UK 2011 day 2

Day 2

• Five-min. taxi ride to Airport @ 5am. Gate closes @ 6am
• Arrive @ Dublin Airport @ 7:20am
• Get car at Hertz. Pre-paid.
• Drive to St. Patrick's Cathedral

address to park – alongside Bride St, after crossing Bull Alley St and Golden Ln.

cost - ?? € 8 ??

• Attend Eucharist @ 8:30am.
• Walk the Dublin Castle (2 Palace Street Dublin 1).
• Walk to Trinity College (out through the front door of City Hall, right on Dame St. College Green, Dublin2). Visit the Book of Kells @ 9:30am

cost - €9

est. visit time – 1 hr.

• Drive to Belfast @ 11am.

driving time – 2 hrs.

est. arrival – 1pm

address to park: Lanyon Place – multi-storey car park

cost - ?? £11 ?? parking

• Walk to St. George's Market (East Bridge, Oxford or May Street) (on East Bridge Street, turn right)
• Lunch: samples @ St. George's Market
• Check out the Big Fish (1Donnegal Quay), the Albert Clock (Queen's Square), Bittles Bar (70 Upper Church Lane - off Victoria Square), the Linen Hall Library (17 Donegall Square N), the city hall (Donegall Square S), and the Liquor Crown Saloon (46 Great Victoria Street).
• Drive to Titanic's Dock and Pump House @ 2:30pm (last tour starts @ 3pm – might not be able to make it)

driving time – 20 min

est. arrival – 2:50pm

address to park:Queen's Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

cost - £6.00 (tour) or £3.50 (parking).

• Drive (through the Belfast Murals: Narnia-1 Pansy street; Nationalist-Falls Road; Loyalist-Shankill Rd and Newtownards Rd) to Fortview, Cookstown @ 4:30pm

address to park - 36 Tullyboy Road, +44 28 8676 264

driving time – 1 hr.

est. arrival – 6pm

• Dinner @ Cookstown.

[we had breakfast at Holiday inn and walked a mile and a half to the airport. We decided to walk the night before when we realized it was such a short walk. The problem is we arrived at the airport  with very little time left. I messed up the the schedule. But we made it to the flight.

Ryanair was the company that sold us to tickets to Ireland and back for a total of $119.25. That is about $60 a person, which is about 30 POUNDS. They are already cheap but come with super deals every once in a while, so you have to keep checking their website. However, the super cheap deals are extremely restrictive - only at certain times, to certain locations and don't you dare to bring real luggage. So you can imagine how desperate I became when I realized that Luiza wasn't going to be in England to meet us with us. I was counting on leaving most of our luggage in her house. ... Thankfully the Inn allowed us to leave our luggage there for those 3 days we would be away.

John Lennon Airport stinks like cow poop. When we found Ryanair we got a little desperate. The line was humongous. Actually, we are not sure if that was a line. It was more like a very disorganized crowd of people. We got in line and as time went by we realized we should have been there earlier. In a few minutes we heard them calling any one who was on our flight.They always do that. 

But that delay turned out in our favor. When we took the flight from America they gave me a hard time because my passport had my maiden name. the ladies at the counter had to talk to the manager, then the manager's manager... We were very concerned that they would not let me travel. They did. But then our next concern was out next flight - the one to Ireland. 

Well... since we were late they basically rushed us through and glanced at the passport. They were more concerned about the luggage size. hehehe.

In Ireland we got the car at hertz... it was such a better experience than  Alamo. I am very pleased with Hertz. I will sing their praises. The guy who helped us at the counter was a trainee and he was very detailed about everything. The car was tiny, which means they actually listened to our request - it was a Pegeot 107.

The idea of attending eucharist was to experience a worship service in a different country in their national church. St. Patrick's Cathedral of course. We were very disappointed at the lack of preaching. But impressed at the ammount of biblical readings.
Then we decided to walk through the church and that's when we got in trouble. I am a terrible at being the evil tour guide who keeps everyone on schedule.

When we saw the time we decided to drive to Belfast and leave the Book of Kells for Tuesday.
In Belfast, St. George's Market was really all it's cracked up to be. We bought turkish delight, ate some awesome food and sampled a bunch more and go to know a guzunder. .... if you don't know what a guzunder is ... it's that pot that goes-under the bed filled with bodily fluids.

We took pictures of all the other sight seeing places. But against my will we did not make to the Titanic. Again, and again we ran behind schedule. The places we ran behind schedule the most were the eating places.

We decided to go see the murals. We saw the Narnia one, and the political ones as well. As it started to rain heavily, we figured we would not stay there anymore. if we wanted to make it to Cookstown on schedule we had to go. So we left.

We made it to Cookstown around 8 pm and were hoping to have dinner at a tavern, but we didn't find any decent place to have dinner other than a hotel that served nothing very typical.

We took pictures of the sunset at 10 pm and went to bed.