Galway: Bank Holiday Adventures

Hello!
I am sitting pretty, nice and bundled in my comfy sheets this Monday morning. After a long weekend of traveling, hostels, ghost tours, hiking the Giant's Causeway and trekking around Belfast and Dublin, I am spending my Bank Holiday in bed! What's Bank Holiday? Ireland has nine official holidays, some of which are familiar to us (Christmas, Easter, Saint Patrick's Day) some others like June, August and October Bank Holidays are little bit unfamiliar. October Bank Holiday has been observed every last Monday of October since 1977. School children get this whole week off from school in preparation for Halloween festivities! Yes, my friends, Ireland celebrates Halloween... it originated here! Universities do not hold classes on Bank Holidays (this is our only "break" in the whole semester -- no Columbus Day weekend, no Thanksgiving), businesses do not open and visiting students (like yours truly) use this holiday as an opportunity to travel far and wide! On Friday I left in the wee small hours of the morning with a friend to visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK!

Belfast Peace Wall Murals

 We left Galway at 6:15 am by bus, transferred to a train in Dublin, and finally arrived in Belfast at 2 pm! We immediately jumped onto a city cite seeing tour which drove us around the city. Belfast is famous, and infamous, for its history as city torn by political/religious tensions. It is very easy for people to forget the political basis for the disagreements between the British loyalists and Irish supporters. Even today tensions are high, despite great strides made for peace between the two groups. Memorials in the form of murals and statues can be found throughout the city on the sides of buildings and walls.

Ulster Volunteer Forces Memorial 

The majority of fighting occurred between the Falls and Shankill Roads, where the Irish (Catholic) supporters and British (Protestant) loyalists demarcate their territories. One must remember, the warring within Belfast was not based in religious affairs, but political ones. It is striking to walk down one road and find the Union Jack flying, but to turn down another street and find the Green, White and Orange of the Irish flag. Symbolism is everywhere too, the above photo has poppies which are familiar connotations of soldiers who fought and died in war. Poppies are found throughout the city of Belfast, in memorial gardens and murals.

The signature of the Dalai Lama 

The city of Belfast has hosted great peace and political leaders such as the Dalai Lama, whose Peace Wall signature is demarcated with a giant red face. However, the murals are not the only attraction to be found in Belfast! The great city is also famous as the birthplace of the Titanic, the home of Queen's University, and as a multi-cultural epicenter. In fact, this past weekend was Diwali, the Hindu "festival of lights." To celebrate, Belfast City Council created a city-wide festival of music, lights, fireworks, acting and dancing. It was truly amazing!

Setting up for Diwali 

 Streets were closed in order to make the event safe and accessible for families and spectators. At 7 pm a show commenced to tell one of the many tales of festival.

But before we could even see the Diwali festival, my friend and I had to endure the most terrifying night of our lives, and then enjoy a whole day of traveling and trekking! Terrifying nights? Yeah, we signed ourselves up for a Ghost tour of Belfast... wherein we were attacked by ghosts, goblins, and skeletal clowns with chainsaws (sans chains). It was horribly fantastic, did I mention we also got to sing Ghostbusters with the skeletal clown? Maybe it wasn't too bad....

The one and only Ghost Bus, Belfast

On our various tours of Belfast (haunted and non-haunted) we saw some pretty cool things like the world's largest Celtic cross...

St. Anne's Cathedral, home to the world's largest Celtic cross and the Spire of Hope

St. Anne's Cathedral is not only home to the world's largest Celtic cross, but it is also the sight of the Spire of Hope (Ireland has many, many spires). We also saw Belfast Castle, which is haunted. But enough of Belfast, one does not go to Northern Ireland just to walk around the city center of Belfast, right? Right! We also traversed the perilous Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge!

the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

This little rope bridge connects the mainland to the tiny island of Carrickarede. It is thought that fisherman built bridges like this one to island in order to gain easy access to fishing waters for many years. Today the rope bridge is maintained by the Irish National Trust and serves as a tourist attraction. The bridge itself is about twenty meters long and thirty meters (almost 100ft) above the water and rocks below! The wind gusts while on the bridge are terrifyingly strong and the bridge bounces with the wind! It is truly terrifying to walk across it, but so cool and so worth it!

walking across the bridge!

We also stopped at the "Old Bushmills" Distillery, the oldest whiskey distillery in Ireland, established in 1608!

Our final stop was to the famous Giant's Causeway! We all know many sights throughout Northern Ireland based on its use as the backdrop for much of HBO's population show Game of Thrones, but Giant's Causeway is probably the most recognizable sight of them all!

UNESCO World Heritage sight of Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway was named a UNESCO World Heritage sight in 1986, and is now a free tourist attraction protected and managed under the National Trust. This beautiful and mystifying sight is made out of thousands of interconnected basalt columns which resulted from a volcanic eruption. Some of the columns are only inches tall, whereas others are as tall as buildings! The whole area of the columns is actually fairly small and easily accessible by a paved road with a sidewalk.

SUPER WIND

 But guys just because it's easy to get to doesn't mean it's easy to explore. If you're not being blown away in the wind gusts, you're being pelted by rain/hail, or slipping off the rocks...

So after all of this travel extravaganza, we still had to get back to Galway! Yikes! So, Sunday morning back onto the train we went. Instead of returning right back to Galway, we decided to spend a few hours in Dublin, at the Dublin Zoo!

Finally, at 11 pm last night I was able to get back! Ah, so tired I am today, and now... on this (very cold and rainy) Bank Holiday, I shall sit and get used to the time change! Our time change was on Saturday night. Unlike at home, where was fall back an hour in the fall, in Ireland we spring ahead an hour in the fall!