Belfast, Northern Ireland

This past weekend, we ventured up to the UK with Arcadia. We were in Belfast from Friday to Sunday. We got in Friday night and they gave us dinner at a hotel. Afterwards, we went to a few pubs including "The Crown" which is the oldest pub in Belfast. After that, a huge group of us went across the street to this place that had music and a bit of a dance floor, so we all were out dancing Friday night.

Saturday morning came too early when we were put on a bus up to Giant's Causeway. It's an area on the northern coast of Northern Ireland that has all these geological formations. There are all these rocks that have split into hexagonal shapes. It was crazy. Of course, the more popular version is that a giant named Finn McCool lived there and decided to fight a Scottish Giant. Well, he chickened out and hid in the baby's crib. When the Scottish giant walked over the bridge made by the stones, Finn's wife told him that Finn was out, but he should see their new baby. Taking one look at the size of the baby, the Scottish giant didn't want to stick around to see the size of his father and ran back to Scotland, pulling up all the stones behind him.






After we grabbed lunch in Portrush, a small town nearby, we drove back into Belfast where I took a nap before dinner. After dinner, we came back to the hostel and tried to figure out what to do. We all (a huge group of Arcadia kids) went out on the town to a pub called Auntie Annie's and upstairs was a club that had music and dancing. So, for hours we were there cuttin' a rug until we were all so exhausted that we had to go back to crash. Drinks were expensive and the pound made them even worse, so I wasn't drinking at all that night. The five pound cover cleaned me out of all the sterling I had. But it was still a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures of people dancing.

The next morning, we got up to go to a lecture on the murals of Belfast. Ever since there was tension between the Loyalists and the Republicans, there have been murals to promote one or the other. After the lecture, we got a bus tour of the city to see the murals and other sites around Belfast. We finished the tour and hit the road back to Dublin and arrived around dinner time. It was a fun trip and I'm glad that we went with everyone from Arcadia. We all kinda do our own thing for the most part, so it was fun to all be together and go out together.

Thursday I leave Dublin for England where I will spend Thursday night at Harlaxton Manor (UE's British Campus) and then I'll stay in London a few nights. Katie comes in on Sunday morning and I can't wait to see her. Then on Monday evening, we'll return together to Dublin and possibly take the bus around Ireland for a few days and be back by Friday when Joe comes from the US. We'll then celebrate St. Patrick's Day here in Dublin on Saturday before heading off on a European conquest of Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy the following week. It's going to be awesome, but I don't know if Europe is prepared to handle three Meier kids at once.