Leprachauns and Kilts.

Dublin City

 January 1, 2011 marked the beginning of a new chapter of my Europe trip. A third of my trip already through  and three countries visited (one of those only for a weekend) From October 31 to December 31 my time was full of visiting family and friends with only six days out of those two months on my own in Berlin. For the most part I took it easy.  But as of two weeks ago I began to branch out just a wee little more. I spent 12 days completely alone in Ireland and Scotland. Well, I guess not completely alone. I had my fellow pedestrians, some cool hostel roomates and quirky tour guides who kept me company but no friends to visit, no family to stay with, just me! One week I was in Ireland which was "grand". Three days in Dublin and another three in Galway on the west coast. I absolutely loved Dublin. It was just how I imagined an Irish city to be. The old looking buildings in the Temple Bar area where they have lots of pubs with live music and the city was just neat in itself with a river running right through it. Lots of character. One day I went on a tour. A nice small tour with just six of us and a guide. We toured up into Northern Ireland where we visited the Giant's Causeway (a whole bunch of rocks along the coast that are similar shape and almost puzzled in together formed by something volcanic-didn't quite get with the science of it all!), Belfast and the oldest whiskey dystillery in the world, just to name a few stops. I loved this tour, and our tour guide was great, very laid back and had a nice accent of course :) The next day I made good friends with two of my roomates, a german and australian, and we went to an Irish pub and listened to live irish music. Ah, I loved it! I wish you all could have been there! I then headed to Galway and spent the rest of my week there. Galway was really lovely but I didn't fall in love with it as much as I thought I would but it was very hard to sleep at my hostel so that may have dampered my time a little. What I did fall in love with, though were the Cliffs of Moher. These were really the reason for taking me out to Galway anyway so I was quite happy with that! I went on a day tour with a very quirky tour guide. He was nice and all but he sure liked to talk. I'm surprised I still had my ears by the end of the trip. He would tell us jokes and stories and at times he sounded East Indian which was really strange because he was clearly Irish. I thought my ears were playing tricks on me like they were just so tired of hearing him talk that they decided to trick me and make him sound like he was from India but the girl I was sitting beside heard it too so clearly my ears were doing just fine. It was a big tour on a big coach bus, lots of stops and herding people on and off, not my style, but like I said, the cliffs at the end of the trip made every bit worth it.
The next day I headed to Edinburgh, Scotland for five days. People have kept telling me what an amazing city is and they were all right. In some cities there are old buildings but then there are newer ones too but in Edinburgh I just felt like they were all old and this gave it so much character. One day I just walked around, got a feel for it and checked out some sights. If you go to Edinburgh you can't miss visiting Edinburgh Castle. It's a tiny bit pricy but at the beginning of my trip I had figured I would see a lot of castles so I would save just one or two to actually go into and this one was worth it. It is a ruin and I find those most interesting. They have all the royal history written up there as well and the next day I went on a lakes and castles tour where the guide shared alot of the same things so it was really cool to put those together and actually see different sites where certain things actually happened. That's how I like my history. No textbooks. One day I also hiked up the Salisbury Crags which are some cliffy volcanic formations. There was some snow and ice, not ideal and not 100% safe but there were lots of people doing it so I figured it couldn't be so bad and my body was craving a hike so badly! It took about 2.5 hours to walk around and up it and it was so wonderful! At the top it over looks the city and wow!
There are some other things I did as well but as I'm writing this all I want to do is show you pictures because everything was just so beautiful and words can't describe it! So I will stop typing and leave out some things and let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Enjoy!

Temple Bar area, Dublin

A Dublin busker

Fisherman's dock on the way to Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland coast

A 400 ear old bridge in Northern Ireland. A "cheap thrill" our tour guide called it. I survived.

Giant's Causeway

Galway City

At the pier in Galway city

Cliffs of Moher, Galway

Cliffs of Moher, Galway

Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh's silhouette

Hiking up the Salisbury Crags

Dublin

At the top of the Salisbury Crags looking over Edinburgh. Edinburgh castle right in the center!

The 'One o'clock gun' at Edinburgh Castle that goes off at one o'clock every day except sunday since forever.

Edinburgh Castle

Stirling Castle just outside of Edinburgh

Kilchurn Castle in the Scottish highlands