SoCal in ireland, yay!
hallo. here we are at the approximate halfway point of my journey through ireland!
it certainly seems to have gone fast to me, did the semester go as fast for everyone over there at willamette? probably not, but never fear, the second half always goes faster. anyway, it being halftime and all means i jsut had my vacation, during which i got to travel all over this great country. this is the first of 3 or 4 updates about my trip, and i'm breaking it down by location. the first stop was county antrim.
we set out on saturday (we being rob and myself), for the little town of portrush, in county antrim. this is in northern ireland, right up at the top on the coast, and supposedly had some pretty good surfing, so we decided to check it out. after a few busses and some trains, we arrived in portrush, and wandered around to find our hostel. after unnecessarily walking through the entire town, we ended up about 3 blocks from the train station at Macool's, our lodging for the next few days. a word to the wise, if you are ever in northern ireland, go to macool's! it is a very neat place. the people are very friendly, the atmosphere is very casual, and right off, rob and sarah (a german working at the hostel) starting talking about surfing. rob soon discovered the best place to rent a wetsuit, and found that the owner of the hostel would let him borrow a surfboard. needless to say, rob, being from santa barbara, was very excited. the other funny part of this place, is right off i noticed two people from kent, wa. for those of you who don't know, this is very close to bellevue, where i am from. good times.
we went to a bar that night in town, and had a few pints with another guy at the hostel, who is living currently in renton washington. small world. anyway, it was a good time, and i tried several new beers. bass is pretty good, although a little harsh for my tastes. then, after i was a few pints in i noticed a unique-looking tap that boasted hoegaarden, a belgian white beer. now i have never had a white beer, and so i thought i would give it a try. never again. white beer tastes like a combination of pabst's and squirt. not very fun. i stuck with guinness the rest of the night.
walking around town the next day, we found that portrush is actually a small coastal town from southern california, moved up to northern ireland. all the elements were there, little food shops, surf shops, beaches, a boardwalk, and several arcades. quite humurous, but rob felt right at home. we then made for the giant's causeway. this is a section of the coast which has naturally been formed into really cool pillars. i'll put some pictures of it in part 2 of this entry.
anyway, the day after we went to the bushmill's whiskey distillery, and had a very very cool tour. it is the only tour you can get of an actual distillery, and seeing the whole process was very cool, in addition to smelling great. at the end of the tour, rob volunteered to taste test different whiskeys. unfortunately, pictures were not allowed on the tour.
we went for a walk on the beach the following day, and had a grand time of it, climbing over rocks and such. that evening, we decided to get a pint before figuring out what to do with the remainder of the night, and so we went to the nearest bar to the hostel. it turns out we showed up late, because there were about 8 locals in there already 3 sheets to the wind having a grand ould time singing with a local artist on cd. we were soon accepted as part of the gang, and learned a lot about the locals, and whatnot. we were also shown an interesting magic trick by one mervin campbell, who was quite a character (and quite drunk). the trick he showed us might have been cool, except that he set it up too much (say, about 20 minutes), and kept stopping to make sure we knew that it was only "a bit of craic boys, just a bit of craic". (craic, by the way, means fun over here).
other highlights of portrush included steve the australian staying at the hostel (with whom rob regularly shared a bong), and eating far too many fish and chips.
anyway, antrim (being on the coast) had some amazing coastlines and cliffs, and i managed to get some cool pictures, so here they are:
this is just a shot of the antrim coast. it was very foggy the day we went out to see cool stuff on the coast, and so many of my pictures didn't turn out quite the way i wanted. this is one of the better ones.
this was a cool little grassy point off of the main path. we weren't sure if we were supposed to go out onto it, but we did, and found this neat rock jutting out, that made for a perfect picture vantage point. this is me on the rock...
...and this is rob. you'll notice that this is a slightly different angle. you can see more of the grassy knoll in this picture. i think it's a cool angle.
this is another picture of the coast that turned out nicely. i like the sunburst coming down through the fog onto the little island. i don't know if you can make that out in this picture, but that it was it looked like, and it was quite nice. i think it looks like never never land. not the michael jackson ranch, but the peter pan place.
so, that is part 1, next i'll put some pictures of the giant's causeway, and then you'll go "oh! i know what that is, i've seen pictures of it!"
it certainly seems to have gone fast to me, did the semester go as fast for everyone over there at willamette? probably not, but never fear, the second half always goes faster. anyway, it being halftime and all means i jsut had my vacation, during which i got to travel all over this great country. this is the first of 3 or 4 updates about my trip, and i'm breaking it down by location. the first stop was county antrim.
we set out on saturday (we being rob and myself), for the little town of portrush, in county antrim. this is in northern ireland, right up at the top on the coast, and supposedly had some pretty good surfing, so we decided to check it out. after a few busses and some trains, we arrived in portrush, and wandered around to find our hostel. after unnecessarily walking through the entire town, we ended up about 3 blocks from the train station at Macool's, our lodging for the next few days. a word to the wise, if you are ever in northern ireland, go to macool's! it is a very neat place. the people are very friendly, the atmosphere is very casual, and right off, rob and sarah (a german working at the hostel) starting talking about surfing. rob soon discovered the best place to rent a wetsuit, and found that the owner of the hostel would let him borrow a surfboard. needless to say, rob, being from santa barbara, was very excited. the other funny part of this place, is right off i noticed two people from kent, wa. for those of you who don't know, this is very close to bellevue, where i am from. good times.
we went to a bar that night in town, and had a few pints with another guy at the hostel, who is living currently in renton washington. small world. anyway, it was a good time, and i tried several new beers. bass is pretty good, although a little harsh for my tastes. then, after i was a few pints in i noticed a unique-looking tap that boasted hoegaarden, a belgian white beer. now i have never had a white beer, and so i thought i would give it a try. never again. white beer tastes like a combination of pabst's and squirt. not very fun. i stuck with guinness the rest of the night.
walking around town the next day, we found that portrush is actually a small coastal town from southern california, moved up to northern ireland. all the elements were there, little food shops, surf shops, beaches, a boardwalk, and several arcades. quite humurous, but rob felt right at home. we then made for the giant's causeway. this is a section of the coast which has naturally been formed into really cool pillars. i'll put some pictures of it in part 2 of this entry.
anyway, the day after we went to the bushmill's whiskey distillery, and had a very very cool tour. it is the only tour you can get of an actual distillery, and seeing the whole process was very cool, in addition to smelling great. at the end of the tour, rob volunteered to taste test different whiskeys. unfortunately, pictures were not allowed on the tour.
we went for a walk on the beach the following day, and had a grand time of it, climbing over rocks and such. that evening, we decided to get a pint before figuring out what to do with the remainder of the night, and so we went to the nearest bar to the hostel. it turns out we showed up late, because there were about 8 locals in there already 3 sheets to the wind having a grand ould time singing with a local artist on cd. we were soon accepted as part of the gang, and learned a lot about the locals, and whatnot. we were also shown an interesting magic trick by one mervin campbell, who was quite a character (and quite drunk). the trick he showed us might have been cool, except that he set it up too much (say, about 20 minutes), and kept stopping to make sure we knew that it was only "a bit of craic boys, just a bit of craic". (craic, by the way, means fun over here).
other highlights of portrush included steve the australian staying at the hostel (with whom rob regularly shared a bong), and eating far too many fish and chips.
anyway, antrim (being on the coast) had some amazing coastlines and cliffs, and i managed to get some cool pictures, so here they are:
this is just a shot of the antrim coast. it was very foggy the day we went out to see cool stuff on the coast, and so many of my pictures didn't turn out quite the way i wanted. this is one of the better ones.
this was a cool little grassy point off of the main path. we weren't sure if we were supposed to go out onto it, but we did, and found this neat rock jutting out, that made for a perfect picture vantage point. this is me on the rock...
...and this is rob. you'll notice that this is a slightly different angle. you can see more of the grassy knoll in this picture. i think it's a cool angle.
this is another picture of the coast that turned out nicely. i like the sunburst coming down through the fog onto the little island. i don't know if you can make that out in this picture, but that it was it looked like, and it was quite nice. i think it looks like never never land. not the michael jackson ranch, but the peter pan place.
so, that is part 1, next i'll put some pictures of the giant's causeway, and then you'll go "oh! i know what that is, i've seen pictures of it!"
posted by Scott | 8:46 AM
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