Ireland summer 2013

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.

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. 

Irish Jig

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. 

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? 

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. 

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.

Natalie's House and car

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.

Giant's Causeway

On top of the ridge

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. 

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.

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