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| Peace out St. Louis |
Last week I got home from my second
trip over seas. This time I went over to Ireland to see Natalie, and the beautiful
country side. After a little flight trouble, I finally made it into Dublin airport,
where I was met by Natalie and our first adventure, finding the car in the
parking garage. I’d like to say my rugged good looks made her flustered and she
couldn’t remember where she parked, but let’s be real. After finding the car we
headed into downtown Dublin.
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| Dublin! |
Adventure 2, finding downtown Dublin, after a
couple of circles we finally find the parking garage we needed. Dublin was
happening, there were people everywhere. Besides the shops and beautiful architecture,
the street performers were amazing. We finished off the night with mini pub
crawl to truly experience the Dublin lifestyle.
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| Irish Jig |
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| The Best Street Performer |
The
next day we headed north to the village of Malahide, where I got my first real
glimpse of Ireland’s beaches and their ocean front. Adventure number 3; how to
leave Malahide, the road made a loop and after driving the loop 7 times, I said
we were missing something. With the help of George, we were able to find the
turn, in our defense there were no signs marking it.
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| Malahide |
We continued driving that
day until we reached the city of New Castle. After a long day of driving we
treated ourselves to some fine Italian food and adventure number 4, how to deal
with drunk and discussing Americans. As
we were eating a man commented about the color of my shirt, nothing else was said,
as we left he said “aren’t you going to say good bye?” Cleary not knowing him, I
said “do I know you”? We started to talk and it was clear he only wanted to
look at Natalie. Trying to be nice, we talked for a minute and then quickly
left. Americans, why do we have to be so stereotypical?
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| Mourne Mountains |
The
next day, we took advantage of the hotel’s pool and wonderful breakfast to fuel
us for our big day. We started by heading to Tollymore Forest for some nice
hiking and adventure number 5. As we were hiking, the bushes, about 5 feet
tall, started to shake, Natalie being the brave one, screamed and jumped about
5 feet only to discover that it was only a deer, apparently they don’t have
many of them in Northern Ireland. After a picnic lunch, we then got back in the
car and headed to bloody bridge in the Mourne Mountains. The trail starts at
almost sea level with the peeks being around 3,000ft tall. The trail follows a
river that has lots of small pools and waterfalls, which the locals come here
to swim, similar to Johnston shut-ins.
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| Bloody Bridge |
And so adventure number 6 begins here,
not really knowing how long we planned to hike or what the hike is like, I only
brought ½ a water bottle, which is ½ more than Natalie brought. As we were
hiking we kept push farther and farther, the views were amazing and the weather
was holding up. So after about 4 hours of hiking, long out of water, and almost
to the ridge top, the clouds began to move in on us. Playing it safe we decided
to head back to the car and continue the drive into Belfast.
After
hiking so much the previous day, we took the next day to relax. We started off
by sightseeing downtown Belfast, followed by lunch with Natalie’s mom, more
sightseeing and then as topper, pizza and a movie. A much need chill day.
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| Natalie's House and car |
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| Parliament Building |
The
next day we woke early, and headed north to Portrush. Along the way we stopped at the Giant’s
Causeway, adventure number 7, and took a look around and hiked up the
ridgeline. The Giant’s Causeway is a natural formed rock formation that is just
too hard to explain, except that all the rocks are in almost perfect hexagon
shape. The causeway is part of Northern Irelands National Trust, similar to our
National Parks. That evening Natalie’s Mom and stepdad, Gail and George, stopped
by for dinner, and an after dinner walk.
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| Giant's Causeway |
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| On top of the ridge |
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| End of the trail? |
Finally I got to experience the Northern
Ireland everyone was talking about, on Thursday we woke up to rain. It was
bouncing on and off. With too many adventures to do, we could not stay seated
for long, so we head off to the rope bridge, hoping the rain would stop when we
got there. Adventure number 8, as we pulled into the parking lot, the rain was
coming down hard, so we waiting to see if it would let up, after a few minutes,
with no relief in sight, we headed down the trail. After about 10 minutes, the rain
finally gave up. The rope bridge is exactly
what it sounds like, a rope bridge that takes you from the main land to an
island. If I had to guess, I would say the bridge is about 50ft over the water,
and sways very much. As we hiked back, we were no more than 5 minutes from the
car and the rain began again. We were lucky since we were able to spend most of
the time rain free.
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| Rope Bridge |
That afternoon we tried to SUP board, but 30 minutes into
the lesson thunderstorms rolled in and the beach was closed. That evening we
were joined with Ruth and Eddie, Natalie’s friends. Both were wonderful, very
friendly and fun. That evening we all went and got Fish and Chips for dinner,
it was delicious!
The next morning was another chill
day spent with Ruth and Eddy. We spent the morning walking the beach out to a
pier and then walked around the shops as the girls shopped and eddy and I got
to know each other. That evening we had a late dinner followed by a movie to
end the night.
Saturday, Ruth and Eddy had to
leave in the morning and Natalie and I retook our SUP lesson but we also did a
Surf lesson, adventure 9 and 10? In the morning the ocean was pretty calm, so
the SUP was a lot of fun. Both of us were able to stand up and cruise. In our
group, there were also 3 younger kids, and they all did excellent. After lunch
we took to the surf, it was much harder than I thought. The waves were a bit too
small and the boards were tipsier then I would have imaged. Natalie and I were
both able to pop up on the board, but by the time we did that the wave was
already crashing. It wasn’t the best surf but it was a great starting point to
continue on.
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| I was hot and just needed to cool off |
After a day in the ocean, we headed to Portstewart, were George’s
mom was renting an apartment for 2 weeks. After a nice shower, we once again
had dinner with Gail and George. Portstewart was having their red sail
festival, so the streets were packed and there was live music and even a
wonderful fireworks display.
Sunday was my last full day. After breakfast,
we headed back down to Belfast to meet up with Rachael and Derek. It was great to meet Derek and Rachael is
always a blast. After having a drink and walking along the beach, we headed
back to Natalie’s to hangout and eventually we did dinner and a movie. That
evening Natalie showed me most of her art work from university, I’ve seen some
of it before but the only way I can describe it is WOW, it is truly amazing.
She clearly has a gift.
Monday, we woke up early and headed
to Rachel’s parent house for breakfast, followed by continuing to Dublin airport, and
at 12:05 My flight took off and I was gone from Ireland.
Ireland was an amazing experience;
I am truly kicking myself for not going sooner. All the people I meet were wonderful
and so inviting, and the scenery was unreal. I never imaged it being such a
beautiful place. I don’t think I could have asked for a better trip full of
adventures. Until the next adventure.
-Curtis
