Ahhhh, time to relax with a nice cup of tea, right?

If that’s not the smuggest mug you’ve ever seen…

Anyway, I left off with us staying with one of our favorite hostesses of the entire trip on the night of 11 July. We were in a small town called Westport in the west of Ireland and we got very, very lost trying to get to that BnB that night. I’m talking, like, driving through town seven times and repeating “turn left just PAST the clock tower, or right before it?” and being way too rude to my mother. Honestly, I was horrible, but in my defense, I was driving in literal circles for almost an hour.

It got to the point that we pulled over and called the hostess, who sent her daughter out to escort us to the BnB. So that means we had two escorts to our lodgings on this trip. The upside is that we gained an intimate knowledge of Westport and its bustling downtown, and we really wished we’d budgeted for more time to spend there. Not only did we really enjoy our hostess, but we wished we’d been able to walk around the town and eat at one of the local pubs. Personally, I also wish I’d been able to snap some photos, because they would’ve rivaled some of my Bruges pictures as far as how picturesque everything was!

Alas, we only had one night for Westport, and the next morning we headed out on a drive that my mother and sister had to reeeeeally trust me on.

Early on in this process, in my research of the Cliffs of Moher, I’d seen a few blog posts with commenters saying “Yeah, but the Slieve League is so much cooler!” I’d taken a note to research it, but when I saw how far away it was from our projected path on a map, I’d decided not to pursue more research of it.

That’s a pretty big detour on an already lengthy drive, and that doesn’t count the time for hiking and sightseeing (and potential getting-lost time, knowing us).

Then in early May, when I was deep into panic mode in my attempt to wrap up the planning for this trip, Katrina Law popped up on my Twitter feed, having tweeted about the Slieve League!

 

I went a liiiiittle crazy at that view (not the one of the actress, although she’s very pretty) and decided that maybe I could try to make the Slieve League a priority after all. We hadn’t booked our Westport BnB yet (in fact it was the last one we booked, about a week before we left) so I managed to convince them to include it on our tentative itinerary after I did a bit more research.

(I did not, however, tell them about Ms. Law’s trek through the mud… I didn’t think that would get them on my side! And if you aren’t familiar with Katrina Law, she’s an actress known for Spartacus and Arrow and more recently, some very endearing Hallmark Christmas movies. I particularly like following her on Twitter because she seems to travel the same way I do: enthusiastically.)

What we didn’t know was that our satnav would lose signal a few miles outside of our destination. We had to act like roadtrippers in the 90’s and rely on these things called “road signs” to get us to our destination. Even then, it was harrowing, because no satnav and no cell phone signal is not a pleasant feeling when you’re driving along on empty roads.

We stopped here to give the car a break; some of the inclines were as much as 13%, and the downhill ones were making the engine unhappy. The hairpin turns and narrow roadways weren’t helping our nerves, either, but I’m really glad I did this drive at the end of our trip after I’d had more experience.

We got there in one piece, never encountering mud or any other roadblocks, and we parked in the designated parking area like a bunch of chumps. Turns out the touristy thing to do is just drive on up there and wedge your campers and rental cars in wherever there’s space! We were the dummies for doing the steep uphill climb like we weren’t even entitled Americans.

Worth it.

Somewhere around this point, Mum and Kathleen stopped climbing. They hadn’t totally been onboard with this detour, and that hill was killer to climb. (For future reference: be rude and drive to the top. Half of the tourists did it anyway.) I was determined to see the dramatic cliffs, especially since it had been raining at the Cliffs of Moher the day before, so I persevered.

Totally and completely worth it.

This day sticks out to me as my proudest accomplishment. I hadn’t been much of a hiker before, it wasn’t my favorite way to spend my time, but early on in the trip, I’d realized that the most breathtaking views require a hike. On every other portion of this trip, I’d had one or two other people to keep me walking, keep me climbing, keep me going to the top. This was the one thing I hiked on my own, and the views were an indescribable reward. (Well, the views and my increasingly defined calves.)

That’s my happy place now. For a stress reliever, I close my eyes and remember what it was like to stand right there and look over those dramatic cliffs into the blue ocean.

It was a long walk back to the car, but at least it was mostly downhill this time.

We hadn’t packed lunches, so we stopped at the visitors center in the hopes that they were still serving food. We were in luck — they were closing in half an hour. Unfortunately, they had sold out of all of their lunches, so we had dessert for lunch!

Yum!

After we were done with our well-balanced meal, we blindly followed road signs in the general northeastern direction until our satnav picked up signal again. We didn’t do too badly, but it was still evening when we finally arrived in Bushmills, Northern Ireland, to stay at the only true BnB we would stay in for the entire trip.

Things were tense that night, I’m not going to lie. You see, we had unwittingly booked our one night in Northern Ireland for 12 July. Or, The Twelfth. We didn’t know it (research fail on my part) but that’s a day that is sometimes marked by violence between Protestants and Catholics, especially in Ulster. We’d been warned by our previous hostess about past violences, but she’d reassured us that we would be fine.

It bears mentioning that due to extenuating circumstances and poor planning, all I had to eat that day was a scone and that slice of chocolate cake.

The next day was rainy (I know, shock!) as we set out for the thing Mum was most excited for: the Giants Causeway.

(Well, first we debated doing a tour of the Bushmills Distillery, but since we were all more keen to see the Causeway and weren’t too thrilled with the tour prices, we decided at the last minute to skip it.)

The Giants Causeway is a well-oiled tourism machine. They have a gorgeous and cavernous welcome center, complete with a cafeteria.

They give you the option to pay a bit extra to take the bus from the visitors center down to the Causeway (and fresh off the Slieve League, we opted to pay).

They have an amazing audio/visual tour that you can use with headphones to walk around the Causeway at your own pace. (Pictured above: the Giant’s Boot.)

And back inside the visitors center, they have a film showing how these rock formations were formed over time, along with the story of Finn Maccool (who, according to myth, built the Giant’s Causeway as a path to Scotland).

You’re allowed to venture onto the rocks as far as you’re willing to go, but there are warnings all over their material and from their guides that the rocks are slippery. The black rocks, which never dry out, are the most slippery.

We walked all over these crazy, amazing rocks. It was raining and windy but it was incredible.

Note the water droplets in my hair.

I walked right to the edge where the black rocks started. I managed not to slip or fall one time.

This is only a handful of the photos I took on the Causeway; it’s one of my top recommendations if you ever go to Ireland (along with the Slieve League) because even with the rain, it was breathtaking.

After we’d had our fill of the rocks, we loaded back onto the bus and then walked around the visitors center, learning about the rock types and wandering through the gift shop. We ate lunch at the cafe and then hit the road once more.

Eep!

It wasn’t long before the miles turned back into kilometers, and we were back in Ireland. Our next stop was the Battle of the Boyne Visitors Center, and I got exactly one picture of this gorgeous place:

Yep. Pretty proud of that.

I thoroughly — thoroughly — embarrassed myself at this visitors center. I had my little purse full of euros, pounds, and yes, even some dollars and American coins. I was paying my admission and confidently handed over £20. In Ireland. Who deal in euros. Oh my God it was so embarrassing. It was made even worse when the guy was super nice about it, even trying to reassure me that “It happens all the time,” when clearly it didn’t. Oh man. But in my defense, I had just paid for my lunch in pounds only, like, two hours previously.

It was a relaxing and leisurely visit, it wasn’t crowded at all and there was a group of Americans sitting at a table outside the cafe, and I listened to them converse about their Ireland adventures while the other two walked the grounds. I still can’t account for my complete lack of pictures, but the museum is highly detailed in the battle strategies, timeline, history, and weaponry from the Battle of the Boyne.

(Update: Ma remembered that we weren’t allowed to take photos inside this visitors center, and we weren’t sure if that included outside, so we abstained. Except for my single photo of the petard. Because I am me.)

After that, we headed for that most wonderful city of Dublin. I remember Dublin City in the rare ould times! 

We’d booked an Ibis Hotel (at the Red Cow Roundabout, that was really fun to tell people) but opted to keep the car for one more day in order to do a southern circuit of Waterford, Wexford, and Kilkenny. After a good night’s sleep in ol’ Dublin town, we got an early start on what we’d planned to be a very full day.

I refer to that day as my “lost day,” for a variety of reasons.

It started out fine, with Kathleen requesting a last-minute side trip to Kildare, to the Parish of St. Brigid, who is Kathleen’s patron saint. (You might remember that she also visited the well outside of the Cliffs of Moher.) She feels a very deep spiritual connection to her patron saint and it was important to her that she be able to visit her parish, and it was lucky for us that she even found out about it in time for us to take a detour.

That side trip set us back about two hours. Our next stop was Kilkenny, where things deteriorated even further.

We all three got our wires crossed when I made a quick trip to the bathroom upon entering Kilkenny Castle. We hadn’t talked about whether I would pay to tour it with them (they had their heritage passes, I would be paying full admission) so I expected them to wait for me in the courtyard. When I returned, they were nowhere to be found. I checked the visitors center, the front entrance, and then returned to the courtyard to wait a few more minutes in case they’d somehow run to a different bathroom. After 20 minutes of waiting, I gave up and I was pretty bummed — I’d actually wanted to tour this castle.

I wandered around the grounds for a bit, never too far in case they reappeared, but eventually I went and sat in the tearoom, which was at the end of the castle tour.

I sat in there for an hour and a half, just enough time to make me wonder if I’d missed them somewhere else along the way. All told, they took about two hours to tour the castle, and they finally appeared in the tearoom just as I was wondering if I should go wait for them by the car.

I’d worked myself into a pretty bad mood — I felt abandoned and unwanted, and most of all, I felt like I’d missed out on a great sightseeing opportunity. I have this horrible habit of stewing on things, but I tried to work past it as we walked back to the car and discussed our next stop. We were now a good four hours behind schedule.

I’d been looking forward to the House of Waterford factory tour where they make the world-famous crystal, and it was supposed to be our next stop. As we headed out of Kilkenny, Kathleen looked up the address to put it into the satnav, then realized that the factory closes at 3:15pm. We wouldn’t be getting into Waterford until about 4pm. I was crushed, and having already been in a bad mood, I was not exactly pleasant to be around at that moment.

We’d had two other stops on our list besides Waterford: Wexford and the Powerscourt Waterfall in the Wicklow mountains. But since it was already getting late, and we still had to turn in the rental car, we decided to cut our losses and return to Dublin so that we could turn in the car and still have time to get dinner at the hotel.

I didn’t realize it until we were on the bus back to the hotel that I hadn’t gotten to do or see much that day, having mostly sat in the car or the tearoom. I wish I’d been able to see Waterford, at least, but maybe I’ll be able to go back to Ireland one day and make it a priority. At least I got to see Kilkenny!

Our laundry situation was dire by then. We hadn’t had access to a washer since Antwerp, and we were all nearly out of clean clothes, so it was time for some good old fashioned bathroom sink laundry!

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This had a humbling effect on me. I took this picture just to send to Justin with a funny comment, and then I scrolled backwards to images of myself on the Causeway or at the Slieve League. It was pretty surreal to think that it looked so glamorous on my Instagram, but behind the scenes, it was pretty gritty. (Quick-dry socks are the best invention since sliced bread, I kid you not.)

Speaking of socks, I’d also found these in a gift shop in Kilkenny:

Yeah, they had holes in them as soon as I took them out of the package, but I still love them. You can also see my Blarney Stone prints still in the paper bag next to my backpack at the top of the picture, heh.

So with my lost day behind me, I tried to put myself in a better mood for Dublin the next day. I love cities, and Dublin is particularly wonderful. We took the Luas into the city so that we could get to the Guinness Storehouse, which we were all excited to experience!

Guinness really knows how to do a brewery tour! You start out here, where the lease signed by Arthur Guinness is stored in the floor.

A tour guide explains that you simply follow the signs through the brewery, it’s pretty easy to follow, and then you’re on your merry way!

We’d already learned at Sam Adams and the Bruges Beer Museum that you need four ingredients to make beer. Guinness had a much more unique way of walking you through them.

Barley. They’re never gonna run out.

If you’re still unsure of how to make beer: barley. They couldn’t have spelled it out any clearer for us.

They had some hops growing behind a glass partition but we had already spotted the third ingredient and we’re going “ooooooh!” as we made a beeline.

Water!

Just in case you weren’t aware that we were constantly mesmerised by waterfalls…

After you’re walked through the ingredients, you continue upstairs to learn about the process.

And then you move to another floor where you’re taken through the different marketing campaigns that Guinness has used over the years. I found this section particularly fascinating!

There’s a room that runs all the viral marketing ads that have been on TV, and there’s a “bar” of tablets where you can scroll through the different print ads as well. History is at its most fascinating when it’s viewed through a pop culture lens, and Guinness managed to capture a lot of Irish and world history through their campaigns, and it was cool to see it all in one place.

The last stop is the tasting room, where things get Wonka-y.

I don’t totally remember what this is about. I can only recall making a lot of jokes about that one Parks and Rec episode where Tom takes all the guys to that bar that serves a martini in a cloud, whisky in the form of hand lotion, and vodka shots through a flash of light.

She was pretty into it, though.

You’re taken into a separate bar room where you learn to pour the perfect glass of Guinness from the tap, and then you’re subjected to a group photo and a certificate. We opted to move up to the top floor so that Mum and Kathleen could drink their beers with a view, but then I spilled a water all over the place (I think I did? or the waiter did? Now I don’t remember!) and eventually they decided that 10:30am was too early to drink a whole glass of beer. Lightweights.

We roamed around the gift shop for quite a while, and I resisted buying everything in sight. I got a t-shirt and a small teabag holder with one of my favorite campaigns (“Black goes with everything”) which I use every time I make tea.

Next, we wandered around Dublin for a bit before deciding to go into Dublinia, an interactive museum depicting the history of Dublin. This was amazing. The front desk warned us that it would be crowded with students, as they’d just had a tour start, and they weren’t wrong. Still, we spent a couple of hours in there and came away with a very rich understanding of Dublin’s history.

Youths!

The displays were way too dark to get good pictures, but I couldn’t resist this one:

We spent the rest of the day covering as much ground in Dublin as humanly possible.

We even got on a bus and rode it until the end of the line, accompanied by two Swiss women who had the same idea!

After a long day of sightseeing, souvenir shopping, and watching street performers, Mum and Kathleen wanted to stay downtown to go to a comedy club. I was beat and decided to head back to the hotel by myself, which went off without a hitch despite the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure I’d gotten on the right bus.

New Guinness shirt!

And more socks for my collection.

They had fun at the comedy club that night, and I had fun catching up with some stateside friends and talking to Justin a bit that night. Thanks, Ibis wifi!

Kathleen was pretty sad the next morning. Our Ireland leg was all too short to her, and I don’t blame her for being upset. In the end, we didn’t give Ireland enough time. Every day of our trip was jam packed with sightseeing, so it’s hard to look back and say “If we’d spent less time in X, we’d have had more time for Ireland.” But I know she’s going to make Ireland a priority to return to as soon as she gets some vacation time, and this time she won’t have her surly sister to drag around with her! ;)

We were on our way to the airport when our bus stopped on a bridge over the River Liffey, so I couldn’t resist a photo.

I’d also been doing a lot of Archer-style “Lanaaaaaa!” yelling every time we saw the bus lane signs, and I snapped this photo at the last minute to commemorate that. At the time, Kathleen hadn’t seen Archer, but now, thanks to our brother who has it on 24/7 at his apartment apparently, she gets the reference.

I really liked the Dublin airport, for what it’s worth. We waited there for about two hours, and on the scale of airports that we went through on this trip, it ranks pretty high as far as being easy to navigate and being comfortable.

It was a little stormy…

But I did something I never ever do at home: Ordered a Starbucks drink without having to spell my name for the barista. Victory!

Sure, sure, it’s my middle name, but those are semantics.

We were airborne on time for a very short flight destined for my favorite leg of the entire trip: LONDON, BABY!