Well to start off, Enda and I took a trip up to Northern Ireland to check out the scene there. We had the privilege of staying with our fellow Expat from Korea, Kevin, and his family in Belfast. Great to see him again. We only spent a couple days there, but saw a decent amount of scenery. The first day we checked out the city, but unfortunately it was rainy and dreary so we moved our adventures to a local coffee house. We then drove around the northern coast. Absolutely beautiful I have to say. The rain dropped on us here and there, but overall the weather was nice. We checked out a surfing competition. Yeah...that wasn't too cool. The only amusing part was, rather than have an proper air-horn to signal the surfers to paddle out, the man on the loud speakers imitated his voice to sound like one. Interesting... hmm..I think he was also doing some karaoke... hmm.
Anyways, we then checked out Giants Causeway which is a place of 40,000 mostly hexagonal basalt columns that came about through a volcano. Gorgeous. What more can I say. The waves only accentuated it's beauty I have to say. On the way back up from them, there was a quick downpour but it was worth getting wet due to the end result. When I turned around, there was an amazing rainbow next to us arching over fields and houses. Nature in it's prime.
When we were back in Belfast we decided to check out the World Championship Irish Dancing. Very cool I have to say. It was an all day extravaganza for us. Well, maybe not extravaganza, but it was entertaining nonetheless. The morning was mainly solos dancers, but when evening came around the groups of 8 (4 males, 4 females) and 16 (mix) started coming out. Amazing I have to say. The whole thing. Their outfits, make-up, wigs, dancing abilities. Good stuff.
Well, moving on. Then Enda and I took a quick trip to Spain (mainly for visa reasons, but also ryanair was doing $0.01 flights + tax. Cheap flight. Can't pass it up. Anyways, we landed in Santander and took the great advice of our friend and decided to take the bus to Bilbao right away. Awesome city.
The Guggenheim is there, the bridges are beautiful at night, the streets are quiet. Short and sweet time there. We stayed t
here for about a day and a half. We then headed back to Santander for the day (once we figured out how to get on the right bus--language difficulties) and checked out the sights there, or should I say lack thereof. We weren't really impressed, but it was fun nonetheless. Anyways, we are now back in Dublin. Met up with some old friends, and are heading down to Kerry for a good-bye to his family and then we are off to N. Am for a quick reunion with my family. Should be good :) Anyways, hopefully I'll write more soon~
Cheers-
