10. week
On Monday we got up early to get to the Belfast city center as our daytrip to Giant’s Causeway would be starting there. The bus was running late and with a fellow Finnish citizen we wondered if we are completely forgotten. Then finally, after 15-odd minutes wait, the bus came and we were happily seated and our journey began. The daytrip was booked from Paddytours and the bus driver was really weird in a kind-of-a-good way. He called us, the passengers the sexy people who deserve to have sexy lights (dimmed lightening). He told us about Irish history and folklore during the drive and told funny stories about his former trips and customers. He even sang some songs, to which some of the tourists joined in. After a couple of hours we stopped to see The Dark Hedges – a filming location for the TV-series Game of Thrones – just a short stop for admiring the soggy ground and trees that looked vaguely familiar. Some anecdotes later we then stopped at Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. To cross the bridge you would have had to pay an entrance fee, so we skipped it. Instead, we walked around the coast, gazing to the horizon, and managed to catch a glimpse of Scotland. Satisfied, we retreated inside, fleeing the terrible weather at cups of coffee and tea. From the rope bridge we continued our journey towards our main destination – the Giant’s Causeway. It was still raining and the temperature was rather chilly, but it had improved even ever so slightly. From the Giant’s Causeway visitor center we got audio guides, which we could use to hear more information on each interesting spot on the path. Not long after listening a few notes on the audio guide we decided to abandon them and concentrate fully on the scenery instead.
We were told that the basalt columns – the Giant’s Causeway – were formed by Finn the Giant, who made a bridge to Scotland to teach threatening giant Benandonner a lesson. Seeing that he made a mistake: Benandonner is way bigger than him, Finn flees back home. He is only saved by his quick-thinking wife, who dresses Finn as a baby. When Benandonner sees the size of what he thinks is Finn’s baby, he decides to let the bygones be bygones and destroys the bridge on his way back to Scotland.
Then, of course, there are those heretics, who claim that the stone formations were made when lava erupted out of volcanoes underwater, but who’s going to believe them?
We walked around and on the stones, taking some breathtaking pictures and trying to avoid slipping on the wet stones. There were some guards to look over the tourists for their own safety because if you would fall to the wildly roaring ocean, you wouldn’t last long. Some ten minutes’ walk farther from the most famous point in Giant’s Causeway there were some great stone, which looked like an entrance to a cave from a distance but turned out to be just naturally formed stone pillars looking like very high pipes of an organ. There was no entrance whatsoever, just slightly darker stone at the back of the pillars. Our given time was running to an end and back at the visitor center we practically went straight into the bus and back to Belfast. After a day of walking and standing outside in the weather that is so typical to Ireland we just bought some food and went straight to our apartment.
On Tuesday we went out in search of charity shops. We found some of them, but didn’t buy a lot of things in the end. Noora found a full-length dress that she would use in a larp in the future. We checked out from the apartment and slowly found our way to the bus station, from where we would leave to Sligo later in the afternoon. We were there well in advance, as careful as ever after missing the flight from Rome, but we didn’t see the bus coming to the assigned gate. Turned out the gate had been changed and we hurriedly ran to the new gate, but the bus was nowhere to be seen. The departure time came and went, but nothing happened. We went to ask for advice in the information desk and the lady told us it had left several minutes ago. Hearing the rise of our panic in our voice when we told her there was no bus in the first place she told us she would check the situation. Turned out that the bus was broken and they would send a replacing vehicle as soon as possible. We were still not comforted, as we would have to catch our connective bus at Enniskillen, but as there was nothing to do, we just waited for the replacement to arrive. In the end everything went smoothly and in Enniskillen we even had time to wait for our connective bus. Finally back in Sligo we bought some groceries and made a great steak-dinner with red wine sauce and herb potatoes. Tired yet again of the travelling we went straight to bed after dinner.
On Wednesday we decided to plan ahead – to make up our minds of the few next days’ food so that we wouldn’t have to go buy groceries every day. We wanted to try something new and ended up making cauliflower gratin. Neither of us had made it before, but we were assured that the effort would be worth it. It was really delicious and as we had made lots of it, it would suffice as Friday’s food as well. On Thursday we wanted to make Easter lamb, so we put the meat in a beer marinade beforehand. It would take several hours to cook the lamb properly so we wanted to make an effort in preparing it, too. While the lamb was cooking we did some school work that was due right after the Easter holiday. As we didn’t want to spend our entire day working, we watched some series online.
On Friday we saw it fit to pay a nearby park a visit – our friends back in school had recommended the place for us, after all. It had been raining the past few days, so we were a bit skeptical whether the soil would be all soggy or if we would be good to go. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a try and walked there. It was farther than we thought, but we sticked to our plan and kept going. The path ahead didn’t look very promising, when we had turned right – it was thoroughly muddy and there were big puddles of water and we would have needed wellies to get across them. After some 15 minutes struggle we decided to give up, turn back and walk home. Luckily we had some gratin left and we didn’t have to cook anything after our lovely walk outside. Afterwards we figured that we shouldn’t have turned right where we did, but at that point it made no difference.
On Saturday we went to Sligo city center to visit – you guessed it – charity shops! After our courageous shopping spree we made some tortillas with the leftovers of our Easter lamb for a quick lunch and settled for lasagna for dinner. We figured we had earned some pampering and delicious food. Turned out we still hadn’t gotten enough of the charity shops, since when Noora found a new one on her walk on Sunday morning and called Siru no notion her, she came as if it was an emergency. Later on we went to Doorly Park Outdoor Gym – after all those delicious but treacherous foods we thought penance would be in place. We spent hours out there, but as Siru had to leave to skype with her mom, Noora stayed behind to walk the forest walk. The path was flooded from time to time and she tried to avoid the puddles, but the puddles became bigger and bigger, until there was no path left – the river had swallowed the rest of the path and Noora was forced to turn back. In the evening we finally decided to go to Donaghy’s, where there would be a traditional music nigh. The music wasn’t played very loudly so we didn’t hear too much of it, so after a pint we agreed to continue to somewhere else. We went to Swagman, which was as well crammed. We went to the courtyard, where we managed to find a table in spite it was pretty full, too.
