On to Belfast

 This is as we left the Giant's causeway and looking back to a castle ruin.  We also drove down to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge but it was closed so we couldn't walk over.This spans a 60 foot gap between the mainland and the island with a 100 foot drop.  --Next time :)

We stayed here at the Glenmore House in Ballycastle. -Very Nice-        The difference I was told between a guest house and bed and breakfast is that a guest house has to serve meals.  This is stated as a B&B on the card because Ireland is going through new regulations and the reguests are unnecessary and expensive. So many are not willing to keep the upgrade status even though they will continue as they were.

 We are driving right along the ocean as you can see. Just beautiful.

 Sometimes it was a little scary for David especially when the buses were coming the other way.  (It was definitely scary for me!)  There is no place to stop so most of my pictures are from the car while we are moving.

 This is Carrickfergus Castle 10 miles northeast of Belfast. This was the only English speaking town in Ulster in the start of the 17th century. The slide below has some of the history. But what is doesn't show is the piece that in 1778 John Paul Jones, the American navel ship, won over the British warship HMS Drake. The inhabitants on shore cheered Jones on as the ship passed the castle to show theier support for the American Revolution.

It was really windy and the sailboats in the harbor was actually going backwards..It was so strange to see  that ,I video recorded it.  Now on to Belfast.

Professor Talbot and his students

Professor giving his lecture on personal finance. I came to his class to meet the rest of the students that I hadn't met yet and to see if I could pick up a few pointers! I brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies with me with were gladly received. I think I might have an in. :)

I had taken a picture of the young men when I arrived so it is only fair that I have one of the women!

Here are all the students together. A great group and I hope to be doing more with them. cheerio:)

Traveling on through the North and Giant's causeway

This is the typical view as we traveled though.


You can see the mountains in the back. There are a lot of brick and stone buildings.





A pretty waterfall




Looking on the town along the Giant's causeway coast. This is along the most Northern part of Ireland.



We walked down to the area called the Giant's causeway and this is the view from across.

Here in this area is a "mass of 37,000 mostly hexagonal pillars of volcanic basalt, clustered like a giant honeycomb and extending hundreds of yards into the sea. Ledgend has it this causeway was created 60 million years ago, when boiling lava, erupting from and underground fissure that stretched from Northern Ireland to the Scottish coast, crystalized as it burst into the sea, and formed according to the same natural principal that structures a honeycomb." Or it can be the giant stepping stones for the giant Finn McCool for his quest across to Scotland to his love. The rest of the story is : there was a fight for her and the giant picked up a chunk of earth and flung it at Scotland.  Where is landed created Lough Neagh (lake) and the chunk created the Isle of Man.  Sounds good to me, but there is always more to the story!

You can see in all these how hexagonal the shapes are.  Just amazing....

On our way out of the area to find a place to sleep and eat.  Just a beautiful area wherever you look.:) cheerio. please leave me a comment so I know there is someone out there.

Figuring things out

Hi,
I thought I would spend a minute telling you a little what it is like being here. 

I was up early at 6:30AM- (1:30 your time) and decided to try out Yoga..a class of 53 and it is fitness yoga which means it is tough and strenuous. I came home and took a slight nap! Then onto vacumming, washing the dishes, and taking a shower...all normal except the shower.  YOu need a crane to get yourself up and over the very tall sides of the tub. The second challenge is getting hot water--it is turned on only at certain hours. I, can manage to get my 2 feet facing side by side in one direction but my husband has been complaining about having to put one foot in front of the other in order to fit!

The refrigerator is under the counter and quite small..not good for a family :)  The stove gets turned on by a switch on the wall- then comes the puzzle.  The temp is in metric- no problem with that- but the dial to turn the oven on- many choices with different symbols and no directions..the grill is done by one line for top and 3 lines for grilling all around.  My roast wasn't quite done the other night and I am afraid of baking but I have to do it sometime!

Dinner was 2 pies bought at the farmers market yesterday. One was duck and cheese and the other was chichen and vegetables. Farmers market here at school on every Tuesday.  I hope they are there through December! I will try to insert a picture before I post. They even had a booth for fudge and another for desserts. I passed up the fudge but went straight for the desserts-yummmmm.

Recycling is a new thing here and last night we were given a bucket for garbage and instructions for the rest..
Washing maching is still a mystery but the drying rack we bought, works great. I am finally getting the heat down to a slow boil instead of us running to open all the windows. That also only comes on for a few hours a day. So anyone coming to visit, bring a good sweater.

We are off to town as soon as David comes home from class.  I brought every size of needle except the one I needed. cheerio :)

the fudge and chocolate bars booth

The stables which is where the farmers market is and also the student area. The booths are around the edges.

Ardara through Letterkenny to Londonderry/Derry

 We kept moving from Donegal onto Ardara for the night. This is the hotel, Nesbitt Arms, we stayed at that is 183 years old!  Very nice. After dinner we looked in on the Irish dancing which is much like square dancing and the reel.  We resisted joining them :)
A little Irish humor...when we asked about the soup du jour, "the soup du jour is always vegetable soup"

Onto Letterkenny..as we traveled we passed this tractor parade of hundreds of tractors.  Still have no idea why they had this event. No one seemed to know. It started to rain on their parade..but what is new in Ireland?  The picture below is on our way but notice there are no trees on the mountains. (sorry about the picture, the program is doing strange things to me)

We have arrived in Londonderry/ Derry. You will hear both names. This is one of the only walled city in Europe.  The wall encompasses 30 arcres and is 20 ft. 17th century walls built in 1614- 1618. This city is fascinating.- The history is unbelievable.  I thought most of the battles had taken place in Belfast but not so. There were 4,000 that came to establish a settlement and had to defend the city many times over.

Our tour quide walking backwards. I put this picture in so you could see how wide the wall is.- 30 feet in some places.  We are walking on top of it.

 This picture is about the siege of 1688-89 where 13 apprentice boys slammed the city gates in the face of the Catholic King,James II. The battle took 105 days. They were reduced to eating dogs, cats, and laundry starch.

This church is within the walled city and is the highest point as well as the oldest building.

surrounding views..cemetary in the background.

 This picture, along with 11 other murals around the area, depict the reminder of the painful pasts.  This picture called the "Death of Inocence" is of a young girl that was shot with 2 bullets to the head.-"The Peoples Gallery"- you can see another to the right of the girl.

We were told that this green area was a mess with shanty buildings and starving people trying to survive.  The city has spent a great deal of time and money to make it one of the safest city to walk through. Here in this area was the battle known as Bloody Sunday- a 3 day riot which lasted 38 years.  In 2008 England finally apoligized for starting the battle.

I took this as the stone resting against the wall are gravestones. The little church of Ireland is to the left.

Presbyterian church had been bombed out and now restored.  This is within the wall . It opened with many famous political and religious people coming together to help restore the peace of the city from all sides.

This is the oldest department store in the world.

-another picture of one of the gates. There were 4 originally but now there are 8.

Ice cream- notice how they present it.--very good :)

Just a pretty building that we see often as we traveled through.  On to Belfast traveling up along the coast.   Cheerio..

The young men of David's students

The young men that David has brought over. For the short time I had to talk to them, they seem like they are having a great time here. Hopefully I will get to get a picture of the women.

These are pictures from Galway to Donegal-aprox. 200 miles

This is coming into Galway. A port city where coal and oil were along the docks.-population 72,700 and one of the fastest growing cities in Europe. We never stopped because it was so jammed packed.  A place to come back to.

We are heading Northeast and coming into Sligo. This part of the country is home of WB Yeats. it was also the battlefield for the Vikings in 807 with many other battles to follow through the centuries.

The mountain is called Ben Bulben which is 1729 ft. and has a monastary on its top.This is on the way out of town.

Rossees Point is famous for WB Yeats. The picture shows 2 boats in the fore ground ..high and dry!

We have arrived in Donegal. This is Franciscan abby founded in 1474 by Hugh O'Donnell,that is along the water's edge of the Donegal Bay. It has hundreds of graves dating to the 18th century.  As you can see there are old plaques with new ones.Here is where the 4 Masters (monks) wrote that the Celtic culture was doomed by the English conquest.- called The Annals of the Four Masters which is the whole Celtic history and mythology up to 1618 and written from 1632-1636.I found this pretty amazing. The original is locked up in the National Libray in Dublin.

The old castle Inn near the castle.

Donegal Castle built in 1470 by clan leader Hugh O'Donnell.  The castle stayed in the family till 1602 and was then owned by Sir Basil Brooke. You can tour this but we came too late and it was closed.

I had to take a picture of the ambulance coming by!  They are all bright yellow here.  So that brings you to the close of our day. We are heading North still.