I see red, I see red, I see red (The Giant's Causeway - Londonderry)

Everywhere we look there are red heads.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just not so common at home.  Belfast continued to underwhelm us and despite a good weather forecast, we woke to grey skies and drizzle.  After breakfast and a short drive of maybe 10 km the drizzle turned into snow.  Unreal.  Well, it was the aftermath of the snow, I took the pictures sitting at a set of traffic lights.

The Giant’s Causeway

We headed straight for the coast after leaving Belfast and picked up the scenic coastal route on the way to the Giant’s Causeway.  The further away from Belfast we drove, the more the weather improved and by the time we made our first out-of-the-car stop the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.  The coastline is quite spectacular with sheer chalky cliffs that, at times, glowed white in the sun.

Before getting to the causeway, we diverted to Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge that connects the mainland with an island just off shore.  The rope bridge was put in place to allow salmon fisherman easier access to the island.  Despite my love of heights I decided to walk across.  No problems. Well, OK my knees were a little weak when I made the other side, but that could be because I was standing close to Jayne.

After conquering the vast expanse of the bridge, OK it was about 20 metres, we walked the km back to the car and drove to the Giant’s Causeway.  This was another underwhelming experience.  I’m not sure if the crowds contributed to this – it’s still Easter holidays here, just like home – or whether it was just one of those experiences.  Apparently, the causeway is a listed World Heritage Site, just like the Barrier Reef or the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest.  So, comparatively, I reckon the UK needed something, and had nothing, and this was the best they could do.  Sad, it didn’t rate.

The most amusing bit was watching two morbidly obese Americans have an ‘f’ you fight.  They were red-checked, sweating and struggling for breath, but still managed to put on a show. All class.

It was a challenge to get photos of the causeway without people, but I managed.  The mythical giant story that goes with it is cute, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Bushmills Distillery

It was then off to Bushmills Distillery.  Nothing especially new here, we had toured the distillery at Blair Athol in Scotland a few years back.  It was interesting to learn the difference between Irish whiskey and scotch.  If you are bored one day, ask and I’ll give the story.  Otherwise, whiskey/scotch all tastes disgusting.  That said, Jayne liked it and at the end she got to taste a 16 year old and 12 year old whiskey.  The 16 year old retailed for 125 British pounds.  The bottom line … she prefers scotch.

Stroke City

Cool name eh?  Makes you think of … some American TV sitcom?  No?  Then keep it to yourself.  It comes from Derry/Londonderry, get it?  There’s a stroke between the … nevermind.

Derry or Londonderry if you support the British is the place where all the troubles began – according to a local we spoke to today.  No more politics.  Lets talk dinner.

So we walked in to the place with the highest recommendation. It was down by the river and carried a name that suggested seafood.  Anyway, let’s not dwell on the menu, the less said the better.  We were seated, but couldn’t make an immediate drinks order because we wanted to vaguely match the wine with dinner.  20 minutes later we walked out due to lack of interest – from the staff.

The next stop was the Chinese Restaurant and Tapas Bar.  No, seriously.  Curiously, they share the same entrance and staff, but have separate rooms.  At least they were interested in serving us.  It was warm.  They had wine to drink.  And then …

No and then!  Eating Chinese in England and Ireland is not the same as at home.  For starters, you don’t share meals.  Each meal comes with, and I quote from the menu, “All main dishes, unless stated, are inclusive of boiled rice or chips.”  Chips!  No way.

So, we asked to share a main course.  Without chips.  Then we looked around. OMG.  Chinese food with chips and rice on the one plate.  We were the strange ones.  The waitresses were giggling at us.

And so, we enjoyed our meal, sort off.  I’ve had worse.  I just don’t get Chinese and chips.  I know each ethnic group assimilates themselves into the culture, and Chinese food in England and Ireland is sweeter than what would be expected in Australia, or in Asia.  But, chips?

Smoke gets in your eyes (Dublin to Belfast)

And the song references continue. Every one in Ireland smokes. OK, well not everyone, but heaps of peeps. Bad news, health-wise. There are more people on the footpath smoking than there are in the pubs drinking.

Trinity College attempt #2
Another perfect Dublin morning! We have been so fortunate. We packed our bags and loaded the car and walked up to Trinity College to see the book of Kells and the Long Room. How lucky were we to arrive at the same time as about 50 French school students. How good is that as an excursion? We take our kids to the zoo or the art gallery and they get to go to Dublin. Awesome.

Anyway, it made the experience more interesting because we had to negotiate the exhibition based on where the bulk of students was not. Absolutely fascinating. Seeing the original hand written versions of the Gospels from about 800AD was inspiring. Sorry, no photos. The process of creating those was amazing. It is so easy to take for granted what we have today, but to understand the difficulty involved in making the pages to be written on, even before the quill has been dipped in the ink ... it takes dedication to a whole new level. Now consider the length of the Gospels and the fact that every word had to be painstakingly transcribed - without liquid paper or a delete button. In some cases it was a life's work.  Not to mention the process of binding a manuscript - makes whinging about contacting the kids' school books each February look pathetic in the extreme...

They also had on display a number of hand written bibles from the north of Africa - Ethiopia. Being a part of the western church it is easy to forget that there were other areas that had Christianity brought to them so long ago as well. It was easy to see the Egyptian influence in some of the art works, too.

After the school excursion moved on, we decided to head for the Long Room. Again, sorry, no photography permitted. It was like stepping back in time. Amazingly high arched timber ceiling and row upon row and shelf upon shelf of seriously antiquated books. It was like a scene from Harry Potter.

We purchased our first gifts for home at the Library Gift Shop.

Bru na Boinne
I think that's Irish for the the Boyne  Palace (no don't write in, I don't care that much). Newgrange is one of the Neolithic burial sites that have been discovered across western Europe. There are other sites in Brittany which we intend to find later in the month.

Amazing understanding of the sun and it's movements and some fairly tidy engineering combined for the construction of a massive burial chamber dating back around 5,000 years. It was interesting to see how it had shifted through the years to morph into a Norman castle at one point. Fortunately someone recognised it's worth and commenced excavation.

Belfast
Dickens coined the expression 'a tale of two cities' in the title of one of his novels and that certainly describes Belfast and Dublin. Maybe it's a Beatles/Stones thing, or Holden/Ford or whatever the Gen Y equivalent is, but they are so different. Dublin feels more countrified and is enjoying the slow pace, whereas Belfast feels industrial and rushed. It is difficult to define why, but we both felt it and we spent some time discussing it over a few drinks after our Black Cab political tour of the city. I didn't take any photos, it just didn't seem right.

The place we are staying is roomy and beautiful, the people are friendly, but there is just something ... We arrived later than we thought but still with enough time to do the taxi tour. The war is over, they say, but after 14 years of cease-fire, the truce is still an uneasy one. So it appears that none of it will be forgotten any time soon. We stopped to look at some of the murals in Shankill Road that, depending on your perspective, celebrated some of the heroes of Northern Ireland or held them as examples of what not to do. I'm not convinced of the latter. In an interesting counterpoint, the younger generation are putting their own mark on the murals. Scrawled in marker pen under on the bottom of one of the murals is, "Brandon is gay". The universal insult and complete disregard for the history of the area.

Rafferty's Rules
Clearly Rafferty was an Irishman and was responsible for creating the road rules. In Dublin it's the push bikes. They ride on the road when it suits or the footpath if suits better, some alternate between the two. We've seen them pull out in front of cars, taxis and buses ... and get away with it.

In Belfast, it's the black cabs. They drive up onto the footpath, turn into oncoming traffic with a wave to the other driver and generally disregard road rules. Crossing from Ireland to the Northern Ireland there is a small sign that notified drivers of the change from kph to the old language of mph and then there was not a posted speed limit for eons. Luckily Jayne and I are old enough to remember the conversions from mph to kph, but how would Gen Y fare? Especially with TomTom going off every km to tell me there is a speed camera. I still haven't seen one, but I guess that's the point eh? Hope I've been gestimating the speed limit closely enough.

Four seasons in one day (Dublin)

 Now, that could be a challenge, to entitle every blog entry with a song reference.  Today, I refer of course, to Dublin’s weather.  Although it was a tad chilly, it was a beautiful morning, brilliant blue skies and still.  It didn’t last, but that was OK.

We began the morning by finally connecting to the internet, clearing email, uploading the blog and skyping home.  This brought it’s own issues, 1^st world, 21^st century problems – we couldn’t get a video link with skype.  We could talk and we could see Cait, but for reason my computer doesn’t like to let us be seen.  Yes, yes, keep your clever comments to yourselves.  I discovered this problem before we left home and ultimately deleted and re-installed skype which solved the problem.  Temporarily at least.  The same remedy did not work today.  As I said, 1^st world problems.  But, like Magilla Gorilla, we always carry a spare.  The iPad worked the way the system was supposed to.

St Patrick's Cathedral

We wandered up towards the main precinct of Dublin where we jumped the ‘hop on, hop off’ tourist bus to commence our day of sight seeing.  Our first stop was St Patrick's Cathedral, rumoured to be the actual site where St Patrick baptised hundreds of people in his crusade to convert the population.  Mass was about to commence and we were on a tight schedule so we didn't have time to go inside for more than a quick glance and a brief walk through the park next door.

The Guinness Brewery 

 The next stop was the St James Gate Guinness Brewery.  Mr Guinness was certainly an entrepreneur, signing a 9,000 year lease on the site in the 1700s.  By the time we had meandered our way through the different levels of the storehouse and arrived at the Guinness school, the sun was over the yard arm (as my father-in-law used to say).  I was successfully tutored in how to pour the perfect Guinness and as a reward, I got to drink the fruits of my labour.  And I have another diploma, although I’m not sure if I will include it on my CV.

By now it was time for lunch.  We thought this would be a quick trip, but it was obvious we weren’t going to fit everything we wanted to do today.  Naturally, the Guinness storehouse had a range of lunch options, Mr Guinness would be proud.  There were four different cafes/restaurants all selling ‘Guinness inspired’ food.  One in particular stood out and we couldn’t go past it.  It was called Gilroy’s! Nice.  And so was the food and the view.  The only problem is the amount of food in each serve.  Way too much.  We have reverted to a previous practice of having our main meal at lunch-time and not eating in the evening.  Most civilized.

Kilmainham Gaol

By the time we left the brewery we had only time for one more major attraction.  In the end this was determined by opening hours, so we got back on the bus and headed for Kilmainham Gaol.  Suitably, the weather had turned and the wind was biting, although the rain restricted itself to the periods when we were indoors.  The inhospitable weather suited the gaol perfectly.

It was a fascinating tour and holds such a significant place in Ireland’s political history and it’s struggle for independence.  We learned about gaol design and how this was influenced by the purpose behind the gaol itself.  The introduction of light was to do with salvation and looking towards heaven to engender more noble thoughts from the criminals.  Seriously.  All the while they were being starved and frozen and deprived of freedom and family – unless they were wealthy and could buy extra supplies from the guards.  Or in later times, if you were a political prisoner so that it was easier to allow you to have several ‘cells’ filled with your own furniture while you were fed with restaurant food and entertained visitors.  Has much changed?  Graft and corruption through the years in the corrective service industry.  In a nice touch the altar of the Catholic Chapel was placed over the doorway to the original gallows which were at the front door of the gaol.

Ireland has spawned so many great thinkers and writers, from Jonathon Swift and Oscar Wilde through to Darren James Conway, I wonder how many have pondered man’s inhumanity to man (pardon the gender bias, especially given the ratio of male to female prisoners was 50-50 for many years) as a result of their understanding of what happened at Kilmainham Gaol.  The final indignity was the execution of James Connolly, a leader of the 1916 rebellion, who was too sick to stand for the firing squad.  He was dying in hospital before being removed to the execution yard where he was tied to a chair and shot.  There was no way death was going to get in the way of justice.

Trinity College

That was pretty much the day.  We arrived back in the city centre around 5pm and then decided to walk home.  We tend to walk a lot while we are on holidays, in part to balance the good lifestyle we enjoy.  The footpaths are very narrow which makes it very difficult for Jayne and I to hold hands as we walk.  To balance this, there is always something to watch and comment on, generally the people on bikes.  There would be road carnage if bike riders in Sydney did what these people do – and they don’t wear helmets.

Trinity College and the Book of Kells will have to wait until tomorrow.  After that we head towards Belfast, although there are a couple of things we wish to see on the way.

Leaving on a jet plane ...

Ok, inappropriate song, but that's what Jayne's staff played for her. Think I would prefer Julia and Angus Stone, but anyway.

The journey from Sydney to Dublin wasn’t quite what we expected in some areas and in others it exceeded expectation.  Spending time in the Qantas Club, courtesy of my (former) uni advisor, Charles Burford, was a most pleasant way to begin the trip.  I liked it so much I actually googled the cost of joining, yeah, well, I can dream.

Economy

Sadly, this was followed by the realization that we were actually in economy and not premium when we boarded the plane to Singapore.  I’m still not sure how that happened, but I’ll be contacting Qantas customer service about it and I’ll be checking the return flights very closely.  However, not long into the flight one of the head stewards, Colin, appeared to report he had been looking for us in premium economy and perhaps some champagne might get our flight off to a better start.  And it was champagne!  In glass, not plastic!  Sandy, I assume you are reading this, if not, I’m sure someone else will pass on our thanks to ‘Mr Matthews’ who made sure we were looked after.  Champagne and the nice earphones, the ones that cut our all the surrounding noise.  OK, so it was still economy, but we appreciated  the extras – thanks Rob.

Premium Economy

We changed planes in Singapore to the A380 and premium economy.  Heaven, I’m in heaven … Jayne has always maintained that anything above economy is a waste of money that could be spent on the holiday.  Not any more.  I doubt that we’ll fly economy again on the long haul flights.  Premium on the A380 is fantastic, great legroom, large seats that you can almost lie flat in.  The 13 hour trip to London was almost restful.  At least we slept this time and didn’t need to disturb anyone else to get up and move around.

Heathrow is a joke

Then we arrived at Heathrow.  Unfortunately, Qantas was unable to check our luggage through to Dublin because the last leg of trip we flew Aer Lingus.  They used to be One World partners, but not any more.  This meant we had to brave border security, customs and lug our bags from one end of Heathrow to the other.  I had allowed a 3 hour window between one plane landing and the other taking off – we made it by 20 minutes.  The problem was with the processing of the passports.  There was not nearly enough staff to deal with the influx of people.  We spent almost 90 minutes in a queue to get a stamp in our passports.

Whose Queen is she anyway?

And then here is an interesting situation.  As a republican I’ve always been amused when people tell me that Lizzy is our queen too. Well, I’d like to know what it gets us?  As we rounded the corner into Border Protection hell, there were two lines: UK and EU passports holders and everyone else.  Yes the UK line moved at almost twice the rate ours did.  So, as an Australian I’m a member of a Commonwealth country and apparently the UK queen is my queen too.  But when it comes to getting into the country, people who don’t belong to the Commonwealth, people who don’t even have that nice old nanna as their queen get to jump the queue and the breathe the free English air before me!  It’s not cricket and it’s not fair.  The sooner we ditch the Brits and their flag, the better off we’ll be as nation.

Dublin

It was back in cattle class on Aer Lingus, but then it was all cattle class.  One of the reasons the One World alliance air lines don’t play with them anymore is because they went, horror, ‘discount’, oh the shame.  Anyway 90 minutes later we are standing in another customs hall.  So much for the EU.  At least the lines moved faster in Ireland.  We finally get to the counter and the lady wants to know where we are staying the night.  Here in Dublin, I replied and tomorrow night as well.  Where are you going after that? she enquired.  Belfast and Derry I replied.  Wrong answer.  They are not Ireland, that’s the North, she says.  Can’t you name anywhere else in Ireland?  Politics, but a valuable lesson learned.

Since then we’ve picked up our car, it’s a new Citroen C4, the latest model of Cait’s car.  We found our accommodation, and very nice it is too, and wandered around a bit of Dublin and caught a ride on the tour bus.  In between all that we went to a pub and had a Guinness, well maybe two, it’s been a long day.  There’s nothing like 36 hours in the same clothes to make you appreciate a shower – and that’s where I’m heading now before going out to dinner.

Easter Sunday

Well, we fly out tomorrow and we still haven't packed. In theory we are doing it today, but first we had to go to Mass and then have the traditional Easter egg hunt.

The boys are now in their twenties, but this just seems to intensify the competition. Daniel beat David by 1 egg this year, 81-80, with Cait a distant 3rd with 65. Although David has already commenced training the next generation. He had Emily practicing during the week. She wasn't very competitive today, she just wanted to eat what she found.

Tonight is our final family dinner for three months. Mum and dad have come down from the coast and Scott, Peta and Brooke are coming over as well.

This will probably be my last post till Dublin. I suppose I should start packing.

Work is over!

And so, work is over until July. Oh yeah!

Jayne and I both had nice farewells at work today. We both came home with 'survival packs' for our journey. Mine of course was superior, regardless of the bottle of French bubbles that came with my pressies. It won't last long, we are drinking it as I type.

Tomorrow the packing begins and the final bits of research - well, while we are still in Australia anyway. I had some more 'must sees' recommended to me today, so it'll be back to Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet over the next couple of days.

Now that work is over we are getting excited about the trip. We have both turned off our work email. That was scary. I'll bet Jayne breaks first and checks hers again before we go. I'll let you know.

Adieu pour l'instant.

New profile picture

As promised I have finally up-dated the profile picture to include Jayne. Fittingly, we are drinking our last bottle of Larmandier-Bernier champagne. We are both looking forward to sampling the national drink ... soon. I mean in France, not here in Australia.

8 more sleeps till we fly away.