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.

Northern Ireland Trip: Day One

We left at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning for Belfast on our coach bus, still half asleep and lugging our quickly packed backpacks around. The ride was about an hour and a half and full of gorgeous views of the countryside. I can’t tell you how many sheep I saw this weekend, but it was a lot. Once we got to Belfast we met with our tour guide Nigel who then took us on a historical tour of Belfast and filled us in on a little Northern Ireland history.

After that we drove to the Hostel that we would be staying at for the night, which was in this little town called Ballintoy. The hostel was right next to large fields of sheep and behind the fields was the ocean. We ate dinner at the hostel and then all 23 of us went out to the one of two local pubs in the tiny town. There was live music, which consisted of a man with an electric guitar performing Johnny Cash numbers and other classics. We filled up the entire pub and you could tell the man performing was not expecting such a lively crowd. It was an awesome night and I feel like everyone bonded since it was the first time we were all hanging out together. At some point in the night I was cheered up to the front to sing with a fellow classmate. It was a great night.

It’s the little things…

Walking around Dublin doesn’t really make it seem like I’m in another country. I might as well just be in another state in the US where they talk funny. This is until you really try to live here. There are a bunch of little things that are different enough to make you feel like you’re not anywhere near home anymore. First of all, milk. Their milk comes in one and two liter bottles and is only offered in skim, semi-skim, and whole. I have been dying for some waffles or pancakes with syrup, but I have yet to find them anywhere. When I asked my teacher why they didn’t have this kind of breakfast food he laughed and said, “Well that’s Canadian!” as if it is a crazy thought that I might be able to get some pancakes here. I’ve also noticed how Ireland isn’t really big on re-sealable packaging. Everything from bread to ham goes bad so much faster here because of the poor packaging design. But to make up for this I feel like everything comes in smaller portions. Speaking of ham, they are crazy about ham here. I went into a grocery store and looked in the sandwich meat isle, the entire isle was filled with different varieties of ham. Also, if you get bacon on anything here, its really just ham that’s been cooked in a pan. I ordered a bacon burger at a restaurant and when it came out there was just a huge slice of ham sitting on my burger. Don’t get me wrong, I love ham, it’s just something to get used to. Hmm… what else is different here? Every store seems to open late and close early. You can’t shop after 7:00pm on any day of the week. Oh! They put corn on pizza! Those crazy Irish people…

But! There are some things that I’ve found here that I will definitely miss in the US. Mainly “Curly Wurlys”, which are these wavy caramel bars that are covered in chocolate and also Cadbury Caramel bars, which are like the Cadbury caramel eggs just in bar form. Also, I am an Oreo connoisseur and can tell that the Oreos here are more sugary and therefore, more delicious. Another food item that I’ve become addicted to is Aero Hot Chocolate, which bubbles when you make it. If you couldn’t tell, I love chocolate.

I booked my flight to Rhodes, Greece. It’s a beautiful sandy island that is an hour flight from Athens. On the way back we are going to stop in London and stay for two nights there. I’m so happy that I finally have spring break planned out.

The group Northern Ireland trip is this coming weekend, which I am very excited about. Hopefully I’ll see more farms and sheep!

Fence hopping from Bray to Greystones

The RAs decided to plan a hiking trip this Saturday where we would walk/hike along a cliff side between two coastal towns in Ireland. I’m not very big into hiking or outdoor activities in general but I decided to go just to get away from the city for a day and see the countryside. So twelve of us took a train out to Bray on Saturday morning and made our way along the five-mile path to the next town over, Greystones. Our group split up in the beginning and I ended up in a group of six. Right at the start of the trail there was a sign warning us that the path was closed ahead because of land slippage. Yet, the gate was open and people were going that way, so we decided to ignore the sign and keep going.


The views were beautiful and we could hear the lapping of the waves on the shore. Once we walked about two or three miles we get to another sign saying that the path is closed, but this one was blocked by a gate. So we took a skinny, overgrown path going straight up the mountain rather than along the side of it. It seemed to go up forever until we found a paved road with houses and cars. At this point we knew we were lost. Continuing down the road we could see off in the distance the town of Greystones and just headed in that direction.


I’m not sure how, but we ended up cutting across a farm, hopping over barbed wire fences, and seeing a flock of sheep laying in the sun. We probably walked a mile or two out of our way but the experience was definitely worth it. We celebrated once we finally found the walking path again and made it to Greystones before it got dark. The town of Greystones was so pretty and quaint. I wanted to just stay and live there and take the 30-minute train ride to school everyday. Once we met up with the rest of the group they told us we should have just gone past the closed walkway sign, but I’m really glad we didn’t, it made our story a lot more interesting.