The 12th, Sligo, Clare, and Galway
Hope everyone is doing well wherever in the world you are. The past couple of weeks have been relaxing, getting into the routine of working, walking, and learning how to cook! Last week was our big holiday week. July 12th was the Protestant marching day so most of the town was shut down Tuesday and Wednesday. I was lucky enough to get Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday off work. The girls took off to Scotland, and had a great time, judging by the pictures. I stayed in town to go to church and to catch the marching day festivities. Brian arrived on Monday and we spent the day getting him settled into Derry life. He had the benefit of our fountain of knowledge gained through trial and error. You know, important stuff like where to buy groceries, how much to pay for a taxi (since they sometimes try to rip you off), and what store clerks really mean when they say "Are you ok?" (They mean: can I take your order, etc.)
Tuesday we meant to go see the parade but didn't get up in time. Apparently it started really early in the morning and we missed it.... So we took a walk along the city walls. They are about a mile in circumfrence and are the most complete city walls in all of the UK. There are some great views of the city from up there. On the north side of the walls is Free Derry, the Catholic area of town. Just around the corner from that is a Protestant community. We noticed a bonfire and heard a little scuffling, glass breaking, and shouting and decided that it was best to move in a different direction. The Twelfth of June is known to be the most contentious day in the marching season, so we didn't want to get in the middle of anything. We made sure to be inside before dark as that's when things get especially rowdy. News reports the next day mentioned that there were 50 or so petrol bombings in various parts of the city. I don't mean to worry anyone by telling you that. We weren't in any danger whatsoever. Basically, if you don't go looking for trouble, you'll be fine.
The past weekend, the four of us went with our group of Italian, French, and Swiss friends to Galway. It's about a 5 hour drive, but is much more exhausting because of the crowded cars, small roads and hair-pin turns. We stopped in County Sligo along the way and saw the church and cemetary where author W.B. Yeats is buried. We drove
through County Galway and into County Clare to the Cliffs of Moher, which were amazing! But by then we were all really sick of being in the car, so after walking the cliffs for a while we set out to find our hostel in the middle of nowhere. I've never stayed in a youth hostel before, so it was quite an experience. There were 5 girls and we stayed in the girls room with 4 other girls. There were 9 guys in one room, and 7 guys in another. All 25 of us had to share 3 toilets and 2 showers in the same bathroom. THAT was interesting...
We went back to Galway City the next day for the Arts Festival parade, found the home of the Claddagh rings, ate some yummy shepherds pie, and started the trip back home. I had hoped we would get to see Kylemore Abbey and the Connemarra region, but we ran out of time. What a bugger, we'll just have to go back! ;-)
The drive was really tiring, but that didn't prevent us from stopping to ride rides at the carnival in Bundoran. Samiyah is a great negotiator and got the operators to let us ride the Crazy Mouse two times for a fourth of the price! We took a walk on the beach and played on the playground before squashing back into the car for the ride home. We didn't get back until after midnight and went straight to bed to recover for our 9 to 5 routine.
My job's going ok, though it isn't nearly as exciting as I had thought at first. The girl who assigns my briefs doesn't realize how boring and time consuming it is to do what she asks me to do. Looking up names and addresses of companies in online yellow pages and retyping them into Excel isn't exactly the best utilization of my skills, and it makes for a really long day. She works in the Belfast office, and doesn't communicate much with me, but she'll be here in our office tomorrow, so we're going to have a chat.....
As always, there are more pictures, starting here:
Pictures 64-78
I think we're going back to Giant's Causeway this weekend since Brian and Denise haven't been there. We're going to try to rent an automatic car since none of are very confident stick-shift drivers. I'm learning, but I have problems with reversing out of parking spaces. I always end up stalling out. It took me a bit to figure out why the car wouldn't crank back up. You have to have your foot on the clutch AND
the brake to crank the car... Smart girl.
Tuesday we meant to go see the parade but didn't get up in time. Apparently it started really early in the morning and we missed it.... So we took a walk along the city walls. They are about a mile in circumfrence and are the most complete city walls in all of the UK. There are some great views of the city from up there. On the north side of the walls is Free Derry, the Catholic area of town. Just around the corner from that is a Protestant community. We noticed a bonfire and heard a little scuffling, glass breaking, and shouting and decided that it was best to move in a different direction. The Twelfth of June is known to be the most contentious day in the marching season, so we didn't want to get in the middle of anything. We made sure to be inside before dark as that's when things get especially rowdy. News reports the next day mentioned that there were 50 or so petrol bombings in various parts of the city. I don't mean to worry anyone by telling you that. We weren't in any danger whatsoever. Basically, if you don't go looking for trouble, you'll be fine.
The past weekend, the four of us went with our group of Italian, French, and Swiss friends to Galway. It's about a 5 hour drive, but is much more exhausting because of the crowded cars, small roads and hair-pin turns. We stopped in County Sligo along the way and saw the church and cemetary where author W.B. Yeats is buried. We drove
through County Galway and into County Clare to the Cliffs of Moher, which were amazing! But by then we were all really sick of being in the car, so after walking the cliffs for a while we set out to find our hostel in the middle of nowhere. I've never stayed in a youth hostel before, so it was quite an experience. There were 5 girls and we stayed in the girls room with 4 other girls. There were 9 guys in one room, and 7 guys in another. All 25 of us had to share 3 toilets and 2 showers in the same bathroom. THAT was interesting...
We went back to Galway City the next day for the Arts Festival parade, found the home of the Claddagh rings, ate some yummy shepherds pie, and started the trip back home. I had hoped we would get to see Kylemore Abbey and the Connemarra region, but we ran out of time. What a bugger, we'll just have to go back! ;-)
The drive was really tiring, but that didn't prevent us from stopping to ride rides at the carnival in Bundoran. Samiyah is a great negotiator and got the operators to let us ride the Crazy Mouse two times for a fourth of the price! We took a walk on the beach and played on the playground before squashing back into the car for the ride home. We didn't get back until after midnight and went straight to bed to recover for our 9 to 5 routine.
My job's going ok, though it isn't nearly as exciting as I had thought at first. The girl who assigns my briefs doesn't realize how boring and time consuming it is to do what she asks me to do. Looking up names and addresses of companies in online yellow pages and retyping them into Excel isn't exactly the best utilization of my skills, and it makes for a really long day. She works in the Belfast office, and doesn't communicate much with me, but she'll be here in our office tomorrow, so we're going to have a chat.....
As always, there are more pictures, starting here:
Pictures 64-78
I think we're going back to Giant's Causeway this weekend since Brian and Denise haven't been there. We're going to try to rent an automatic car since none of are very confident stick-shift drivers. I'm learning, but I have problems with reversing out of parking spaces. I always end up stalling out. It took me a bit to figure out why the car wouldn't crank back up. You have to have your foot on the clutch AND
the brake to crank the car... Smart girl.
posted by Kell | 7:31 AM
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