A Tale of Two Cities

You are very welcome to my wanderings today!

I didn't post while we were staying at Ballygally because they charged 10L for the internet which would be about $13 and I am too Scotch to pay for only a few hours of internet usage. I will catch you up as best I can today. I apologize if you worried that we had blown off the edge of the Giant's Causeway. I assure you, we are in one piece.

We spent most of yesterday in Northern Ireland. I found this fascinating. I remember back some 36 years ago when we read about the troubles in Northern Ireland in our Weekly Readers. I also remember Anne Laughlin and I shaking hands and saying that although she was Catholic and I was Protestant, we could still be friends. I don't know why I remember that silly little thing, but I do. And on Friday, I stood where the troubles started. I won't bore you with the history, you can look it up on wiki or Google it if you want to know more.

Derry is a small town in Northern Ireland. If you are a Republican you call it Derry. If you are a Unionist you call it Londonderry. It is a town divided-the flag of the Republic of Ireland may fly directly across from the flag of the United Kingdom. However, the bombings and the majority of murders ended with the Good Friday Peace Treaty in 1998. There are remnants of the past alongside evidence of the healing that has taken place in the past decade. We took a walking tour down the wall of Derry with a very engaging guide named Rowan McNamara. He was tall, had a booming bass voice and looked like the actor Mako. Yes, Rowan is half-Chinese and half-Irish. He says it made for an interesting childhood. I very much enjoyed the tour. A rather humorous sight was the statue of Queen Victoria in the Guild Hall. Guild Hall was blown up several times during the troubles. One time, the hall was pretty well destroyed. The bomb was placed at the base of Queen Vic's statue and launched her about 70 feet up and over. Her head came off, her hand was shattered but she was repaired and still stands majestically in the grand hallway. She was not amused.

After Derry we traveled to the Giant's Causeway on the Atlantic Coast. Mrs. Jones would have loved to take her ALC'ers to this geological formation. The Causeway was formed by a volcanic eruption. The magma cooled to form columns and six sided stones made of basalt. It is a strange scene but one I would love to explore in the future. We didn't have enough time to see it all but what we saw was intriguing. The wind was so strong that it would blow me off balance so I didn't venture out to the edge of the rocks like some.

Last night was spent in Ballygally Castle on the coast. I was not impressed. The room was nice enough but small. It wasn't air conditioned and we were on the side without a breeze. To top it off, there was a wedding in the hotel and several drunk, giddy Irish girls stood outside in the car park talking with one of our younger men. He was having a great time entertaining them. I was not having a great time listening to them so about 12:30 a.m. I called reception to complain. Apparently the desk clerk took care of the problem because it did finally get quiet.

Today we moved on to Belfast, another city divided by religion and politics. But again, healing has occurred. Any violence that goes on there is committed by thugs who use the name of religion to carry out their violent fantasies. There are murals all over the city recalling the heroes and martyrs of the fighting. The Belfast Hospital is renowned for their expertise in neurology and head injuries because of all the people injured by bombs in the twenty years of war. Ken O'Connell said that if you ever need a titanium plate in your head, Belfast is the place to come. Isn't that a sad legacy?

We had a step on guide whose name was Billy on the Protestant side of the river and Liam on the Catholic side of the river. I must confess that my Kwells kicked in about that time and I slept through most of his tour. I guess I wasn't alone. Several of my tour mates confessed to doing the same.

This afternoon we visited the Battle of the Boyne historic site. This was the first battle between King William, King James and Louis of France. Billy had pushed Jimmy out of his kingship so Jimmy got Louie to help him fight Billy near the Boyne River. Billy won.

We progressed on to Dublin and arrived around 3:30. Dublin reminds me a bit of London although it is in the Republic and not Northern Ireland. Our hotel is the Radisson Blu and is a true luxury motel. Now, don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the uniqueness and quaintness of our other hotels and inns but it is nice to have air conditioning and an ice machine. Three of our hotels have had twin beds rather than doubles as does the Blu. I tell Ken we are Lucy and Desi-ing it! I would think Ken would enjoy not having me toss and turn next to him like I usually do but I think he misses me. Awwwwww....

We had an evening out at the Merry Ploughboy Pub. Music and Irish dancing. It reminded me of the Lazy B in Estes Park. An Irish chuckwagon dinner only we had a choice of gourmet dishes and drank Irish coffee for dessert. We were served at our table rather than carrying our tin plate under the cold peach but, the ambience was the same.

Tomorrow is our last day before we go home. We take a short bus tour of Dublin and visit the Book of Kells at Trinity College. Then, we are on our own. We have a voucher for the hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city and a voucher to tour either Jameson Whiskey or Guinness. We will probably tour Jameson as we have been to several other breweries. We plan to find the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and to buy a hat and t-shirt. I will try to blog again tomorrow night and then Monday we head back to the US. We are the only one's from our tour who are leaving on Monday. The others are part of a longer tour.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July. We sang God Bless America on the bus coming to the hotel tonight. In honor of our holiday, we get to sleep in tomorrow. Woo hoo! Enjoy the fireworks for us.

A Very good night!