This past week has been exhilarating. Since I landed in Dublin I have been in a different city almost every night. We stayed in hostels, sharing a room with anywhere from 1 to about 18 other people. This presented an opportunity to meet, and travel with, several people. I made friends with 2 older men who had traveled all across the US and were now making their way through Europe, a 20 something year old archeologist from Australia, a couple of Belgian students just to name a few.
Dublin:
After I landed and put my luggage at the hostel it was off to University College Dublin to meet some friends for drinks at the new campus bar. I'm back in Dublin now, enjoying the night life and anxiously awaiting orientation.
Belfast:
After a 2.5 hour bus ride and crossing the boarder to Northern Ireland I was in Belfast. We Explored the city and culture by going to a local museum. Here, I read all about Irish history from the time of the dinosaurs to the Struggles. The city was pretty with a lot of character and history.
Bushmills:
Being the home of ancient castles, the best homemade whiskey ice cream you will ever taste, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, and the Giant's Causeway, Bushmills had great attractions to offer and was also the first town I stayed in for 2 nights in a row. Carrick-a-Rede bridge was built several hundred years ago by local fisherman. Since then it has been reinforced and can now safely withstand wind up to 40m/h and the weight of 8 tourists at a time. Crossing the bridge was not nearly as scary as it looks. It is now so far from its original state that I effectively bounded across it...to the dismay of the elderly women ahead of me.
Giant's Causeway is an enormous group of stones that mysteriously fit together like a puzzle. There are several myths and attempted explanations for this phenomenon, but the true nature of its creation remains unknown. The causeway connects Northern Ireland to Scotland, but the only person that can cross it is the giant himself!
No comments:
Post a Comment