UK 2011 day 3

Day 3

• Drive to Londonderry City @ 7:30pm

driving time – 1 hr.

est. arrival – 8:30am

addresses to park – Victoria Market/ Foyle Embankment; Foyle Rd; Spencer Rd; Car Park Railway Yard.

• Walk along the City Walls. Check out the Hands across the divide statue at the end of the Craigavon Bridge (if parked at either Spencer or Railway)
• Drive to Giant's Causeway @ 10pm

driving time – 1hr. min

est. arrival – 11 pm

address to park – 44A Causeway Rd, Bushmills, County Antrim BT57 8SU, UK‎

cost – £ 6.00 – parking???

• Drive to Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge @ 1pm

driving time – 15 min

est. arrival – 1:30 pm

address to park – 119a Whitepark Road, Ballintoy, County Antrim BT54 6LS

cost – £ 5.60. Free parking

• Drive to Fortview, Cookstown @ 2:30pm

address to park - 36 Tullyboy Road, Magherafelt

driving time – 1 hr.

est. arrival – 3:30pm

• City Hall, local cemetery, etc.
• Dinner @ Cookstown.

• 
  
  [In the morning, we had a nice homemade breakfast with fried tomatoes and fried mushrooms.
  The day before we talked to the Turkish delight seller about our plans and he suggested that we took the ocean side to Giant's Causeway then to Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.
  The problem was first of all we didn't leave at 7:30 ... we started breakfast at 8 ... then we got lost and that scenic route did take a long time. Besides, Dean wanted to make it in time to go investigate some clues on his ancestry. So we had to skip the Londonderry walls. 
  The scenic route however was beautiful, definetely worth it. I took pictures of sheep everywhere. "Sheep!" Click-click-click-click-click-click! "Darn! Dean, you're going too fast!"
  While we drove there we also found this little community engraved in the stone right by the ocean. Dean went crazy saying we had to go there. Ok. We looked at the map and figured out which turns to take to make to that quaint little place. That definetely added to our time.
  At The Giant's Causeway, we also had lunch. Meals! Meals made us later than everything else. Allotted meal time was no more than half an hour - my plan was to grab and go. Go, go, go. Sitting down, ordering, chatting ... I had not planned for that.
  At the Causeway we got to hear some pretty interesting interactions between mom and child with a very heavy Irish accent. 
  It was 4 oclock when we were done with the rope bridge... We were hoping to be done by 1... so that we could be back to our BB by 6.
  When you are in the search for ancestors, those 3 hours make a difference. But, hey, let's stop at the stone village, and hey let's eat real lunch, and hey, let's take a scenic route, and hey, how come we always leave the hotel late?
  So, yeah, here we are 3 hours behind schedule. We drove back to be able to find Dean's people. ... 
  We found this lovely couple that lives on the street Dean's ancestors probably had a farm on.
  Esme was the lady's name. She's a preacher. They were very scared when we first knocked on their door at almost 8 pm, but when we announced our business they opened the door wide and invited us in and if by 10 pm we hadn't pushed our way out the door they would have had us for breakfast.
  They say they do know someone who might be related to our family but when they got that someone on the phone, he was pretty much drunk - like a good Irish.
  Out the door we went in search of a bar I had seen on the way there, a bar called McCartney - YES, LIKE MY FAVORITE MUSICIAN EVER! - but we could not find our way back there. Darn. SO we made our way back to downtown and ended our night at McDonald's - the only place open that had food. Since they had free wifi, I called home. Dean called home as well - for free.]
  
  
  IRISH ACCENT - I was so lost all the time I was in Ireland. I thought the English accent was hard to follow, but next to the Irish, the English is a piece of cake. The Irish people speak something other than English, I have to say. 
  
  
  BRITISH ACCENT AND SPECIAL LITTLE WORDS - as a matter of fact, the hardest thing to do was to get myself to make sense and say holiday for vacation, and petrol for gas... oh! and toilet for bathroom.... I kept saying restroom instead. gas... vacation ... me and my big American mouth ... gas ... ay, ay, ay...