The Journey Day 4 Dublin to Belfast

September 6th, 2016 Dublin Ireland

Cell Door

We got up at 8. We had breakfast at Third Space again. We liked it so much the first time! This time, I had porridge with a latte, and Kelsi had pancakes with bacon with a cappuccino. I liked the porridge it was creamy and had fruit, but I like the Full breakfast more. I just thought, that perhaps I should eat such a hardy breakfast three times in four days! Kelsi said she liked the pancakes, but since I think in the end she preferred the granola, because she wouldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the trip!

Kilmainham Gaols

After breakfast, we went straight to the Kilmainham Gaols. Which was an old prison and courthouse. I have visited jails before, notably Alcatraz. However, the tours are different. At Alcatraz the tour is self guided with headsets, this one had a tour guide, she was excellent. She was very knowledgeable and she seemed to like giving the tour. Another difference is the types of prisoners that were at the jails. Kilmainham had prisons that were as young as seven and women many of the crimes included begging and petty theft. Alcatraz was first a military prison and then a federal penitentiary. The Kilmainham Gaols and Alcatraz both had some notable prisoners. Alcatraz housed some infamous criminals, while Kilmainham Gaol housed and excuted Irish revolutionaries! The biggest difference that I noted was that not one time during the Kilmainham Gaol tour was it suggested that the Gaols was haunted.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Shark Bag!

When the tour concluded, we walked across the river to grab a bus to St. Patrick's Cathedral. This time we managed to get off at the correct stop! It is huge! It was also very beautiful. However, there are a lot of full sized informational panels that got in the way! The panels did provide a lot of information, but I thought it took away from the original beauty of the Cathedral. However, one very exciting feature is Jonathon Swift is buried there. I was thrilled to see that. I tried to explain A Modest Proposal to Kelsi, but I think I did a bad job of it. 

Next we went to Dublin's Castle. We got turned around a bit and needed to go back across the plaza to get tickets. We decided to have lunch at the Castle's first. I ate the Irish hot meal of the week which was a beef pot pie with salad and bread. The pie was really very good. I have had savory pies before, but they were all microwavable, this pie and the others on my trip were much better. Kelsi had French toast and bacon, sounds like breakfast. Better than the food was the beautiful view of the gardens! It was a partly sunny day and sitting outside on the balcony was quite nice. 

Dublin's Castle

When we finished eating, we walked across the plaza to purchased tickets to see the apartments. They were very interesting, but a lot like the Cathedral it was more like a museum. The information is useful because then I know what I am looking at, but sometimes it would be nice to just see the room as it is. Also, Dublin Castle was renovated over the years, so it was difficult to know what the castle was like when it was in use as a castle. Of course, I want to take out the carpet in my house, and add hard floor. So I guess understand the want and need to update the castle. There is a walking tour of Dublin Castle, and I think that would have been good, but we still needed to go to Trinity College and see the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells is a very old copy of the gospels. It was originally housed at Abby of Kells, but moved to the Dublin and Trinity College for safe keeping. There is a lot of information about the Book before you get to see it. They also have copies of the art and scripture prior to the book. Which is pretty important, since you cannot turn touch the book, there is no way to see all of the art. The Book was written in Latin, and I liked looking at the latin script and picking out words that I know!  

We didn't know that part of the tour included a long room full of old books, bought by the college. I didn't try to count them, the number of books is impressive, I was told 200,000. The shelves went up to the ceiling and they were covered in books! Unfortunately, I couldn't touch any of the books, let alone read them. The room also contains marble busts of many writers and philosophers.  

We also visited the science hall and went to the optics exhibit which was quite an eye opener! Kelsi even had her eyes checked. I guess she may need some glass. Although, the science exhibit changes, but people should visit if they can. It was free and fun.

That was our last stop in Dublin. After that we returned to our room to pick up our stuff. We took an Uber to the Train station. We caught the 4.50 train to Belfast. One last thing to say about our experience in Dublin. Our Airbnb Host Vini was really great. He has a few places in Dublin, and is very professional.

September 6th, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland

We arrived in Belfast in the evening, our airbnb host had contacted earlier that day to say that we could only check us in from after 7pm to 830pm. It was fine with us to have a late check in because we needed the time to finish up Dublin, but it was quite frustrating that we had such a narrow window. She said that her mother was sick and she was going to take care of her, that's why she only had that short time to meet us. This was quite a different experience then our host in Dublin, but we did as instructed. We took a cab from the train station to the house. When we got into the cab, the driver said the house was far from the train station, but it was only 10-15 minutes! I guess living and driving in Phoenix changes the definition of far. 

When we arrived at the room we had to walk up a flight of steep stairs with our luggage. I kept thinking I would fall or drop my luggage, but luckily I did neither of those things. We met our host Yvonne. She laughed at me because I was wearing summer clothes! Well, in her defense it was evening, and cool out, jeans probably would have been better than shorts, but in my defense Dublin was warm that day! She talked with us for a while. She has a lot of rules for her room, not all of them are listed on her host page, however she was very nice and friendly. She provided us with tea and biscuits! (How British, is that?) She also recommended places we should do, see and eat around town. She is familiar with a lot of the fun nightlife things to do in Belfast. She recommended for that night that we walk to the end of the road, pick up a bottle of wine at the store and take it into the Pizza shop. The pizza shop doesn't have wine, but they will allow you to drink it in their shop. So, that's what we did, after I changed out of my summer clothes!

When we went up to the shop, we had a trouble at the store, the door opens out, but we kept pushing! It took us a while to figure out which wine we wanted, and in the end we took the recommendation of the clerk! We may or may not have tried to push our way into the pizza shop as well. The pizza place was called Pizza Works. The waitress was so nice. On the menu there was rocket listed as an ingredient. We didn't know what that was, so we asked the waitress. She tried to explain it to us, but we must have looked even more confused, because she brought out some to show us. It is argula. We ordered bruschetta with rocket, cheese garlic knots, and pizza. Mine was spicy Hawaiian, Kelsi's was new Brooklyn. All the food was very good. I love jalapenos so I like most dishes that contain them. We ate and drank everything! 

After dinner and drinks we went over to the gas station to get pins and band-aids because Kelsi had some very outrageous blisters. I felt bad. We had done a ton of walking over the last few days, and there would be more to come. She said she felt much better after she got rid of them! So hopefully she can enjoy our stay Belfast.

The Journey Day 3

September 5th, 2016 Dublin Ireland

Christ Church and surrounding area

We were up and out in time to get breakfast at Third Space, one of the restaurants recommend to us by our host. It was the place that was closed the night before. I ate a mini Irish breakfast. It was similar to the one I had on the first day, but I thought the pudding was better at Third Space. This may have more to do with the fact that I had never ate Irish pudding before, now that I was familiar with it, I knew what to expect. However, I thought the pudding was spiced better. Also, the baked beans weren't quite as sweat, which I liked. Kelsi had granola and a muffin. She must have liked the granola because she talked about it a lot afterwards!

Christ Church

 After breakfast we went towards Trinity College, but we stopped at Christ Church instead. It was very beautiful architecture. The style seemed romantic to me, but it was too early for that to be the case. It was renovated with a romantic style. Inside, we also visited the crypts. It was kind of weird that the crypts were kind of like a museum. There is even a gift shop down there!

From church we went to college, but apparently we failed at our attempt. The line for the Kells book was so long!  Because of the length we decided to look at exhibits in the science and zoology buildings. The Zoology exhibit is only open in the summer, the science exhibit is not open Mondays! So we left. One thing of note, we talked to a college student at the information center near the Kells book. He was eating a Nature Valley bar and I told him they taste good heated a bit in the microwave. He told us about the exhibits in the other buildings, but he didn't say they weren't open! After my great tip and everything!

Park, and Clock Tower

We caught the bus from Trinity College to the street we were staying. That way we could navigate to Guiness Storehouse. We could spot Guiness above the buildings, so it wasn't hard to find. We ended up on the near side of the building which wasn't the entrance. So we had to walk around. From there we took tour, we learned the history of the beer, and history of the advertisements, we also learned how to pour the beer, we learned how to taste the beer and received complementary pint. After the tour we went up to the top of the building. You can see the most of the city from there. After we finished our pint we went to get lunch. It took forever because there were a few locations to eat. The first place we tried had a wait, so we went down to get hamburgers, but they only take cash! So we went back up to the first place. We both had burgers, but I didn't get the chutney on mine. The burgers were pretty good. We also had more beer! 

After that our plan for the day was kind of thrown off because we wanted to go to the Gaols, but it was booked. When I was planning the trip, everything recommended to wait to get to Dublin before booking any tours. Which probably is good advice, but once you arrive you should book your tours and not wait until the day of. Instead, we went to Phoenix Park which was beautiful, but we didn't end up spending a lot of time there. 

On our way back to our room, we took the bus, but we missed a stop or two...or several! So we had to back track! By the time we ended up at the room it was almost at the time for the pub crawl. We had to rush to the duke to make it there. Which would have been easier, if we didn't get lost on the first day. We did make it, but thanks to Kelsi. We were there right on time, and ushered in to the start of the show. We were supposed to arrive early to check in and pay, but at least we were there. At the Duke the guide performed a two person play Waiting for Godot. It was so funny, but the room was crowded and a bit hot! Also, because we were just barely on time, we didn't get a beer at the Duke!  Ah well, after the play we went down to the street to go to the next site. There we were able to pay up and so everything was all right. 

Guiness Storehouse, Waterfall

The tour was great! I highly recommend it. If you like literature then you will really like it, but if you don't it is still a good tour. The guides perform a few skits along the way. You get to visit historical sites and also historical bars. The tour group also do a Lit Walking tour if the pub crawl part of it doesn't appeal. There was also a quiz at the end, and Kelsi almost won the whiskey prize, but Jim Morrison got in the way!

When we finished the tour we stopped to get gelato, which was so delicious! However, when we left the gelato shop we weren't paying attention and we started walking the wrong way! We didn't exactly get lost, but we did have to turn around to get back to where we once belonged!

  

In conclusion the day was a bit of a scramble! We did somethings we didn't plan, and did other things we didn't plan! Oh well, the mixes ups were a bit entertaining. I also enjoyed the fact that we just laughed off mistakes, without getting upset. Tomorrow we will have to make up for the sites we missed and then we have to get to Belfast!

The Journey Day 2

September 4th, 2016 Dublin Ireland

The Cliffs of Moher

We woke up at 5:30 and were out the door by 6:00. We needed to grab coffee and a breakfast on our way to the meet up for our tour to the Cliffs of Moher. At 6 in the morning there aren't very many places that are open, but there was convenient store. We picked up coffee and pastries. The meet up point, had a statue in it, but I found out later that the statue is there temporarily because of road work.  We sometimes oriented our position when we came across the statue and spot in the following days.

We arrived about five minutes ahead of schedule. We followed the guide to the bus. We were split into at least two groups. I think there was another tour with the same company that also goes to the cliffs, but we didn't see them at every stop, so they must take a different route.

Cliffs of Moher

Aswe headed out of the city the tour guide gave us some information on places we passed in the city, and a bit in the country, though he tried to let people rest until the first stop. The first stop was more of a comfort stop. It was at The Barack Obama Plaza. The guide explained that the plaza was named for Barack Obama because his ancestors came from the area. He also visited the area before. While there we decided to pick up donuts. Which meant we had two breakfasts! A thing that I noticed with donuts and pastries in the UK and Ireland is that the majority of the time they are served cold. Which is a bit surprising, but they still taste fresh, so I can't complain. 

Selfie from O'Brien's Tower, at the Cliffs

We arrived at the cliffs around 10. We walked up the path to the benches, the cliffs were so pretty. From the benches we walked to O'Brien tower. The view was even better from there! The Cliffs are such that there are hills and bumps. So we kept seeing areas of the cliff that we wanted to walk to. We would get to that area, and want to keep walking. Every spot had a great view and I could have walked them for much longer, but we eventually had to turn around. We even walked through the unofficial area. It wasn't completely barricaded so people were allowed to walk there, but there was no wall between you and the cliff face! It was also muddy in thar section, but the views were worth it. Beside the cliffs, there were cows and sheep in the field, which was interesting to see too. There are cows and sheep in Arizona, but these were Irish cows and Irish sheep and therefore special!

O'Brien,

After walking the cliffs we went to info Center which is build into the hill. There was interesting information about the cliffs there. How they formed, information on the caves that were near by, the animals that make a home of the cliffs, and families from the area. I saw a name that I recognized, so I took pictures of the shield. I don't knoe what county the O'Brien come from. I know Thomas Fitzpatrick and Bernard Fitzsimmons are supposed to have come from Clare County, but I didn't see shields for them at the center. A little more on family history we did drive through Port Laoise, Laois County, which isn't actually near the ocean at all, and is in fact one of the most landlocked counties in the country. This is because the counties that surround it do not board the ocean. I believe the tour guide said Port comes about because there are major rivers around it.

Stoney Outcrop

We lunched at in Doolin. There were a few choices, so we walked up the street to a little cafe. I had a delicious ham sandwich with sweet BBQ sauce, a brownie and a Galway beer. Kelsi had turkey and brie, sea salt and Irish vinegar crisps (chips) and a brownie. She also bought some popcorn that was marshmallow flavored. Which she saved for an afternoon snake. I think she liked her sandwich and the crisps, but she said the popcorn wasn't good. 

After lunch we drove to the Stoney Outcrop. This was created when the area was a seabed, it was revealed during the carnivorous period. Such an interesting features. It's very hard to describe, so I will just post some pictures!

Plaque

Then we drove to an old Abbey called St. Maria's. It houses the bones of residence in the area from the distant past until the present. Since I love family histories, I appreciate places like this. I took a picture of a plaque that said the Abbey was founded in 1182 CE. Ascribed to Donnel Mor O'Brien and that his grandson was one of the people buried there. As I don't know much about the O'Brien's in my family, especially outside of the United States. I'm just going cross my fingers and think that perhaps they came from Clare Co. I looked at so many headstones, but most of them were too new or too old to be ancestors of mine. 

Abbey!

Once the Abbey was finished we stopped in a small seaside town for a pint or shopping. I picked the pint, but only a little one. We sat at the window facing the ocean which was great view! It was also fun to watch the people inside the bar.

That was the last stop of the trip. The rest of the ride was through the beautiful landscape of Ireland back to Dublin. I tried to catch some zzz, but the view was too pretty. Kelsi may have managed some. The bus played a film on the way back. It was called The Field. It was about a dispute over an area of land, and ended with a scene at the Cliffs of Moher. It wasn't a bad film, but I'm not sure I understand all of it. 

Upon returning we stopped by the room for a little bit. Then we went to The Brazen Head the oldest bar in Dublin and had a pint. The bar was kind of interesting, it had a bunch of different rooms on different levels and it was very crowded! The table we sat at was reserved, but the staff said it was reserved for later. I think we sat there until after the reserved time, but the group had not shown up. Perhaps they never did. 

Jameson's

We left because we wanted to go to a to dinner, the restaurant was recommended by our host, but it was closed! The restaurant was near the Jameson's Distillery. We found out earlier that Jameson's was closed until 2017. They are doing updates to it. Since it was closed we were not planning to visit, but because we were close to it, I had to get a picture! 

Then, we different bar, called McGillan's. It was a lounge. Which meant that there wasn't food, only drinks. Of course we had one! It helped us forgot our hunger, at least for a little while. 

In the end we went back to a pizza place that we had past. It was nearly closing, but they allowed us to take away. We took the pizza away, and it was probably the best pizza. Although, we were very hungry. 

The Journey Day 1

The Journey, Day 1 - Dublin, Ireland

Early morning after long night on plane. I managed to catch some zzz, but not enough! Cloudy, rainy, cool. Just like I pictured. Made it through customs and airport fine. Had to buy a leap card. Took bus to meet airbnb host. Arrived 50 minutes early and had to wait. A bit more waiting at airbnb before we could put our stuff down. Our airbnb apartment is right on the river at Usher's Quay. Our room doesn't face the river, but it has it's own bathroom!

The host, recommended that we eat at Wuff for brunch. We only managed to get a bit lost. There was a wait for a table, but it was worth it. Wuff is a cafe that is average sized. They fit in a lot of chairs and tables. It was packed tight. I had my first Irish breakfast!!! So yummy! I am not too sure about the pudding yet, but I will give it ago later. The baked beans tasted very sweet. I don't usually eat baked beans, so I'm not sure how sweet they should be, but I thought they were sweeter than normal. Overall it was a great breakfast!

Came back to room for a cat nap, I only allowed a one hour nap. A short nap can help with jet lag, but a long one will make it take longer to adjust. 

After that we walked down towards The Duke, because when I researched things to do in Dublin, the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl was listed. I was of course interested in both the literary history of Dublin and also the pubs. So doing a literary pub crawl seemed perfect. 

First Guinness in Ireland

We decided to take a little longer route in order to have a look at some sites. We passed St. Augustine church. We went inside. It has beautiful arches and stain glass windows. Loved it! Then, we kept walking passing Christ's Church and other sites, that we will visit on another day. 

After that we got a little turned around on Grafton Street, but a nice girl saw us turning in circles and stopped to help! At least we had a good tour of the area. 

When we arrived at The Duke we found out that the literary pub crawl was full. The problem was that there was a college football game in town between Boston College and Georgia Tech. So there were many students and parents in town for the game. So not only were they booked Saturday, but Sunday as well so  we called booked for Monday, then we booked the The Cliffs for Sunday. After that we stayed at The Duke for our first Guiness in Ireland.

The Duke is a bar that dates back to 1820s. Many literary writes like Joyce and Kavanagah visited. There are two floors, we went up stairs to the second floor. There was college football games on there, but not the Boston College and Georgia Tech game. 

We took our time with our first Guiness, but eventually we wandered out and made our way towards Trinity college. On the way we scoped out where we needed to meet the next day, for the cliffs tour. It was kind of on the way. Because of this, we past by not only the entrance to Trinity College, but we went down the Pearse Street. From that side it doesn't look like there is a good way to get inside the college, though in the following days we did exit the Science Gallery onto that street. So we probably could have gone in from the Science Gallery, we just didn't know it. We ended up walking around the college, towards the sea until we reached the Grand Canal. It was almost night by that time, and with the cloudy sky it was pretty much dark. Growing up in Arizona, any sort of water, looks quite pretty so of course we liked the view. 

Picture from our table at H Bar, before we went inside.

We had dinner at the H Bar. We wanted to eat outside, however we sat out there for a while without getting service. It was much faster inside. I had fish and chips while Kelsi had pizza, we both had another Guiness of course. The Fish and chips were good, but the fish is plainer than the fish fry in Arizona. I think the fish is saltier in Arizona. Nonetheless, it was a good dinner. I am not sure how Kelsi liked her pizza, but later in the trip she says that certain pizza's are her favorite so far. So I'm not sure this one was all that good. 

Afterwards dinner, we walked to the river because we determined that once we were at the river we could just walk down it, and eventually we would get back to our room. The walk along the river was beautiful. The bridges are cute, and there were many restaurants and bars along the way. We took our time, but we wanted to get back to our room. We were tried from traveling, and we had to be up early in the morning. Tomorrow the Cliffs!