The Land of Guiness, Dancing Without Use of Your Arms, and Red Heads

We are currently sitting on the ferry which has just left Dublin and is headed back across to Wales and I saw the three hour trip as a great opportunity to update my blog. If my writing seems to make a bit less sense than usual, the reason is that I've popped a sea-sickness pill that I picked up from a pharmacist in Dublin, although the lady assured me it wouldn't make me crazy, you can never be too sure with these things.

I can't believe we are already leaing Ireland after what seemed to be a whirlwind visit and there were so many places I'd wished we had more time in. Guess I will just have to come back again...here are some diary excerpts from my travels...

 

3/10

Most of the people on this trip with us are absolutely lovely, and there's only 22 altogether when the max the coach takes is about 46, so we're very lucky. There is one couple that everybody is trying to aoid though, it's not that they smell or anything, it's more that they're totally self-absorbed and talk an amazing amount about themselves which gets tiring quickly...Today we drove around the western most point of Europe and learned of a community who lived completely isolated on Blasket Island until they evacuated in 1953 after a young person died completely preventably from appendicitis....struggled to get to sleep last night as we could hear that same Irish duo playing their music out front of the hotel and we had to fight the strong urge to get out of bed, grab a Guiness and join them again, but we had an early start the next day....The farmers' here spray paint their sheep bright colours for identification so it's a funny sight to see big fluoro pink, green and blue splotches on the sheep
 

Almost missed this guy

 

Awww the doggie thinks he's people

I don't remember where this was but it's one of the oldest of it's kind anywayz...

 

4/10

Last night we spent a night in Limerick and before dinner we went to a pub for a Guinesss and the barman was just lovely, he heard our Aussie accents and told us he'd spent a year and a half in Aussie himself, he gave us each a postcard which a picture of the pub on and signed them for us...the people here seem to go out of their way to be kind and helpful...dinner I ordered the vegetarian curry and it tasted like a whole container of keen's curry powder had been added to a litre of water to make the sauce...Driving from Limerick to Sligo our tour director pointed out a stretch of motorway which had to be diverted at considerable expense due to a fairy's thorn tree which was discovered in the original path, apparently the Irish still very much believe in fairys and are quite superstitous when it comes to them.



The cliffs of Moher


6/10

Belfast is a great city and one of the many places we've visited where I would love to spend more time...Maybe I'm ignorant, but I had no idea the city ever was, and still is in parts, seperated by a wall which is higher than the Berlin wall in parts...the wall is referred to as the 'peace wall' and was put up when tensions were high to seperate Catholic from Protestant and the Irish 'viewpoint' from the English 'viewpoint', the wall is painted by murals depicting politcal and other views of the time...our tour guide told us about a friend she used to visit every other weekend in Belfast and her friends' boyfriend who was shot in the head while he was sleeping purely because during an earlier house robbery on his place, the assailants noticed his house was full of catholic propaganda, which it turns out wasn't even his but belonged to his dead mother who was very religous...Our guide explained that if we had visited Belfast not ten years ago we would not recognise it today due to the great changes it has undergone, it's a great city with a very interesting past.

A mural depicting the importance of a peaceful future for Belfast



'Nula with the Hula' in Belfast

Titanic Exhibition- apparently the buidling itself is as tall as the titanic

The Giants causeway visit yesterday was not what I expected, the rock formations were very impressive but the amount of people visiting those same rocks was very amusing, and apparently we were there on a quiet day....from a distance it looked like 100's of tiny colourful ants climbing all over some rocks

Lots of people with the same idea at the 'giants causeway'



Haunting monument on the coast called 'waiting on shore'

8/10

Visited the monument in Dublin of Oscar Wilde opposite from the home where he was born. Part of this monument is a great statue of Mr Wilde looking very pleased with himself and several of his better known quotes. My guess is he is looking amused knowing some people have spent years overanalysing and philosophizing over some of his work - knowing full well there is no actual 'higher' meaning behind it at all...

Oscar looking very laxy-dazy...

Something to ponder...

 



Dublin's statue of Molly Malone AKA Tits McGee 

Next stop...Scotland (with a night is Liverpool on the way)...