Daytripping

Monday 

The past few days I have spent travelling a bit.  Sunday night Lisa and I decided to try to go to Ballycastle, a small town on the coast.  Really, she told me it was beautiful so I nodded and said okay.  We left Monday morning thinking we would catch a cab to the bus station, take the bus to Ballycastle, maybe spend the night, maybe not. Well, that morning was spent hauling it to the bus station because the cabs were backed up and we hadn’t planned enough time to walk. Luckily we made the bus just in time and when we arrived in Ballycastle we turned the corner from the bus stop and saw a large yellow house that said “Castle Hostel”.  We stopped in to see if they had any rooms open, and not only were we the only ones, but the woman asked if we planned on going to Rathlin Island and when we said yes, she quickly called and reserved us tickets for the ferry leaving that hour. Everything happened so quickly that we didn’t even have time to think, we just walked to the harbor.

After a 45 minute ferry ride we made it to the Island, which has about 70 full time inhabitants.  It’s very hilly, lush and green, just gorgeous, on the water, beautiful views everywhere. There is a seabird viewpoint on the opposite side of the island from where we were, so we decided to hike it, planning to take a bus back to the dock once we got there.  Because everything happened so quickly, we had about half a bottle of water and two nutri-grain bars between us to last a four mile hike in the sun.  It was completely beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it was steep and the purple tennis shoes weren’t really make for hiking.  We finally made it to the viewpoint after being continually passed by two very fit old women, and it was just breathtaking.  There are over a hundred types of birds and you’re so high up that you can see the birds flying beneath you.  When we left the viewpoint we realized we may have missed the last bus that ran back to the dock, so we hurried to the bus stop and were completely relieved to see the bus still there. However, we soon found out that they were there waiting for  an old woman in a walker and had no room for us. That was a VERY low point in the day.  We were out of food and water, and we were hot and sore, and had a four mile hike BACK to the dock, only this time, we had about half the time to do it in order to catch the ferry.

On the way I decided it would be a good idea to “trot” down the hills, not really running, just lightly jogging, in order to save time when we were walking up the steep hills.  In the middle of trotting and talking about how brilliant I was to think of trotting and how much time it would save us, I proceeded to trip on absoloutely nothing and fall onto the cement. And that was the end of trotting.

All in all, we made it back to the ferry in time, and once we arrived to Ballycastle, we got some dinner and a pint, then went back to our hostel and were asleep by 9pm.

Tuesday

The next morning we woke up around 9am, brushed our teeth and said goodbye to the very kind woman who ran the hostel, and walked to the beach.  When we got there, there were a bunch of schoolchildren in their uniforms running around, when their teacher said, “Ok, who’s ready for ice cream?”. Seriously. Those kids spent the morning on the beach and then got ice cream?

Anyway, we sat on the beach and chatted and admired the loveliness that is Ballycastle beach, then walked around and found pretty rocks…the kind of thing I imagine old people do, and really, I liked it.  After spending the morning on the beach we took a walk past a golf course that overlooks the ocean, and found an old “friary” with a graveyard and a half-open stone building.  It was quiet and pretty surrounded by green grass and sheep, and we spent a good amount of time walking around there.  Then for lunch, we walked into the town which was about two blocks worth of little shops, all brightly colored and nice, and had lunch at a place called Margo’s, and I had some tasty fish and chips.  After that, we had a few hours to kill so we walked around the town some more, then went and got ice cream and sat on the beach.  I think Ballycastly might just be my favorite place in the world.

That night, when we got home, we realized(well, we knew it was coming….) we were BRIGHT RED from being in the sun for two days and no being prepared for it.  A girl in Lisa’s building told her that yogurt helps a sunburn, and since we really had no other options, we spent the night playing cards with yogurt on our faces. Lovely.

Wednesday

Lisa had to go to London today, so she put me on a bus for the Giant’s Causeway tour, which lasts from 9am to 7pm, so it kept me busy.  It was really crappy compared to the last two days.  The whole idea of this trip is to drive up the Antrim Coast, sort of stopping at sights along the way.  The first stop was at a rope bridge, which was nice. I was expecting a huge long bridge, and it wasn’t, but it was neat anyway.  It took you to a sort of tall grassy rock formation, which there are many, and you could walk around a bit.  It was really strange, because I’m not afraid of heights, but after getting off the bridge, if I stood still my legs would shake. THAT made me nervous because we were essentially on a big cliff and it would be just my luck that I would have a shaky leg, then stumble and fall down the side of this huge cliff into the ocean. I had visions.

Then the next stop was lunch, at a restaurant in Bushmills, and I ended up eating with a guy named Charlie from Portland, whose parents had gone to Wash U and SLU, and he even asked me what high school I went to. And he had been there. Small world.  There were a few things to choose from, sandwiches, fish and chips, and some beefy Guiness stew pie thing.  I got a tuna sandwich and he got a Guiness pie. He reminded me of Vogel, because he got his food long after everyone else was eating, and the bus driver told him that he could take us to our next stop and drop us off and then come back for him so that he would have time to finish his food. This guy Charlie looked at the bus driver and said, “you don’t know me” and then he gobbled down his meat pie. It reminded me of when Vogel ate too much meat then laid on the couch and complained of having the “meat sweats”.

After that, I went on a tour of the Bushmills distillery, which was kind of lame. But is has been there since 1608, so I guess that’s cool.

Then we finally made it to Giant’s Causeway, which really was amazing, it’s all these rocks formed from cooling lava 60 million years ago.  On one side you have a huge steep hill of grass, kind of bowl shaped, and on the other are all these crazy rocks spilling into the ocean. It was neat.

Our last stop was literally two minutes on the side of the road to take a picture of a castle.  It seemed to be an interesting place, but we didn’t get very close.

So, that was my day. The rest of it has been spent trying to upload pictures for everyone to oooh and aaah over. which you will. because they are awesome.

happy wednesday!

jamie