A Brotherly Visit

Whew. Almost didn't post for an entire month. Good thing I'm more on top of it than that... by a couple of days. Posting in quick succession now the rest of my adventures, which were numerous at the end. Enjoy, and thanks for continuing to come back!

Exams finished, and about a week of not a whole lot to do, my brother came to visit! He arrived into Edinburgh on a Friday, and our plans were already made for that weekend. We awoke on Saturday and headed straight back to the airport, but this time for a more local flight. We flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland on Saturday afternoon, a flight that ended up seeming shorter than the time we spent in the airports.

Upon arriving in the Belfast airport, we saw the best advertisement in the world. In a long stretch of tunnel to the street exit, both walls were covered in a continuous image of an apple orchard. Every few feet, there were little statements wishing you to enjoy this simple walk through the orchard, and relax just for now, and only at the end was there a small wooden table with a pint of Magners on it. Quite lovely really. And I drank Magners as much as possible just for that.

Didn't manage to get a picture of the wall, but this was at the end (and the only part of it online)

We took the bus into Belfast and found our youth hostel, tossing our things down and heading out into the city. We did a fair amount of walking, and I was the most impressed by the Queen’s University, but not too much else. That may have been influenced by the fact that it was drearily cloudy (but no real rain, as usual) as it had been in Edinburgh ALL week long, despite the fact that I finished exams right before that week. I know, right? This lack of being at the center of a world is irritating me. Anyway, I was pretty depressed by so much drear, but the sun did peek out a bit when we found the Botanic Gardens, which made me a bit cheerier. After a dinner at a restaurant a bit too nice for the clothes we were wearing, we went to bed for an interrupted night’s sleep due to our fellow hostel goers, and awoke early the next morn for our bus tour to Giant’s Causeway.

The weather for this day was still scattered and cloudy, but enough so to let the sun shine and dance among them, so I was contented. The bus took us to all manner of places on our way north, including a famous distillery where I bought a small book of Irish Songs, and a castle whose most important feature was its murderholes (according to our guide). We also passed very close by to County Antrim, where our great-great grandparents hailed from. I learned much more about this from my Grandma Peggy just recently, and I wish I had known all I do now when I was there, but I enjoyed the country all the same, which I hope showed them good respect. And I did wonder if they'd ever been to the Causeway...
A stranger natural phenomenon I am not sure I have seen. It looked like someone’s attempt at abstract art turned into solid geometrically shaped rocks. Brendan and I clambered over them excitedly, noticing the worn ones, the differently shaped ones, and then, in one area, the ones sheltering and harboring flowers. But then I discovered that one of the amazing parts of the Giant’s Causeway is the surrounding countryside, which was beautiful. It had that familiar rugged quality that Scotland did, and with the scattered clouds and teal sea lapping at the rocks, it was quite beautiful.

We made one more stop on our way back down to Belfast, which was at a well-known rope bridge. Now, Brendan and I were excited for this, because we both had unrealistic and different expectations. I expected it to be terribly dangerous, with two ropes on each side to hold onto, but differently spaced wooden planks to step across, kind of like the one in Shrek or countless other movies with great chasms and rope bridges. Brendan, on the other hand, thought it would be a bridge with two ropes on each side and one thick rope along the bottom to walk across. Sadly, we were both very disappointed by the actual thing. Not only was it a double reinforced bridge with what looked like traces of steel on it, it had solid wood planks without any spaces in them, and webbed rope all along the sides. AND it cost £5. I guess the days of needlessly endangering one’s life are over (editor’s note: or are they? stay tuned for the Ben Nevis post). So we passed on that one, with its long lines which reminded me a bit of a Dr. Seuss book.

The star-bellied Sneetches had stars upon thars.