The last bit of my trip was a ton of fun. I met up with Melinda in Dublin and after a speedy tour of Dublin (less than 24 hours!) we headed up to Northern Ireland. Our base was in Belfast (of Titanic fame) and we took a bus up to the northern coast, where you can just see Scotland off in the distance! We stopped in Derry (site of Bloody Sunday) and came across this store called Pound World (a la Dollar World) which we had way too much fun in - thank god we were on a timeline and couldn't buy up the entire store, because we definitely loitered around the stuffed animals for a little too long. The highlight of the tour was the Giant's Causeway, though. It's a region on the coast where the ground consists of a bunch of hexagonal rocks poking out at different heights - supposedly caused by a volcano whose lava cracked the ground all funny from underneath. Although the Irish have a pretty cool story about how it was caused by a fight between an Irish giant and a Scottish giant (ending, of course, in the defeat of the Scot, whose remains are still on the shore in the form of rock structures)! I'm probably not explaining this well, but the pics will be cool once I upload them.
Apart from tales of crazy giants and dollar stores, I found the history in Ireland to be really complex, and interesting. Before going there I only had a vague notion of the civil unrest of recent years (I probably wouldn't have even known what Bloody Sunday was, if not for U2). Definitely planning on researching this stuff a bit more.
Melinda and I parted ways in Belfast, which was a little sad since I probably won't see her for quite a while, as she's headed to school in NYC this fall. Guess this'll give me an excuse to go there sometime in the next couple years!
Dublin after nightfall
Melinda and I by a mini-waterfall in Dublin
Cliffs at the Giant's Causeway
Dancing on the Giant's stepping stones
London was my final stop, and I'm pretty proud of myself for not having taken the bus OR tube once. Yes, this means I walked everywhere... it was alot of walking. I met a bunch of French Canadians in my hostel, which was fun. The city itself was alright - most things were super expensive, but this was offset by the number of free public museums and exhibits they have there. The British Museum was my favourite, and I also checked out the Tate Museum of modern art. I was a little sad to have missed the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (they apparently didn't need to "change" the morning I was there) but I was able to see Westminster Abbey which was beautiful.
On my way to Hogwarts...
The London Eye
So that's that. I miss travelling already, but I'm so glad to be home. I've been talking a mile a minute since I got back... it's like I missed talking in English so much while I was away, that I'm making up for it now. Looking back, I'm pretty pleased with how everything went - didn't get lost too many times, all transportation went without a hitch, met alot of cool people, didn't pick up too many ridiculous souvenirs along the way (pretty sure my souvenir collection consisted only of a bag of paprika from Budapest, some olive oil from Nice, and a few postcards. I ended up taking 1202 photos - which isn't alot for 6 weeks, compared to many others I met, but it was definitely enough for me. I'll be uploading them all shortly and will post one last batch on here at some point. But for now, thanks to everyone who put up with my terrible (and sometimes longwinded) writing and sent in words of advice and encouragement - it was great having this little bit of contact with you all while I was over there! If I haven't already, I'll talk to each of you very soon.
Au revoir!
