Last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland- Day 16

Our last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland! We had spent the night in Belfast, so this day we needed to make our way from Belfast to the airport in Dublin by about 14:00. We didn't have any specific plans for this day, so we just took our time getting to the airport.

This was driving out of Belfast. Apparently the big sphere in the road at the round-a-about was constructed in 2011 and represents "a new sun rising to celebrate a new chapter in the history of Belfast." (Wikpedia page about the sphere). The sculpture is called Rise.

I thought this bridge was cool along our way! Although I didn't know this at the time we saw it, this is Craigmore Viaduct.

This was me taking pictures as we were driving along. It's so pretty!

Grandma and I! Dad wanted a picture of a sign telling us where we were. :)

I liked this cemetery by the river. Once again I took this picture as we were driving.

We are almost to Carlingford, Ireland in this picture. We made a pit stop in the cute town of Carlingford.

Carlingford!

We walked around a bit and enjoyed the beautiful view in Carlingford!

We visited a park to let the kiddos run around and play. I love this picture of Grandma and Karey chatting with the locals at the park. :)

This is Malahide Castle but we didn't go inside. This was basically our let's go to the bathroom before we get to the airport stop. Someday when I go back to Ireland (which I totally want to) I would like to go back here. :)

On the grounds of Malahide Castle! Now off to the airport we go...

We had a pretty eventful flight back to England. There was a winter hurricane approaching and there were some strong winds and heavy rains on our plane ride back. It was a smaller plane and there was turbulence the whole flight and we were fishtailing the last half of the ride. Even as we were about to land, we were fishtailing and we were hoping that that wouldn't cause problems with the landing safely part of the trip... The flight was only 50 minutes or so but it seemed much longer with how turbulent it was.

It was weird because even though it was definitely the most turbulent flight I've been on, thus far in my life, I was oddly not that scared about it. Thankfully we made it back to England and back to Matt and Karey's house safely. :)

Gadsfield Elm Chapel and Tewkesbury Abbey next...

Good News Network

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading the Washington Post online and most of the headlines were negative stories. That happens quite often in the news in general. On that particular day, though, I decided I was fed up with bad news, and typed "good news" into google and got this website.

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

I just wanted to share this site because it has uplifting, inspiring stories and I definitely think it's good to have uplifting stories everyday too. The website is updated everyday with at least a few new things although a lot of the stories remain for a while too. The articles are usually short and some of them have videos to go along with them and thus far I've really enjoyed the site.

Do any of you know of any other good news sites?

P.S. I will get back to blogging about my trip soon...

Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland- Day 15

What can I say about Giant's Causeway?! It was amazing! I seriously loved it and I could have spent a whole day at Giant's Causeway and the surrounding area.

Legend has it the causeway used to extend all of the way to Scotland and was built by a giant. Or maybe it was formed by lava and natural processes 60 million years ago. :)

Enjoy the pictures of the causeway and the area surrounding it!

Pictures don't do the causeway justice. You have to see it in person. :)

It's so cool that nature formed the rocks into columns... or maybe it was the giant.

I love this picture of J! Isn't he cute?! :)

We spent a couple of hours at Giant's Causeway! We all loved it including or maybe especially the little ones!

 

This is the view from the parking lot of Giant's Causeway. It's so green and beautiful! Pictures don't do it justice.

On our way back to Belfast (and not too far from Giant's Causeway), we stopped by the spot where we could hike to Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge, but alas the trail was closed for the day and we weren't able to go. It was okay, though, because the view from the parking lot was gorgeous! 

Looking out at the view from the parking lot of the bridge.

Of course, Dad, Matt and I had to get a selfie here.

Apparently that strip of land in the distance is Scotland.

We took the scenic way along the coast back to Belfast and can I just say how beautiful that drive was?! It seriously was amazing! I have no words to describe it properly.

I didn't get very many pictures of the drive since it's hard to get good pictures while in a car, but it was so cool even if it was rainy the whole time.

To see Giant's Causeway and then to drive along the rocky coast of Northern Ireland with the sea on one side and the rocky, green hills on the other and then driving inland from the coast going through the green hills on narrow country roads through the middle of nowhere in one day was a memorable and unforgettable day!

I have one more story about the day that I want to remember. I was in the car with Dad and Grandma this day and towards the end of the day before we went to our hotel in Belfast, we had a quest of finding an ancestor's home (which we knew was still standing) just a little north of Belfast in a town called Carrickfergus.

We found Castle Dobbs (the home where our ancestor lived) on a country road just outside Carrickfergus. It was getting dark and we drove along the dirt road that led up to the house but a locked gate prevented us from getting any closer to the house.

The owner happened to drive up as we were turning around to leave. We talked to her briefly and I'm afraid Grandma was sorely disappointed when she didn't invite us in. I think Grandma was hoping we would be able to go to the house and that whoever lived there would invite us in since we are related (although a few generations back) and that we would have a nice chat about our ancestors.

But the lady who lived there had no interest in inviting us in (and can you blame her, we're some crazy Americans coming to the house a little before dark saying we're related to them.) Any way, that my friends was the end of an amazing and adventurous day in Northern Ireland!

Stay tuned for more adventures from my trip...

New Grange, Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland- Day 14

We woke up bright and early this morning and headed to the nearest airport to Matt and Karey's house (which was about an hour away) to fly to Dublin.

I won't go into great details but I'll just say we didn't give ourselves enough time at the airport before the flight left and Matt, Karey, the kiddos and I almost missed the flight and Dad and Grandma did miss the flight due to being held up at security.

 

Dad and Grandma got the next flight to Dublin, a couple of hours later. Once we got to Dublin, Matt and Karey and family and I got in our rental car and headed in the direction of our hotel with some pit stops along the way. 

Our first stop was Newgrange burial mound in Ireland which dates back to 3200 BC which is actually older than Stonehenge. The picture above was the path to the visitor center at Newgrange.

Just outside the visitor center.

Can I just say how beautiful Ireland was (England as well)?! It was so green and breathtaking even at the end of January/beginning of February! I loved it!

Along the path to the bus to take us to the burial mound.

The outside of the burial mound. The white stone is not original but there are stones at the entrance that are from that time period and have prehistoric art on them.

The view from the mound.

The entrance of the mound. We couldn't take pictures inside, but basically you walk through this narrow, short (about 21 yards) tunnel that opens up to a small room with a taller ceiling where you can see some really old art on the walls. Although they don't know exactly what some of the art symbolizes, the tour guide told us what they've been told about them. I really enjoyed our tour. The tour guide was knowledgeable and was passionate about what he was talking about.

The tour guide mentioned that you can come back to the mound (but you have to sign up) for the winter solstice when the sun will shine directly into the back of the inside of the mound through the tunnel. It still amazes me what kind of engineering it took to align the tunnel with the winter solstice sun.

Matt and Karey and the kiddos in front of the mound.

On the other side of the bridge leading to the Newgrange visitor center.

After Newgrange, we stopped in Belfast, Northern Ireland to see the Titanic Museum as well as meet up with one of Karey's cousins and her husband for dinner.

I didn't know before I went to the Titanic Museum that the Titanic was built in Belfast and then sailed to Southampton, England for its maiden voyage.

In the picture above is where the Titanic was built right along side its sister ship, the Olympic.

 

The Titanic was huge!

There was a room in the museum that had the reports and distress signal messages from the Titanic on April 14 and 15. You can read some of the messages in the picture above and the rest of the pictures below.

I was crying through this room.

I took a few pictures in the Titanic Museum (as you can tell) but I was also trying to soak it all in. This museum was fascinating and it had so much information and it was well worth the cost.

After the museum, we met up for dinner with Karey's cousin and her husband (I can't remember their names right now), who live in Belfast as the husband goes to medical school there.

Then we drove to our hotel which was north of Belfast, closer to Giant's Causeway, which I will write about next time...