Ireland Excursion

Jet lag was still nagging us on Day 2. Ok ok...probably just me. Derrick does not need nearly as much sleep as I do in order to function (something I'm not going to let him forget whenever we decide to have kids ;)  

We had an all day excursion with a tour group planned so we were up bright and early and on a bus into Northern Ireland by 6:30 AM. Our tour guide was great. He told us all about the history of buildings and sites that we passed and also explained the differences between Ireland and Northern Ireland, On the schedule for the day was the Carrick-a-Rede rope ridge, the Giant's Causeway, and an hour in Belfast. 

One of the biggest differences between Ireland and Northern Ireland is most of Northern Ireland still supports the monarchy in Great Britain as seen by this giant crown when we first crossed the boarder.

The views were spectacular along the way. I think this was where Derrick and I decided we would move.

The first stops was one of my favorites of the whole trip. The Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. Originally the little island was a great fishing spot so the fisherman built this rope bridge to be able to access it. Since then it's turned into a tourist attraction and they've made the bridge sturdier but no less thrilling :) 

The bridge in all it's glory!

After a brief lunch stop we moved on to the giant's causeway. It's this pretty amazing coast line where lava flow naturally settled into these octagonal pillars. Thousands of them! It was really cool. 

I liked seeing all these worn pennies stuck in the cracks.

Finally we loaded up and headed towards Belfast. I think I slept most of the journey and when we got there we only had about an hour which seemed a little overwhelming. Instead of scrambling around trying to see the whole city in an hour we decided to relax a bit. We explored an open air mall and enjoyed watching the Wimbledon on an outdoor screen on the lawn of the Belfast City Hall. 

When we finally made it back to Dublin we finished the day with dinner at a Mexican place next to our hotel. While there a couple of girls came up to us and asked us if we knew what moonshine was. Yes. We are from North Carolina. They were promoting their new flavored moonshine so they gave us a jar and asked to take our picture.

It was apple pie flavored and actually pretty good! 

This was one of my favorite days just because I loved the bridge and the causeways. I'm so glad Derrick found the tour and scheduled it for us. The next day was our lat in Dublin and we visited a castle and it's gardens just outside of town. Post to come!