The Luck of the Irish

One of the best parts about being abroad is being able to visit other friends wherever they chose to study. One of those types of trips was to visit one of my closest friends from high school, Brittany, in Ireland. Of course when you tell people you’re going somewhere they haven’t visited yet, they’re likely to join in the fun, so for this trip my friends Michelle, Marisa, and Chrissy joined me.

Since Italians don’t exactly celebrate Thanksgiving, we flew to Dublin that night. From Dublin, we took a bus ride up to Northern Ireland to the city of Belfast. The hostel we stayed in was a cozy remodeled house that we absolutely adored.

The next morning we woke up early and took a bus tour farther up the coast to visit a World Heritage Site, The Giant’s Causeway. It causeway is made up of hexagonal columns that form stepping-stones that extend of the cliff into the sea. The legend behind the columns is that the columns are the remnants of a causeway built by the Irish giant Finn to battle a Scottish giant. When Finn goes to fight the Scottish giant and realizes his size, he quickly retreats home. Finn’s wife then disguises him as a baby and the Scottish giant is fooled into thinking that Finn must be huge if his baby is already this large. The Scottish giant flees and destroys the causeway as he goes.

After our trip and a fantastic lunch of Irish stew, we returned back to Belfast to explore the city. As it was late November, the Belfast Christmas Market was in full swing, full of crafts, food, and holiday cheer. In order to warm up again before we adventured out again we stopped and ate more Irish stew before venturing to the pub, where we learned how to Irish jig with the locals.

The next morning we headed back to Dublin to explore the city. Our first stop was to the Guinness factory where we learned how Guinness was made and how to pour the perfect pint. That night we explored the shops and pubs of Dublin, ending our Irish adventure.