Saturday, February 20, 2010

Northern Ireland Trip: Day Two





The next day was full of tourist attractions, basically natural environmental beauties that you have to pay to go see. We walked down a windy road from our hostel to Ballintoy Harbor. I was surprised to see a sand beach there surrounded by all these steep chalk cliffs. We all climbed up these grassy rocks that jutted into the ocean and once on top we had a beautiful view of the water and we could see Scotland off in the distance. I remember just being blown away by just how pretty the views were, it seemed too perfect to be real.

Once we were leaving Ballintoy, two of my classmates decided to run full speed toward a sheep field, hurdle the fence, and continued to sprint toward a large flock of sheep screaming “SHEEEEEEEEEP!” This obviously scared the crap out of the sheep and they ran away but it was probably the most amusing thing I witnessed this weekend.

Our next stop was Giant’s Causeway. This is a huge formation of rocks that are all shaped like hexagons or pentagons. It shoots out into the ocean like a jetty and is a lot easier to climb than it looks. The rocks act like stairs since they are all relatively flat on top. After spending an hour or so there we went to Dunluce Castle. We got to see the remnants of this large castle by the ocean. I specifically liked this tower that you could walk up some terrifying stairs to reach the top. I felt like we were in a playground.

The final stop of the trip, excluding dinner at McDonalds, was this rope bridge that was between two cliffs about a hundred feet above the water. It swung and bounced when you walked on it, I loved it. I love roller coasters and am not afraid of heights so I was excited to start hopping down the bridge, making it wobble up and down. You could tell about half of our group loved it and the other half was terrified of walking across it.

It has now been three days since the trip and my legs are still sore from all the walking/hiking but it was definitely worth it. It was definitely the best weekend I’ve had in Ireland since I’ve been here and now I can’t wait for the West Coast trip.

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