"Hey, it's a potato!"

Erica’s sister Natalie and her husband Jesse came to visit last week to celebrate their 1 year anniversary, and to see 3 of their favorite people, of course. They spent a couple days with us here in Dublin, where all 5 of us were cramped in our tiny bedroom and, to their chagrin, realized that we weren’t kidding about our lack of hot water. Luckily the 3 of us had the weekend off and tagged along to their trip to Northern Ireland. We left early Saturday morning to pick up the rental car, and Jesse actually works for Enterprise so he got an amazing deal on the car. It was pretty funny seeing Jesse drive on the left side of road for the first time; at first he seemed a bit nervous but then quickly adjusted to it. The GPS really helped at first as the voice told us specifically where to turn, and it became such an integral part to our drive that we endearingly named her “Siobhan” (a typical Irish name pronounced Sha-von).

Siobhan led us to the outskirts of Dublin where we stopped briefly for a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Where did we stop, you ask? A modern, clean and cheap café called McDonalds. Yes, dear friends, we stopped at a McDonalds that was really lovely and actually looked like a decent restaurant. After this we drove out of Dublin and through lovely country roads, and just past the town of Virginia (no lie!) we found a little place where we decided to take a scenic detour. Our detour took us to Lough Rammer, a lovely lake in the heart of the Irish countryside. Well, to be clear, the lake itself was lovely, but the shore where we stopped to look was anything but—it was littered with the remnants of many a day spent fishing: beer cans, empty bags of crisps and the like. However, the tranquility of the fishermen and the nice surrounding wooded area (not so littered with trash as the shore) made the lake a worthwhile detour.

Our detour to Lough Rammer didn’t really put us off schedule, and we made it to our first destination, Enniskillan, right around when we wanted to, approximately 2pm. Our destination in tiny Enniskillan was the castle. And what an underwhelming castle it is at first! There is only on old “castle looking” building. However, there is a really cool and interesting museum on the premises about the local regiment of soldiers through time, from medieval times through the world wars and even as recently as Korea and the Falkland Islands. The museum had an overwhelming number of artifacts, especially medals, which Erin found out when she tried to pull a drawer of medals out and it kept coming and coming and coming... so much so that she had to take many steps back to pull the drawer all the way out.

We grabbed lunch at a cute little café called the Jolly Sandwich in Enniskillan before hitting the road onto our destination for the night, Ballycastle, the town near the Giant's Causeway. We managed to make it there by about dinner time, and we had to find accommodation. It seemed like it was going to be a problem, but we talked to a woman in a bed and breakfast who called one of her friends who had a room free, and she gave us a good rate since the five of us crammed into a room meant for three people. It was actually quite humorous because we had 4 twin beds that we literally had to have right next to each other in order to fit, without an inch to spare; we felt like we were sleeping in one giant bed.

Anyway, we went out for a quick bite to eat and met a fellow Dubliner in the restaurant named Gino (who met up with us again in Dublin for Jesse’s birthday later in the week). He was travelling on his own, so we invited him out to the pub with us. That was just the beginning of our meeting of Irish people for the night! The locals at the pub were so nice, they just came up and began talking to us right away, and we had some interesting conversations about the changes in Northern Ireland in the last 10 years, the economy, the election in the states and what life is like in a little town like Ballycastle. We also inquired as to why all of the girls thought it was appropriate to wear little sundresses when it was easily in the lower 40's, plus wind chill, to which we got the hilarious reply, "oh, I just noticed that you all are all bundled up! This is warm for us," and a shrug and a laugh. We made our way back to the B&B for a few hours of sleep and had an early breakfast- a traditional Irish fully fry! It was quite good: sausages, ham, eggs, fresh soda bread, baked beans, a potato pancake, and lovely coffee and tea. It was enough calories in one meal for a full day, but the hiking/walking that we did later on certainly helped to burn it off!

After breakfast, we piled into the car and drove the 20 or so kilometres to the Giant's Causeway, stopping along the way to take photos of the cliffs jutting out into the sea, and, for a lucky minute, a rainbow right over the ocean. The weather was so perfect—blustery but clear and completely sunny. The kind of day where a bracing walk outside makes the wind feel wonderful on your face, but you still need a scarf and gloves... and sunglasses!

The Giant's Causeway was an amazing attraction. It is a formation of thousands upon thousands of hexagonal basalt rock columns formed by some ancient volcanic activity. There is only one other place like it in the world, and that is the counterpart across the sea in Scotland! So anyway, when we got there we set off for a few kilometre long cliff walk above the actual rock formation. The walk was so beautiful, and took forever, considering the numbers of photographs we were taking (posted on Snapfish). So we walked along the cliffs for a bit, then down a narrow staircase to the end of the formation to see something called the Smoke Stacks and the Amphitheatre, and then we made our way back along the cliff bases towards the main rock formations. It was so cool! You could clamor all over the columns, and it was absolutely breathtaking. Anyone who is thinking about coming to Ireland should definitely add this to the list….right at the top!

After we finished, it began to rain (of course) but we made our way back up to the car and by the time we were halfway there, the rain had ceased. So that worked out fine, because the sun came right out again. We drove down the scenic seaside road to the ruins of a castle right on the cliffs where we walked around for a short bit, and then we drove into a seaside tourist town for a late, delicious lunch in a pub. Then it was back in the car for the more direct route home straight down the East Coast of the country to Dublin. It was an extremely fun weekend!