Ireland Day 1-2

12 Days in Ireland
That was me about a month ago.
Pretty cool.  No, very cool
I have a lot of pictures to post and a lot tell about the trip.
So, here it goes.

It's a trip my Dad has talked about wanting to do for years.  About a year and half ago, my sister Nell bought Dad a book about Ireland and said "we're going."

Fast forward to September 2015 and you have it.  We planned it, we paid for it, we went.  Me, Nell, and Dad.  We wanted Kate and Abby to join us but it was not good timing for them

The rest is now history  - or a blog post or two.....or probably five or six.  I don't know.

In a nutshell....it was an experience of a lifetime!  I have so many great things to say about Ireland. But, here is what I have told everyone....

1) It's as beautiful as everyone says it is.  More beautiful really.  Pictures, really don't do it justice

and

2) The people are as warm as they say they are.  I mean - the people....they are truly SO great -  happy to have you in their country and genuinely interested in you.  It was refreshing.

We went on a guided tour which was the way to go if you have never been.  We saw more sites then I ever expected and got more history lessons then I can even repeat.  I learned so much.

I want to go back...one day.  With Erik and Elaina.

Okay - now on to the millions and millions of pictures.  I will try to keep them to a minimum

Day 1 - We arrived in Dublin....overnight flight = very tired but we had to power through the day.  We had a couple of hours to walk around Dublin.  My 2 obsessions about Dublin:

This ivy that grows all over a lot of the buildings over there - LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff.  I love the color and the way it looks on the buildings.  I wonder - do they have to trim it away from the windows to keep the windows uncovered?  I don't know.

Second love- these DOORS!!  Georgian style buildings with the AMAZING doors in every color of the rainbow.  I would have taken a picture of every single of of them but I would have never left Dublin  They are all over the place.

We visited Stephens Green.  There was a rugby tournament going on there.  More details on rugby later  

More Stephens Green

And we visited our first pub - this one:

one of the most popular pubs in Dublin.  

Our first group pic in Ireland

Later that afternoon, we were able to check into the hotel and shower so that helped wake us up some.  We headed to our introduction dinner with the tour group......

On this boat....it was raining - hard.  This day it probably rained the hardest it rained the whole time we were there.

Dinner in the cabin of the boat

After dinner, we literally fell into bed and I don't remember anything until our alarms went off.

Day 2 - traveled to Belfast

This was our first glimpse of Irish countryside.  These pics were taken from the bus (called a coach in Europe) so they are not as good as they could be

Green....so green!

This was in the city of Belfast.  This is city hall.  We ate lunch in here.  Nell deemed Belfast as her favorite city.  And, it turns out it's a sister city of Nashville, where she lives.  So, there you go.

Titanic Memorial

Inside City Hall

More of City Hall

European Dollar Store - couldn't help but take a pic of this.

Next we traveled to a part of Belfast that was by far the most memorable part of the trip.  The Peace Wall.  We had a tour by a group of cabbie drivers who took us to both sides of the wall.  The Catholic and the Protestant sides.

This is a mural on the protestant side of William III (William the orange)  A hero to the loyalist in his time

Our tour guides - aka - cabbie drivers

Murals of different stuff....things such as heroes of the "troubles" (as they call it) are over lots of the building.  This guy was revered as assassinating 13 people (I think it was 13).  It's crazy that someone could be deemed a hero for something like this.  But, as the cabbie said "one man's hero is another man's terrorist"

And...the Peace Wall...I was taken back by the size of this thing.  Signatures from top to bottom. SO MANY.  Here is just one small teeny tiny section.  Many famous people have signed it.  Including me - ha!

the Peace Wall 

Nell tried to push it over...unsucessfully :)

This is looking down the street to my right

Then to my left - HUGE

You almost miss us with the graffiti behind us but that is me and Nell

Nell signed it

Dad signed it

I signed it

Then we went to the other side of the wall (Catholic side) to see this memorial

The houses near the wall have cages to protect from stuff getting thrown over the wall....crazy!  Even though things are better, there are still incidences of people throwing stuff over the walls

This is a street of houses that were re-built in the 70s after they were once burned down by Protestant loyalist

The greatest part about this tour was the inspiring words from the cabbie drivers who spoke about how they are daily working towards peace and making great progress.  Things are so much better than they were and they are taking that peace agreement and marching on forward to 100% peace.   Never going back.  They are teaching their kids to love, not hate.  It was so great.  They said for every 1 story of bad, there are 100 other good things going on in Northern Ireland right now.  We were so touched at their stories and how inspiring it was.  I will always remember that.

When I got back, I was telling someone how I visited Northern Ireland and they acted surprised that we went to Northern Ireland.  He asked if it was safe and if I felt in harms way at any time.  Simply put...no, I didn't.  And, I didn't have reason to believe I would be nor did I know that I should be afraid.  That is just an example of the knowledge these cabbie drivers are trying to get out to the world - that peace has been and will forever be restored in their lives and homes in their beloved Northern Ireland.  It was good stuff, people.  The world could use a little bit of what these cabbie drivers and natives to Northern Ireland have........some good ole fashioned hope and determination.