Long weekend and another short week

Hey there,

so first I want to apologize for not updating at all last week but I was quite busy and also didn't watch all through my pictures, so I didn't know which pictures I wanted to upload. But here it is. So this post will be about the weekend of the 12th of May and the following week until Friday. For the last weekend there will be an extra post tomorrow.

So here is the route my boyfriend and me took. All in all I drove about 1000 to 1100 km:

made with https://www.falk.de/routenplaner

So first thing on Friday morning was taking the bus down to Shannon Airport. Since I'm not 25 the only wayto rent a car was to get it at an airport and since we didn't want to pay the one-way-rental-fee I had to get the car down at Shannon airport. I rented the car through the easirent.com website. On arrival at the airport I called the branch in Shannon and was picked up by Jordan who works for Easirent. We booked an Fiat 500 online but got an upgrade free of charge to a Ford Fiesta.

our Ford Fiesta

So after getting the car I made my journey up to Dublin airport where I met Michael after parking the car in one of the parks there. We then took the bus into the city and I put my suitcase into a luggage storage. Since it was raining a little bit we decided to go to the Long Room of the Trinity College Library first. Also as part of going there we went through the Books of Kells exhibition which was quite fascinating considering that it was written at some point of the 9th century. Up in the Long Room one can see a model of the Irish Harp as well:

Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin

Irish Harp 

After finishing there we thought about going to the Teeling Distillery. Unfortunately there weren't any open spaces for the remaining tours that day so we decided to walk to Jameson Distillery in Bow Street and see if we got into a tour there. On arrival we learned that we would be able to join a tour but it would have taken a bit longer than we wanted keeping in mind that we wanted to check into our AirBnB on time. So we decided to come back there on Saturday morning and instead went around town with me steering us to the National Leprechaun Museum. It is a tiny museum and it is all about the mystic creatures in Irish folklore. We went in there and learned about giants, fairies and leprechauns and their origins.

Michael and me in the giants room

inside the show

So after this we went to get my suitcase and after that to our AirBnB which was located with in the Temple Bar district. After checking in we went out to Nandos to get dinner and than made plans for the next day before having a bit a of an earlier night because we were both up since early in the morning.

On Saturday we first went to Jameson Distillery  and got into the 11:15 tour. It was very interesting but I liked the tour back in 2014 better because now it is an all media sourced and one doesn't see anything of the actual distillery anymore. But it was still interesting. Afterwards we went to the food court of a shopping centre for lunch before taking a bus out to the airport at about half one (13:30) and starting our journey to Belfast. In Belfast Michael wanted to see the Murals which are graffiti. So we took a taxi tour through it and the driver told us all about the history of the risings and the IRA. Also he told us how there was a period of peace before the troubles started up again. Also he told us about the hunger strikes and how John F. Kennedy was the first person ever to write something on the peace wall. Now thousands and thousands of people have followed him and we did as well:

one of the murals

my writing on the wall

We finished the tour at around 18:45 and than after getting some petrol and sandwiches at a petrol station we began our journey to Ballymoney. After taking a wrong exit we had to drive through some back roads before we arrived and had a late dinner while talking to our host, Alan, about Northern Ireland and our plans for the next day. 

On Sunday we wanted to visit the Dark Hedges and the Giants Causeway. So our first stop were the Dark Hedges. This is a tree-lined road were a scene of the Game of Thrones was shot. So here is a picture of it:

the Dark Hedges

After that we made our way along the coastal road down to the Giants Causeway. On the way there we met a lot of cyclists who almost had me going mad because of how many there were and the missing opportunities to overtake them. At the causeway we had a small lunch and then went down to these basalt stones that are building the Giants Causeway ever since 50 to 60 million years ago. But according to an Irish legend the causeway was built by a giant of the name Finn MacCool, who was challenged to a fight by Scottish giant Brenandonner,  in order to meet the Scottish giant. To go down the hill and see this fantastic sight was truly breathtaking and also made me feel quite small thinking about it all.

middle causeway

grand causeway

small and middle causeway

After that we drove down the coastal road a bit more to go down to Galway again. I wanted to make a stop in Londonderry at first but it was quite late so we didn't do that and only stopped in Ballyshannon to get some food before going straight back onto the road again. We arrived quite late in Galway and since I drove the whole time I was a bit knackered so I opted to go straight to bed after some light dinner and a quick talk about Monday. Also on this day we reached the peak number of roundabouts per day of the trip counting 23 at the end of the day. My level of confidence with them changed from 'Oh my god! I don't get these Irish roundabouts!' to 'Come on! He's taking the exit, you can go in!' within these 23. So it's save to say I'm now a roundabout pro.

On Monday I had the day off since we wanted to go down to the Cliffs of Moher before returning the car to Shannon Airport. So we got into the car and started our trip. The road was very curvy and also held some serpentines. Also I questioned once more why the Irish have signs up that allow you to go 100 km/h when you can barley drive 60 km/h without risking an accident. On arrival we paid our entry and parking fee and first went to O'Briens tower on the left side coming from the visitor centre. Also we listened to the free audio guide which is available after downloading an app to ones phone. Thereby I learned that the cave they shot Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in is located right in the cliffs. Also I had a good view of the Aran Islands:

view of the cliffs taken on the way to O'Briens tower

beach next to O'Briens tower

Aran Islands

After that we went to the other side and enjoyed some more good views

O'Briens tower

Cliffs of Moher

We spend quite some time just sitting there and enjoying the sun before we went back to our car and started the drive back to Shannon to bring back our car. Again Michael made me take some back roads because according to him Google said so. Well, on one of these back roads the passenger side of our car suffered a little bit from some of the bushes there. Fortunately for us I took the full cover insurance so we didn't have to worry about it. Back in Shannon we met Frank another employee of Easirent who looked he car over and then took us to the Airport where our bus would leave. He is very nice and also told us that Shannon Airport was used as a emergency landing field for the American Space Shuttles. Which is quite impressive taking into account that Shannon isn't a big airport at all even though it is an international airport. We then took the bus from the airport back to Galway and had a nice dinner. 

On Tuesday I was back at work while Michael roomed the city and took in the sights of Galway even though the weather had changed and it drizzled down. I did my normal stuff of serving customers and helping John out in every way possible.  Also John let me off of work earlier than usual since he knew that Michael was still there. We then proceeded to cook dinner and before he went on to pack his bags.

On Wednesday Michael and I said our goodbyes and I worked the whole day doing what I do best by now: serving customers and giving them first ideas of what we will do with their phones. Also I learned how to change batteries and John showed me how they do the till every day.

On Thursday I tested some phones, served customers, finished some phones off so that they can go into sale and went about my business while helping in every way possible. But the biggest achievement of the day was when I found a way to get the information off of a Samsung that wasn't recognized by the computer. After that now I'm also in charge for that kind of stuff and I stayed a bit longer to help another customer with his phone. This customer bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 from us and wanted to transfer his data from his old S6 onto the new one. Only problem was that Smart Switch didn't work because it was to much data. Also the phone wasn't recognized by the computer iBroke has and with the iMac we had the same problem with Smart Switch as before. So I tried it on my PC and it worked. So we new that if we could get the pictures off the phone in any other way, the smart switch would work. So we wanted to just cut and paste the pictures from the phone onto an SD card. But all the folders appeared to be empty on the computer. So we had no other choice but to delete some apps and download another that I had discovered earlier that allows you to get access to your phone from your computer without a physical connection. So thats how I did it then. And let me tell you downloading 11GB of pictures takes a while. After that I went home and just enjoyed my evening.

On that note I want to end this post. the next post will be up tomorrow (probably also late in the evening)  and it will be about my weekend trip with three of my colleagues who are currently located in Dublin.

So I will see you then and stay tuned. Cheers!

Juliane

P.S.: I actually got used to driving on the other side of the road fairly quickly and now I'm not sure how easy it will be to go back. But in the end of the day the driver sits on middle-of-the-street-side. So really there isn't too much difference.