Quick Note about Lononberry, it is a very hilly place. But we enjoyed our quick stay there.
A few other things we have noticed and learned along the way so far. All of their fences are made out of stones. Big flat rocks that are stacked on top of each other and go for miles and miles. It is crazy when you think about how long, how heavy and with what type of machinery, that they had available to actually make them. Randomly as well, we have noticed that when walking on side walks or at some of the touristy places, people walk on the left hand side, just as they drive and expect you to pass them on the right hand side. If not that then you are left to be the good Canadian that willingly jumps out of the way so people will be happy and continue on.
TRAFFIC CIRCLES! They love them here!! Randomly in the middle of a highway, or approaching a town or when there are different exits they have traffic circles. Anywhere from 1 lane to 3 lanes. It is out rageous but I think we finally have them figured out. I definitely have pissed off few local people in the process of this learning curve, but certainly not as many as I thought I would have! More about driving... Because this has definitely both been talked about and been a big part of our Ireland stay. As I mentioned before, Northern Ireland is technically part of the U.K., well today we drove ALL DAY without seeing a speed sign. That is until we got back into Ireland. Then we got smart, or rather Luke did, and decided that it was time we Google this. APPARENTLY, we got a few things extremely wrong. See when going into any small town along the highway you would see a speed sign. But that was the only time. Then on the way out this white circle with a black line through it, which we had no idea what it meant. This we now have decided was one of the times I pissed locals off, but we are getting to that point. This white circled sign means to resume your speed to the UK national speed limit. In Northern Ireland much like the UK, they just have these signs all over and everyone knows what speed to go. Well we certainly did not. We drove much of the day anywhere from 80-100KM depending on the type of road we were on, and how fast the people we were driving around were going. THEN, yes it gets better we realized that they go by miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour which is what we were doing! So going into these small towns, I was driving 30 KM and slowing down from 80, when really the speed limit was 50-55 miles. Not only does that mean speed was different, but it also means that our distance of how long it would take to get everywhere was different because the sign was in miles. This ended up putting a lot of pieces to the puzzle together for us. Literally as soon as we got across into Ireland(which still had no sign welcoming us), there was a speed sign for 120KM which was a huge relief. Not only all this but they have more signs that are actually on the road telling you what is happening then are on a sign, it's bizarre. Needless to say, driving has been different in many ways, and has got us both confused and learning new things daily. Another odd thing, cars here tow absolutely everything! We drove passed so many cars that are towing trailers, or small boats it is boggling.
Now for the day! We ended up having two main events for the day. From Londberry we headed toward Bushmils, specifically to the Giants Causeway. Essentially this is something that already existed in a way, under land and by water eroding it away causes it to surface. It was pretty incredible to see and walk along. Here we got an audio tour so as we did the walk we could listen to all the information. Big, big rock formations, of all different shapes and sizes.
We continued on and stopped in a town called Ballycastle for lunch, before continuing on to Belfast. We really just drove through Belfast, with the exception of the Titanic. Titanic was built in Belfast, and as a result they now have an extensive exhibition in its honour. A few new interesting things we learned about the Titanic, was that you could hear them building the Titanic from all over Belfast. Many of the men who worked on it went deaf from working on it, because they were working in such close quarters with such loud noises for so long they went deaf. There were only 8 fatalities over the 26 months it took to build the Titanic. Which is actually rather impressive, considering the fact that people were not tied down and the Titanic was as high as a crane. The saying they had was one handle on the ship, and one for yourself. Meaning, hold on with one hand and work with the other. We got to walk through, and go on a ride through, the making of the Titanic. From zero to hero. It is truly an incredible ship. They have a 180 degree view of what it looked like, which oddly enough is identical to the movie, but crazy to see in person. They had 1st class, 2nd class, & 3rd class passenger rooms set up which were also pretty neat to see as they were tiny. Even the first class rooms, but compared to the third huge. We got to see how the engines worked, how they individually riveted every single (over 3 million) rivets that are in the sunken boat. They also had a real ROV that they used to look at, and explore the Titanic under water that we could see. We honestly learned so much I could go on for a long while. The Titanics little sister is named the SS Nomadic which is outside of the Titanic exhibition, and we got to walk through. It is drastically smaller but essentially the same as the Titanic. We got to explore the ins and outs and it was super cool to see.
All the super awesome pictures from the day are on Luke's camera, so you will have to wait till later to see them.
We continued to drive and ended up back in Dublin, at a new room to sleep in. We got to our room around 8:30pm and went in search of food. Today was a bank holiday in Ireland, which we knew previously, just didn't understand how many things would be either closed or just not serving food, just drinks. So we went to a place called SPAR. We would compare it to an ABc store, which is American, or a 711 type of place. Here we got a loaf of GF bread(cause Europe gets me), a pack of ham, pack of smoked Gouda, and a few packs of mayo to go, as well as a bottle of wine and headed back to our room for dinner. Definitely not how we want to spend all our evening meals but a good alternative if we need it.
They do not use paper towels here. Everything is hand dryers. Mostly the days on ones, but either way they are powerful hand dryers and they are you only option. BIRDS! Ugh. So the birds here have the same stupid syndrome that birds back home have... They don't move out of your way!! And when you try to get them to move, or in our case Luke tries to get them to move, they run!! No flying, they run. For those who don't know, or learned at the wedding during photos here's your reminder, I am absolutely terrified of birds! And they are EVERYWHERE! They swoop down right at your face, or car, or the gate you are walking past and get in your way all the time. As I said they walk or run away from you they certainly do not until the very, very last minute. The other weird thing they have here is they will play bird sounds. Yea, the loud annoying and scary chirping of the bird, they play those sounds over loud speakers in public places, maybe to fill the silence? Who knows. Makes you question when you do here birds if they are really birds or not.
And so the adventure continues...
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