We are now in Amsterdam and will be here for about a week. The second half of our trip to Ireland was great! Thanks to having a rental car we were able to cover everything we wanted to see. The west and south coasts were the most beutiful places we visited, thats the typical image you would imagine ireland to be, all the green hills, narrow roads, and just absolute beauty for miles. The ring of Breara was by far my favorite thing we did. We also visited Galway which was where the Irish ring was invented. We stayed on the main street downtown where there are tons of bars and nightlife. We visited the Cliffs of Mohr and photos dont convey how huge they actually are. Next was Northern ireland where you switch to using pounds instead of Euros and miles instead of KM. We hiked to and around Giants Causway just hefore sunset and it was amazing!!! The rocks that formed here near the ocean are mostly uniform hexagonal shapes, all similar in size as well. They were supposedly formed from a volcano that erupted nearby. We spend about 2 or 3 hours here, just climbing the rocks and watching the sun go down. The next day we visited the rope bridge that connects part of the mainland to a small cliff island. Also an amazing place to hike and explore :) Belfast was our next stop and we were only going to be here for a night so decided to go out. We head out at about 11:00pm and to our surprise most of the bars tell us they are closing and we cannot go in. At the same time there are an abnormally high amount of drunk people wandering the streets for 11:00 at night.... Was there a time change we missed? When did it become 4am??? We stopped to ask someone why the Friday night nightlife semed to be dwindeling so early. He paused then laughed at us and said, "you know you're in one of the most religious cities around.... Its good Friday! Its illegal for the bars to serve alcohol past a certain hour tonight.". We kinda just looked at him, then relaized we would not be experiencing Belfast in its entirity that night. But, we did manage to experience one of the most terrible hostels i have eer stayed in, and we would ge to now go back to that place. Linen House. When we checked into Linen House we did not expect much. We were only staying in Belfast for one night and got the cheapest accomodation we could find. When we arrived to check in the man working at the front notified us we would not be staying in the 6 person dorm we had booked, but the other dorm was 4 Euros cheaper so we figured it was fine. We paid and he pointed us in the direction of our room, right accross from the check in counter and near the kitchen and the common area everyone hangs out in. "Oh, we almost forgot the keys!" I exclaimed excitedly, as if these keys might somehow open up a door to a room that was more appealing than the gloom of the lobby. "Your room has no key" he said, then smiled back. I'm sure he was laughing at us deep down inside and I wondered if this could be the most satisfying part of his day. We walked into our keyless room and looked up to about 30 beds scattered throughout. That might not have been as much of a problem for me, i know we are on a budget so we'd have to deal with this at times. But i was afraid, grossed out to touch anything. One person had created a sort of fort of blankets Nd luggage aroumd their bunk. How long had they been here for?! That night i slept in my sleeping bag making sure that not even a hair on my head touched the mattress, listening to sweet sounds of glass bottles being thrown and breKing outside with a large group of peope laughing and attempting to sing me sweet lullabys. We woke up and left without showering. Dublin we are coming! We stayed in Dublin for 4 nights, Isaacs Hostel. Great awesome clean fun hostel! Yay! Dublin was very fun, Temple Bar was the place to be at night so we spent our nights here and in small pubs listening to live bands play Irish music. During the day we mostly just wandered around town. I saw a midget dressed as a leprechaun but i was reluctan to take a photo of him, feeling i would be endorsing his stereotype and possibly lessening his confidence. My brother reminded me he had chosen to dress as a leprechun and was probably fully aware he was in fact also a midget. Oh well!! As much as i liked the city of Dublim, i'd still have to vote for the west coast and Galways nightlife. While in Dublin we met a friend from Canada, Geordie. While meandering the city with him one day we were goinf through a park, on easter actually, and were approached by a group of 12 year old Dubliners. One of the girls had some sass. She requested a dance off and then proceeded to snap her fingers back and forth in the air while reciting all of the swear words in her memory bank. One that was new to me, and seemed to be her particulR favorite was "pox bottle" pox bo-lE as she said it. I probably should not be saying this now because i still have no idea what it means. The 12 year olds wouldn't tell us. We roomed with 2 girls from Holland, Esther and Lizbeth who we hung out quite a bit while we were there. They were very nice and our last night in Dublin we wen out for Esthers birthday. Had twake up at 5am for our flight out of Ireland, but why not live it up, it was our last night! We woke up in time to catch our bus to the airport.... Belgium here we come!
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