June 28

Northern Ireland Journal June 28, 2009

Here I sit tonight thinking about the sites of the past 2 days. I was too tired to write last night and tonight I don't have any internet access, so I'm not sure when this will get posted. I'm hoping we'll get some access tomorrow so I can check emails and post.

This is no reflection on Northern Ireland, but I find that most of the cities, towns and villages here are not tourist oriented at all. Most are business oriented where the town center pretty much closes down at 5:30 when the workers go home and the few pubs are the only thing left open. There are times we have really tried to search for a place for dinner around 7pm. The exceptions here, of course, are cities like Derry, Omagh, and Belfast which have a great tourist base. And finding a “cafe” type of place for lunch while out on the road has even been difficult. Part of this is not knowning where to find the places, and part is because we are traveling some of the back roads for the scenery. It is definitely a difference from the Republic.

Of course, the people here are the nicest. The B&B owners from the last couple of nights walked us out as we left and waved good-bye as if we were family. Ann and Henry were the nicest couple and we shared plenty of laughs with them. When Ann realized she served me fried potato bread this morning with my breakfast unstead of fried sourdough bread, she reached her hand on my plate and grabbed the potato bread away before I could tell her it wasn't important and replaced it. Sarah, Georgann and I each shared a glance and a chuckle over that.

Ann loves music and told us how her experience of seeing Garth Brooks was the ultimate concert for her and how disappointed she is that Tom Jones is skipping Northern Ireland this tour! LOL

Yesterday we toured around Lough Neagh and stopped in Antrim. Being Sunday it was pretty quiet and we'll probably go back again this week. It seems that Finn McCool was angry at a Scottish giant and grabbed up a clod of dirt from Ireland and threw it at the other giant. The dirt missed the Scottish giant, and ended up in the ocean between Scotland and Ireland making it the Isle of Man. The hole that was left filled with water and became Lough Neagh. That story really sounds better than the lough being formed by some volcanic activity. Needless to say the lough was huge. It's about 9 miles wide. I was touched by the Ardboe High Cross and church ruins right on a small hill at the edge of the lough. And later at one of the scenic lookouts and how different the lough looked.

It was a long day and a long drive. We did find a nice restaurant and filled up with another great dinner. Before I forget I want to mention about dinners we have had. I can't tell you how surprised we have all been that the food arrives at the table hot. I don't mean warm, but so hot that we have to wait to eat it. Restaurants in the US could certainly take a lesson here. And we really have not had a bad meal anywhere we have eaten. Yes, we've had our fill of potatoes, but that comes with the territory. And we've all sampled both full Irish breakfasts and Ulster fries. I'm hoping my cholesterol medication keep my alive and makes sure my arteries don't clog up in the next week!

Going to split this post into two, so I'll close now.