Tuesday

We promise more posts are coming. Its been tough to get online both because of dodgy connections and having not that much down time. Moving on...

After a night of partying with rock stars, it would be a tough act to follow. Thankfully, the natural beauty of the Emerald Isle was out in full force on Tuesday for us.

We set out from Belfast with an action packed day in Northern Ireland. Our first destination was Carrick-a-rede, which is famous for having a rope bridge. I was expecting a rickety thing with just a few ropes and planks, but regrettably that was not the case. Still, the water that was 40 feet below us was infested with sharks! Once you cross, you go to a cliff where there are incredible views of the surrounding beach, the North Sea and even Scotland. Its easy to see why JRR Tolkien was inspired by Ireland when creating Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As we continued to drive along the country's eastern coast, we stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant. While the place itself was unremarkable, their steak & Guinness pie was fantastic. Think beef stew but replace the gravy with a pint of 'the black stuff.' Can't wait to try that recipe out when I'm back in the States!

Up next was Ireland's famous Giants Causeway. The Causeway is an amazing rock formation comprised of thousands of hexagonal rocks (if you remember the video game Qbert, its really quite similar). The formation tapers right into the sea (there is a historic story of how Fionn McCool, a giant, built the Causeway to link up with Scotland and fight his giant nemesis Angus. I was hoping for an uplifting tale about Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor, but alas...). The young boy in both Billy and I came out, as we ran and jumped all over the rocks. Playing the part of the ignorant Americans, we blew by the warning signs and went right to the edge of where the sea meets the Causeway.

Our final destination was the city of Derry, which is also known as Londonderry. Derry's nickname is the Walled City because of the nearly 2 mile wall that encloses the town. The wall was heavily utilized for many years by the British (and their Nothern Ireland supporters) and Irish to keep each other at bay. We took a tour (courtesy of a tour guide who eerily looked like Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age), which was fascinating. Even though the troubles are over, you could still feel the tension between the Protestants and Catholics. Much like Belfast, there were a number of political murals around the town.

Over the course of the trip, we've gotten along very well with the 40+ folks in our group. Coincidentally, the 4 Americans (all guys too) wound up in the same dorm for the night. We also had our own bathroom, to the supreme envy of everyone else, who had to share 3 other bathrooms. For dinner, virtually everyone went to the cheap restaurant in town (steak and beer for 5 euro? Sold!). From there, we headed over to a local pub that featured live traditional Irish music. Over the course of several hours and many, many pints of Guinness, we all were singing and dancing to the music. In fact, we ended up shutting down the pub that night. All in all, another satisfying day on our trip