Friday, July 11th

We set off early today for Northern Ireland. Having grown up in the 70's, Northern Ireland is irrevocably tied with bombings and religious strife in my mind. After all of my education this week on Irish politics, we've learned that it was more political than religious, it only "conveniently" seemed to fall along religious lines.

We left before our "breakfast" was served at the hovel, so as we drove north, we stopped at what would be considered a truck stop and gassed up, pottied, and had breakfast of bananas and yogurt (and my now ubiquitous black current juice!) For those of you who are regular readers, you'll be interested to know that I've gleefully turned on my international data to "drop a bomb" on my Places I've Pooped app all around Ireland! tee hee!

Since the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are totally different countries, I assumed we'd have a border to go through. But no, well... frankly, I seem to have slept through it, but Bill, who was driving at the time, said all there was was a "Welcome to Northern Ireland" sign and the road signs started looking different. So much for getting another stamp in my passport.

At this point, I have to digress into a vague bit of a history lesson, because otherwise, when I say that we could not have chosen a worse day to be in Northern Ireland, it won't mean anything. Seems that way back in 1690 on July 12th, when Catholic/English King James was on the throne, Protestant William of Orange decided to invade (then) Ireland and his supporters in Ireland lit these big-assed bonfires to help show him where to go. William of Orange defeated James. Now, every year, at midnight on July 11th, the loyalists light big-assed bonfires around the city to celebrate July 12 and remember this event. As far as its effect on us, well, Friday was a bank holiday, meaning that some places were closed or had reduced hours; the wall that they've built going through the city to separate the catholics from the protestants gets closed earlier than usual, effectively blocking us out from our hotel, if we hang around too long in the wrong side; lots of drinking, and potential for "trouble."

After making sure where the hotel was (yes, thank God it was a hotel!!), we drove into the city and found a hop-on/off tour bus. The tour guide, Steven, was entertaining and knowledgeable. The plan was to drive the loop, see which sites we wanted to see, then ride the loop again getting off to see those sites. We got off at the Belfast Castle, which on the outside was beautiful, but on the inside was rather unimpressive - mostly decorated for its current use as a wedding location/banquet-type place - we got our money's worth, though - it was free to roam around! The gardens were beautiful and there were nine cats, in one form or another, hidden around the garden. The story being that the original owner who built it, was a gambler and he had a white cat that he considered to be is good luck charm. When the cat died, his luck ran out and he lost the family fortune, even having to move back home to England. So the castle was turned over to the government and when they were setting up the garden, someone got the idea to include 9 cats, to represent a cat's nine lives, in it. There were several stone sculptures, a topiary, some mosaics. We found them all and felt very successful.

The bus showed up shortly after we finished and we hopped back on. Turned out we'd got the bus with Steven on it again. Holly interrogated him about his thoughts on our plans to get off to see a cathedral, then something else, and he said due to the holiday, this bus was going back to the HQ and it was the last bus. In fact, they were closing the gates in the wall and we even had to go a different, more circuitous route back because the normal gate was already closed! He encouraged us to go back to our hotel and lock up for the night. Not that there was anything bad expected, but when alcohol and the Irish temperament mix.... We decided to follow his suggestion. So anyway, that's why we don't have an abundance of pictures of Belfast and Northern Ireland.

Back at the hotel, we had a wonderful meal and then had to say goodbye to Bill. Bill was only able to join us for the Ireland portion of this trip and was driving the rental back to Dublin and then flying back to the US on Saturday morning. Personally, I'm going to miss him because either out of deference to my knee or just because he's a gentleman, he carried my suitcase for me a lot... especially up stairs! Ah, Bill, you are missed.

I had my own room for the night and after taking a nice cool shower, I took advantage of the other twin bed in the room and dumped my suitcase out and repacked everything, doing a second purge of things I don't HAVE to take back with me. Having bought a jacket and a sweatshirt, my suitcase is getting very full. During the purge, I watched a Fresh Prince of Bel Air marathon since I couldn't find that documentary about the history of cheese that the Griswolds watched while in London during European Vacation... and after the purge, I found the British version of Big Brother... and watched that until my eyeballs fell to sleepytime.