Ireland: Day 5

This morning we checked out the Carrickfergus Castle, an intimidating, massive, and not particularly charming castle. Although not picturesque, the castle was full of mannequins enacting scenes from daily life in the middle ages, including the king taking a royal dump.

















From there we drove into Belfast and found a Black Taxi Tour - basically a private tour for a small group with a knowledgeable driver who explained the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, gave us some perspective on what life is like today in Belfast, and answered any questions we had. I was really impressed with how unbiased he was. We tried to speculate as to whether he was Catholic or Protestant, but we couldn't tell.

First he took us to a Protestant neighborhood to see some of the murals on the homes and buildings. Some of them depict historical scenes, while others are memorials to those who died in the conflict. One of the murals was in remembrance of a member of one Protestant militia group who was murdered by a different Protestant group. Sometimes it seems like the human capacity for discord and violence is endless. I also noticed racist graffiti and stickers in one of the neighborhoods we walked in. Seriously, why can't we all just get along?

























Then we traveled into a Catholic neighborhood where the driver showed us some of the memorial gardens that the communities have established.







There's a huge wall between the Protestant and Catholic areas of the city. You can see here where the government has installed grates on the back of the houses near the wall because people on the other side will lob bricks and bottles, which were breaking windows and landing in homes.



Despite the relative peace for the last 14 years, the wall is being built taller and stronger all the time. Our guide seemed to think the wall contributed greatly to that peace, rather than any deep sense of love and understanding among the populace. According the driver, even streets that aren't behind walls are largely segregated, and Catholics and Protestants lead mostly separate lives within Belfast.





This graffiti stands for "kill all taigs," a slur against the Catholics. There's definitely still at least some anger between the two sides. It makes me hopeful though, that a new generation is coming of age without having experienced the bombings and killings.



These are murals by the Catholics in honor of other oppressed (or "oppressed" depending on your political leanings) peoples around the world with whom the Catholics identify and feel affinity, such as the Cubans, Basques, Palestinians, and Iraqis.









The Catholics also created murals commemorating their dead in the conflict, such as these in honor of Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers who died protesting the treatment of Catholic political prisoners.





As our guide kept reminding us, people on both sides fought, killed, and died for their lives and freedom and homes because they believed what they were doing was right. I left Northern Ireland with the sense that many were also striving for peace, and I hope they prevail.

Ireland: Day 4

I know the conclusion to our Ireland excursion is a long time coming, but it's because of a minor tragedy. I lost the book in which I chronicled our trip. It has to be somewhere here in the house, so I kept waiting for it to turn up on its own, figuring I would continue writing in the blog once I found it. That doesn't seem to be likely to happen any time soon, so I'll just get on with it, and my traveling companions can correct me or fill in any blanks I leave.

This was an exhausting day, but we saw so much amazing stuff. We left Donegal first thing in the morning to explore the northern coast. On the advice of our hostess at the last nights' B & B, we made a rare unplanned side trip in order to check out Slieve League. We were persuaded to make the harrowing drive partly based on the fact that Slieve League boasts the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Except they're not. If you believe Wikipedia they are only the second highest sea cliffs in Ireland, never mind the rest of the continent. Unfortunately, I didn't have my surveying equipment with me that day, so I can not independently verify any claim regarding the height of Slieve League.

The drive up to the cliffs was beautiful, exhilarating, and only a little bit terrifying. Since Ponylagoon had graciously offered to drive I really enjoyed this crazy ride more than our ill-advised jaunts through the narrow-laned countryside or the perilous trek over the Connor Pass. The roads were incredibly steep and just wide enough for one car in most places. Fortunately we didn't encounter anyone tearing through the villages and over the hills at insane speeds, so it felt safe if totally absurd.

The road afforded some gorgeous ocean vistas, and we stopped at a turnout to admire the view, but were completely distracted by the sheep instead and took about 1,000 pictures of them. Ireland is just lousy with the woolly things.









We proceeded onto the viewing area for Slieve League, which was very untouristy compared to many other sites. There were hardly any guardrails or parking lot and no interpretive signs or bathrooms. The hostess who encouraged us to check it out told us that the government had received a grant to develop the area for tourism, so I don't know how much longer it will be so natural. It was certainly beautiful and worth the drive, which was a big part of the fun as far as I'm concerned.









From Slieve League, we headed to Dunluce Castle, built on an outcropping over the North Channel. The castle is so close to the edge of the cliffs that in the 1600s the kitchen slid into the sea, killing several of the staff. Not only did I enjoy roaming freely around the ruins, but the views of the cliffs and the deep blue ocean were incredible.









I'm hesitant to even bring up this next incident for fear of Sealegs' head exploding. We attempted to traverse the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. About two minutes before the ticket office closed, we ran up to thrust our money through the window and pay for admission before it was too late. However, we overheard the vendor telling the people in line ahead of us that he wasn't selling tickets any more and we'd have to get them down at the bridge.

So, a whole herd of us positively stampeded up and down a kilometer's worth of hills and stairs to arrive at the rope bridge only to be told that they never sold tickets down there and we were all a bunch of lying liars who lie. The walk back to the car was the angriest kilometer ever.

Here's a picture of the bridge we did not get to cross and one of the lovely views I didn't get to take much time to enjoy due to all the furious stampeding and stomping.





We then shook off our disappointment and headed to the Giant's Causeway, which seemed to cheer everyone up except for The Husband who wasn't that upset about the bridge in the first place, nor that impressed with the Causeway. He's like a rock, that man.

Anyway, the Giant's Causeway may have been my favorite part of the trip, definitely in the top three at least. The Causeway itself was just amazing. It's hard to imagine that such strange formations are natural. But, I also enjoyed the time we took for a long hike along the cliffs above the Causeway. Many of my favorite vacation experiences have been just rambling along under the sky, through landscapes I may never see again.



In this one, you can see a lot of the path we followed along the cliffs:


I think we were standing about half way down the cliff on the first or second outcropping when I took the picture above:










Unfortunately, I'm not a very athletic duckling any more. This whole day, especially the hike down the Causeway and back up, very nearly killed me. Luckily, there was a grand old hotel on the grounds where we had dinner and some fortifying Guinness before driving on to Carrickfergus for the night.

P.S. Somewhere in there we visited the Bushmills Distillery gift shop, seeing as we were too late to take the tour. I don't have any photographs or happy/interesting memories of the Bushmills Distillery gift shop.

P.P.S. Evidently I started writing this post exactly a month ago, almost down to the minute.

TGI Monday

I have a very unhealthy relationship with weekends, and I'm usually glad when they're over. This weekend was typical.

Friday evening The Husband and I celebrated our anniversary with a fancy dinner and a bottle of champagne. I stayed up way too late and had a little too much to drink and woke up around noon on Saturday slightly hung-over. So, I huddled on the couch like a big inanimate lump until I fell back asleep around 3. I didn't wake up until dinner. Of course, then I felt all groggy and did nothing but loll on the couch some more. I couldn't fall asleep until late, so I woke up late again on Sunday, and the whole cycle started again.

I wake up with a headache from sleeping so late, so all I want to do is lie around feeling sorry for myself. Getting up and acting like a person instead of some sort of pre-motile protoplasm would make me feel 100% better, but the longer I allow my butt to fuse with the couch the stiffer and achier and more depressed I feel, which makes it exponentially harder to accomplish the simple task of putting on some shoes and going outside or picking up the phone when someone calls wanting to do something fun.

My problem is just unvarnished laziness, but once the week starts, even if I don't have a work assignment for the day, I feel the need to get up in the morning and accomplish at least a few small tasks to justify my existence. Even then I usually wish I had done more with my day.

My lack of self-discipline makes me feel bad about myself, and then feeling bad about myself makes me depressed, and then feeling depressed makes me want to lie around and mope, which totally wrecks my self-discipline, and so on and so on and shooby dooby doo wah. Any one up for delivering the swift kick in the ass I obviously need for being so pathetic?

Since y'all are probably all at work or busy not being pitiful, I'll give myself the inaugural butt kicking. Right this second, I am firing up the woefully neglected elliptical machine and getting some freaking exercise. Then I'm going to close the laptop for the rest of the day until I've achieved at least three productive things. I'm pretty sure internet withdrawal isn't fatal, but I'm going to risk it.

Yet Another Year of Marital Bliss

Yesterday was our third wedding anniversary. We enjoyed a nice, laid-back evening together. He brought me roses, and I gave him some books and baked banana bread for him. I made tacos for dinner. We're both great fans of tacos.

We will go out to celebrate on Friday evening with a fancy schmancy dinner at The Old Warsaw, which supposedly offers "ultimate French continental cuisine." X-treme fine dining! The restaurant is associated with the Maple Manor Hotel next door where we got married and catered our tasty tasty reception dinner.

Last year I posted some of our wedding pictures. This year I'll share some photos from our honeymoon cruise to Alaska.

Here we are, sailing away from Seattle, towards...



Juneau, Alaska



From there we took a tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was beautiful to see as much as we could, but disappointing because we didn't get very close at all. I wish we had sprung for a helicopter ride to the glacier for the chance to actually walk around on it. After all, who knows how much longer glaciers will be around?



Then we went to the Mendenhall Gardens, which were odd but beautiful. For some reason, they took a bunch of trees and stuck them in the ground upside down to plant flowers in their roots. During the tour they took us in little trams up to the top of the mountain for some great views of the landscape.







From Juneau, we sailed to Skagway and headed out to the forest to hike a couple miles up the Chilkoot Trail and then raft back down the river. Most of the photos of this leg of the trip are of The Husband and me. I'll ask if he cares if I post a couple. I'm getting bored with this whole anonymity thing.

Anyway, the next day our ship entered Glacier Bay, and this time we really got to experience the glaciers even if we didn't actually get to walk on them. All around the ship we could hear the glaciers moaning and cracking. Occasionally huge chunks would crash into the ocean. Off on one of the rocky mountainsides, we thought we could see a bear, but even looking through binoculars it was a pretty tiny blob. I like to think it was a bear.









After Glacier Bay, our ship stopped at the town of Ketchikan. We didn't do any major activities that day, just wandered in and out of the cute little shops up and down Creek Street.





Our last stop was in Victoria, British Columbia where we visited the incredible Butchart Gardens before attending a wine and chocolate tasting at the Church and State Winery. (I'm pretty sure that the story behind the name of the winery is that they thought it was kind of cute and cheeky and that's all the significance.)



Hopefully tomorrow I'll get back to the Emerald Isle Epic with more photos from Ireland.

To Live Again a Butterfly

The swallowtails have taken advantage of our dill.

Ireland: Day 3

On day three we left our B & B in Dingle to visit the Cliffs of Moher. However, between the cliffs and us loomed the Connor Pass, a narrow, winding mountain road. As I was concentrating on not driving into a precipice, The Husband took some photos out the car window so I could enjoy the scenery at my leisure later.









Evidently, it was pretty.

The Cliffs of Moher were very crowded, but quite lovely. However, once again, knowing what I do now, and considering how little time we had, I wish we'd decided to make one of the other trips on our list. We actually saw gorgeous sea cliffs at several other sites - particularly Slieve League and Dunluce Castle - that I thought were just as impressive as the Cliffs of Moher. Of course I took a billion pictures of everything, so you can judge for yourself.











Plenty more blue ocean and green hills to come...

Random Photo Friday: Not in Ireland Edition

Here are my dad, brother, and me at Lake Texoma in February 1990. My mom's taking the picture.



I am twelve years old, and I am Cool. Yes, with a capital "C". You can tell by the giant Guns N' Roses button I'm wearing on my awesome jean jacket. Seriously, that thing was about 8 inches across. (I thought I might still have it somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I did, however come across a calendar noting that on this very day in 1999 I went to a Poison concert, as well as some candy I brought back from Finland seven years ago.)

Seventh grade was a very rough year for me. My dad had graduated from vet school, and my family moved from Bryan to Denton, TX. For some reason the Denton school district wouldn't admit me to the honors classes despite my high test scores. The combination of puberty, finding my social footing in a new school, and soul-destroying boredom in class was volatile.

My grades plummeted, mostly on purpose. I thought seeming dumb would make me more popular among my new found friends. Also, I started sneaking out at night, stealing cigarettes, and getting drunk. To tell the truth, most of my friends were much better behaved than I was. Being the Bad One for a change was fun.

I'm sure I seemed like a really screwed up kid, but I was just wearing this personality like a costume. My parents reacted to my new obnoxious self in the best way possible. I got grounded a few times and received some very uncomfortable lectures, but I really felt like they gave me enough room to work through this weirdness until I was ready to be myself again. If they had sent me away to a camp for irritating preteens who don't act right or something like that, it probably just would have reinforced my experiment in delinquency.

Even though I was trying my best to be a jerk, we still got along pretty well and enjoyed family outings. In the same photo album as this photo were pictures of another camping trip, a family Easter egg hunt, and a vacation to Galveston. I actually remember happily participating in all these activities, so I guess I wasn't trying hard enough.