Castlerock

I spent the afternoon in Castlerock. It's about an hour long train ride away from Derry. Here's some pictures:

Mussenden Temple

Posin' on a cliff

Ok, so I'd never been in the ocean before. So I figured I might as well give it a try, even though it was like freezing. 

It was worth it. :) 

Gaeltacht (Co. Donegal)

I had the pleasure of spending a week in the Gaeltacht in Co. Donegal, which is located in the Republic right next to Co. Londonderry, for a week. We stayed with a family in Gort a Choirce. A Gaeltacht is an Irish speaking area in Ireland. All the street signs are in Irish, and everyone speaks Irish fluently. We went to learn Irish, and also to tour around Co. Donegal.
I've decided that Co. Donegal is my favorite county in all of Ireland. Here's why:

The Bridge of Tears: This is where people would say goodbye to there families before traveling on to Derry to immigrate out of Ireland.

"Friends and relatives of the person emigrating would come this far.
Here they parted. This is the Bridge of Tears."

Glenveagh National Park (and a tiny bit of my professor Caitlín)

The gardens around the castle

Glenveagh Castle

The Poisoned Glen

Errigal Mountain

Rainbow over Oileán Thoraigh (Tory Island)

Machaire Rabhartaigh

You can see Muckish Mountain in the background

Plus the Guinness tastes better here (for real!) 

Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and Tayto Crisps taste better too. Good old Donegal!

Belfast and Derry (Again) (also whiskey)

We drove from Cashel to Belfast. Our plan was to go to the Titanic Museum the next day. After some difficulties trying to find a hotel, we ended up at the Europa. I kept this to myself at the time, but the Europa is the most bombed hotel in Europe.
Bill Clinton stayed there too. That I mentioned a couple times, just to see how my travel companions would react.
It was such a nice hotel though.

There was an actual working TV. I COULD WATCH 8 OUT OF 10 CATS. 

Sweet view too. 

We headed over to the Titanic Museum next. This time we went to the docks and pumphouse. This is the last place the Titanic was held on dry land. 

The dock

The pump house. 

We drove to Derry after this. I had class on Friday morning, so I went to that, and then we took a taxi tour of Derry. I'd been wanting to take one for quite a while, so I was excited for that. The weather was really bad though. So that sucked. The taxi driver took us over to the bogside, where the Bloody Sunday Massacre happened. There are tons of murals. I need to go back when the weather is better to take some pictures, but here are a few:

The famous "Free Derry" mural

All the victims of Bloody Sunday. 

We then went to the Free Derry museum. It's small, but it was so interesting. The man working the front desk told us that his brother was killed that day. He came over and pointed out his brother's shirt that he was wearing that day. 

The next day, we went back to the Giant's Causeway, but we first stopped at the Bushmills Distillery. It's the oldest distillery in the world! Also there was a cat:

Meow

I'd never had whiskey before. It tasted like death. But good death. No one could finish their whiskey, so I had to drink it for them. What a burden.

We went to the Giant's Causeway next. It looked the same, but this creepy cloud formation happened on the way home:

So that's a no. 

Rock of Cashel

From Blarney, we went around Cork and to Cashel in Co. Tipperary. I'd never heard of the Rock of Cashel, but my mom's friend said that we couldn't miss it. She was right:

Ok, so it just looks like a bunch of scaffolding, but I swear there's a building under there. 

Ok. a little better

THERE

Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was closed. Luckily, there was an old abbey nearby so we walked to that. 

The next day we went back to the Rock of Cashel for a tour. It was very very cold. It's on top of a hill, so that invading forced could easily be seen. So it's also super windy. 

A raven on the tower. Spoooooky

So, if you can get your arms around this cross, you'll never have a hangover again. I tried, so hard.

Next stop: Belfast (again)