Dublin, Ireland, Fri 12 - Sun 14 Dec 08

A weekend in Dublin visiting my old workmate Sam and his girlfriend Louise meant a weekend of drinking! That is pretty much the most popular thing to do in Dublin, and they do it well! Although it aint cheap for a night out in Dublin. One of the most expensive cities I've visited so far!

Friday night we started at a cuban bar complete with cigars and tasty Irish Whiskey (which was to become my staple diet for the weekened... the whiskey, not the cigars). We also sampled some local Irish grub on the way home... Supermacs... very much like mcdonalds! haha gotta try the local takeaways.

Saturday we started our day at the Old Jameson distillery which they live right next door to! Lucky for some. Louise had to go Christmas shopping so Sam, Nick and I headed for the distillery. It's not a working one, more museum style but the tour was kinda fun and at the end we were amongst those chosen for a special tasting. Along with the standard Jameson drink you get at the end of the tour we also got to compare a shot of Irish (Jamesons), Scotch (Johnny Walker) and American (JDs) Whiskey. Can't think of many things more fun than that!

Sam took us on a walking tour in the afternoon. He knew a lot about Dublin so made a great guide. We saw lots of pretty buildings and churches. Christ Church was the best and the bells were going at the time we past which was beautiful to hear. I have to admit I was quite surprised, I wasn't expecting Dublin to be so pretty.

We also checked out the local Christmas markets and met back up with Louise, quite similar to the setup of markets in London, lots of cool stalls to wonder through.

That night we headed into Temple Bar (the famous drinking district of Ireland) and started our pub crawl. We started at The Temple Bar with some fantastic Irish music. We followed on with more cosy pubs, more whiskey and more great music. It was a fantastic night.

The last one we visited was the oldest pub in Dublin. It had graffitied dollar bills all over the walls which made the place look very unique. I ended the night with a tasty Baileys coffee to keep me warm for the walk home (it was rather chilly in Dublin). I loved that when you order a coffee in Dublin, they automatically assume you want alcohol in it!

Sunday we had to say goodbye to our hosts as they had family commitments and we did our own thing. We started at Dublin's temporary Christmas ice rink since we'd enjoyed it so much as Hyde Park. Sadly this one wasn't so great with terribly uncomfortable skates and not very good equipment.

After that we spent the afternoon at the Guiness Brewery. Not what I was expecting, it's a self guided tour through 5 floors of information about Guiness and the Brewery. I found it quite boring but I'm glad we went. At the end you get to pour your own Guiness which I found lots of fun. I tried mine but quickly gave it up to Nick. I'll stick with the Whiskey thanks!

It was great spending the weekend with friends, least of all for the comfy air bed and cooked breaky but mainly for the fun company and great local knowledge. If you're reading this, thanks guys!

County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Sun 15 June 2008

Up in the morning to catch the tour bus north to the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. First stop was a photo stop at Carrickfergus Castle just north of Belfast. It wasn't open so just had a walk around outside and climbed around on one of the low walls.

We enjoyed a beautiful drive up the Antrim Coast. The scenery was simply gorgeous. So green, lots of sheep, and gorgeous water views. Got beautiful weekend weather, I'm starting to think I'm very lucky when it comes to getting sunny days! Our driver had great stories about the area, he was very knowledgeable and apparently he just did the tour on the weekends for a bit of fun so you could tell he enjoyed what he did.

One place we spotted was called the Vanishing Lake (or Loughareema) which is a valley with a unique valley bed that meant a lake formed when it rained but could drain again within hours. Was empty when we saw it though... except for a few sheep.

Our first main stop was the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. I was really looking forward to walking along this rickety old rope bridge and when we arrived the area and views over the sea were incredible! There really is no way to describe just how gorgeous it is. There was a stunning limestone bay with a headland called Larrybane which looked very cool with it's contrasts of white, green and blue. Not far off that was Sheep Island where apparently the locals long ago put sheep in the hope the Vikings or whoever would take them instead of raiding the mainland. No idea how they would get them up the tall cliff walls but guess that's what legends are all about.

Sadly the rope bridge wasn't as thrilling as I thought it would be - I've been on much scarier ones in NZ but it was still like 30 meters above the sea so it was fun to cross. The bridge runs betwen the mainland and an island which was used by fisherman who were catching salmon. There was still a small shed and equipment there.

I loved walking around the little island, it was so relaxing. Spent quite awhile lying in the sun! Also walked around to the limestone bay and there was a little fort (apparently from like 800AD) and a great view of a tiny island called Stackaboy which I got some gorgeous photos off because the water was such a beautiful green colour around it. I really could have stayed out there longer. Soon after leaving we passed a place called White Park Bay which is a beach just down the road and has a hostel, I hope I get a chance to go back and stay there one day.

We stopped off to see the Dunluce Castle at a distance. Wish we could have had a walk around it but we didn't have the time, it looked so beautiful. Our driver also described some cool stories. After the photo stop we headed to the Bushmills whiskey distillery and enjoyed a 12 year they only sold there. Very nice. The distillery itself wasn't very exciting. Not even a proper tasting area, you just buy the whiskey at the cafe.

The final stop of the day was the Giants Causeway, a grouping of perfectly shaped flat rocks made by nature. There was a cliff walk along the top looking down on the causeway and it really is incredibly beautiful.

The stones themselves were very cool, how they could possibly be natural is a mystery. Walked around the stones for ages, there was a lot of people there but not too bad that you couldn't find a little spot away by yourself. The whole day made me miss home and the beach but I was also very happy to be out seeing such an amazing place. We spent quiet awhile at the causeway just enjoying the area. I think today was one of my favourite so far in my travels since I landed in London.

Ok there are just far too many good photos so I'm just gonna post the rest under here :)

Belfast, Ireland, Sat 14 June 2008

Arrived about midday in Belfast. Met up with Sam who I used to work with at Intergen and who'd come up from Dublin to catch up with me.

We decided the first thing to do would be a black cab tour of the city. The cabbie took us around the murals that were scattered through the city and told us all about the history of Belfast and the Troubles. It was incredibly interesting, I learned a lot about the history, the people, the murals and their meaning. The most interesting mural was of a gunman who seems to be pointing at you no matter where you are standing to look at it, very scary.

It amazed me that the two areas - Loyalists (Protestants) & Republicans (Catholics) is still so prominent. The two main areas - Shankill Road and Falls Road have a tall wall with metal netting running between them and gates which still automatically shut at night. These walls are also known as the Peace Lines . People still occasionally throw things over the wall between the two sides (this was obvious from the amount of glass around) and there are cages on one side to protect the houses from these projectiles. We were allowed to write on the wall with the hundreds of other people.

At the end of the tour our guide dropped us at a famous pub in Belfast, the Crown Saloon. It was such a cool pub! It had little booths (called Snugs) that were fully enclosed with little doors and cool features like stained glass windows, mosaics and gas lamps. The booths also have little doorbells that used to be used to ring the waitress but they don't work anymore. The food was good too, I had a Steak & Guiness Pie. Tasty! Of course I also decided to try the local whiskey - Bushmills. It's a lot weaker than Scotch so was very easy to drink straight. The bar has had it's fair share of history since it's opposite the Europa Hotel which used to get bombed constantly so the pub took a few hits too.

After lunch we had a wonder through the city and checked out a few of the sights, the clock tower (which is apparently on a lean, but I never noticed), the pier with the fish statue, and cathedral square. The cathedral had a crazy huge spike coming out of it.

After that we realised we'd pretty much seen all of Belfast... it really didn't take that long :) So I decided I was definitely going to go on the Giants Causeway tour on the Sunday and managed to convince Sam to go too even though he'd already been before.

Headed out to the pubs for the night and met up with Paul, one of the Belfast EPiServer partner people I met in Sweden. It was great to have a local to take us to the best pubs. Tried a hot whiskey at one of them, which I didn't actually like, tasted like a whiskey & hot lemon drink. Little strange. No live bands which was disappointing but we did somehow find ourselves in a Swedish pub. So an Irish pub in Sweden and a Swedish pub in Ireland! Weird, hehe.

All the pubs shut up about 1 so headed back to the hostel and found a good samaritan van on the way serving coffee and chocolate... yay!