehouse. This hostel was my first time where there were people I didn't know in the room and I wasn't sure how that was going to go but I followed my parents instilled method of complete and utter paranoia and locked up everything all the time, even my flip flops. Also, the lights in the bathrooms were motioned activated, so in the middle of my shower the lights just go completely dark. And I had to finish the rest of my shower in the dark until I stepped around and the lights turned back on. It was really freaky.
Then we decided to take a black taxi cab tour. They go through the areas of strife in Belfast, where there have been a lot of religious differences. The beginning was pretty scary because he just told us stories of the Protestants persecuting Catholics punctuating it with "kill them dead". And then we arrive in the Protestant area and he's just like, I'll stay with the cab and you go and look at the murals and we're like what?! You're leaving us!!! But obviously it was safe and we were fine :) We also saw the Peace Wall, which is the physical barrier dividing where the Catholics and Protestants live. There were some pretty awesome murals and memorials to the dead in both areas of the city. You could tell our driver was a little biased though, he had no sympathy for the Protestants and pointed out all the wrongs done to the Catholics. Some points on the confusion for me were 1. The hunger strike: I don't get why it was an effective form of rebellion, the people didn't like them so why would starving yourselves cause a difference? and 2. Apparently Pres. Obama visited Belfast and informed them that it was time for the walls to come down, and me and Colleen didn't understand why he has any jurisdiction whatsoever over what Northern Ireland does, but who knows.
Figure 1: Black taxi cab :)
Figure 2: One of the murals in the Protestant district, the gun always looks like it's pointing at you!
Figure 3: One view of the Peace Wall.
Figure 4: Big Catholic figure, one who organized the Hunger Strike.
Next we went and got dinner at a yummy fish and chips place and then decided to just wander around the city at night. We ended up at a mall called Victoria Square and spur of the moment decided to go see We are the Millers at the theater. It was hilarious! And a student tickets was 4.30 euro, which is about $6...on a Friday night..is this real life? It was so amazing! We decided to call it an early night after that, because we were tired from the travelling. Apparently in the middle of the night one of our temporary roommates smoked something, and rummaged around in plastic...I am happy a rock is a lighter sleeper than I am because none of that phased me.
Bright and early we woke up to our free breakfast (Nutella on toast yum!) and for our Giant's Causeway tour! The order for the tour went: Carrickfergus Castle, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, Bushmill's Distillery, Dunlace Castle, and Giant's Causeway. Carrickfergus Castle is very old and full of history, my favorite story was by far the story of its name though. Apparently there were three brothers: Irish name, Irish name, and Fergus. Now, by Irish law the most powerful sibling is the won who rules, so basically the one who offs all of their other siblings. But these 3 brothers decided "united we stand" and decided to rule together. They joined forces and conquered some parts of Scotland. Fergus lived the longest and in his old age got sick. He heard of a cure back home in Ireland, and decided to take the journey. On the way back, a storm hit and Fergus died on a rock on the coast of Ireland and then later a castle was built in that location, called Carrick(rock)Fergus(his name). There's also some history about William of Orange conquering Carrickfergus but the only reason I'm including that is because of his statue outside of the castle, which is life sized. He was 4'10"! Talk about Napoleon syndrome pre-Napoleon!
Figure 5: William of Orange
Figure 6: Some of Carrickfergus Castle!
The next stop was Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. Apparently they close it on windy days, but it was pretty windy and the bridge was still open. It looks a lot more intimidating when you hear about it, but in actuality it's only about 30 feet long. It had steel supports though added in later helping with stability. Originally it was built by fishermen to get to the little island, and only had one rope as a support. The area was gorgeous and crossing the bridge, that little bit of tottering on the unknown, was amazing! Apparently people get so scared after crossing the first time that they refuse to cross back over again, which was a little silly because the bridge is stable, it just doesn't feel like it :)
Figure 7: The rope bridge right before we crossed.
Figure 8: Don't look down!
Figure 9: Me sitting on a rock after we crossed.
Figure 10: Gorgeous water!
On the way there we took the Coastal road through 9 different glens, which were stunning! All of my pictures are pretty bad though because they were all through the glass. For lunch we stopped at the Bushmills Distillery, and we had cheesecake with whiskey inside of it, but sadly did not have any time to sample the whiskey. Next stop was the Dunlace Castle ruins, which were pretty awesome! It was a castle of the McDonnell's I'm pretty sure and may have been the one that never was conquered, but Cromwell came along and blew it up with cannons.
Figure 11: Zoomed in view of the ruins.
The last stop was the Giant's Causeway! I have been looking forward to seeing this since I found out I was going to Ireland, so needless to say I took over 300 pictures of you guessed it, rocks. There are three main theories involving their construction: 1) Volcanic lava forming the stones 2) God created it that way so tough and 3) Giants! Obviously option 3 is the logical choice. It was simply stunning and calming and just gorgeous.
Figure 12: The wishing chair.
Figure 13: View off into the sea.
Figure 14: Selfie of excitement!
Figure 15: Just lovely :)
After we got back from the tour we got dinner at this place called Nando's that was this interesting chain type place where there was chicken and you could pick the level of spiciness of the food. KLS: this would be the perfect restaurant for us! Yummy sandwiches and wraps, decent veggie options for Sasha (including a chickpea patty), decently priced, and drum roll please: FREE REFILLS! I was sold the second I saw that, I drank so much coke in one hour it was entirely unnecessary but so worth it! And they had coloring pages that I got to color, so our living room here now has decoration :) Next we wandered around some different areas of the city at night, like the Queen's College and City Hall, which were lit up and really pretty.
So, for those who don't know, the Titanic was built in Belfast! So obviously they have Titanic Belfast, a museum of the Titanic, and the Pump House where the Titanic was stored before its maiden, and only voyage. The museum was really interesting, my favorite part was probably the violin that was played by a man named Wallace in the orchestra. He died in the sinking, true to the film in 1997, he played while the life boats were being loaded and went down with the ship. I definitely teared up reading the radio correspondence between the Titanic and other ships, in the last distress call they didn't even send the last letter. It was emotional. Next we walked to the Pump House and stood where the Titanic was docked and learned about the process of how the ship was stored and the machines and pumps to drain the water.
Figure 16: The violin.
Figure 17: The dock where the Titanic was, just over 100 years ago!
After that it was a long 6 hours back home, just in time for the excitement of this week to begin!
BONUS: So, for all you Game of Thrones fans out there (which should be everyone!)- about 80% of all of GoT is filmed in Northern Ireland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently the tour company we used on Saturday is responsible for the shuttling of all things GoT related, and so they showed us the Wall! And I saw the fake snow on it! It was soo nifty, but sadly I didn't get a picture. We also learned that our tour guide is going to be an extra in season 4, so I know someone who has been in GoT!!!!! And then when we were walking to the Pump House, we just so happened to walk by one of 2 main indoor filming locations for GoT! We saw the stacks of fake snow and a crew pass on a car!!! It was totally unexpected and awesome and has thus increased my desire to do a GoT themed travel where I visit all the main filming locations (Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland) because GoT is awesome!
Figure 18: The crew pass!
So excited for the week to come! More Tissue engineering labs, and a midterm assignment in Bioethics will sure keep me busy, not to mention senior design! But this weekend we are planning on heading down to Cork to kiss the Blarney Stone, hopefully I receive the gift of gab ;)
All my love,
Amy Liz
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