Is Ireland Even Real?

Despite just having spent nearly a week in Northern Ireland, I’m still not convinced it’s a real place, because it was so magical and beautiful that I genuinely felt as though I was in some sort of fantasy novel. After a long day of riding buses and catching cabs (dragging all my baggage along with me as I navigated public transit has cured my chronic over-packing problem once and for all) we arrived in Port Ballintrae, a charming little village on the north coast of Ireland. Our Airbnb was a very cosy and cute little house, and we only had to walk to the end of the street to see the ocean. It seems to me that I rave about Airbnb in all my blog posts. There’s got to be a way for me to get them to pay me for that, right? Or at least they can let me stay in an ultra-fancy house for free sometime.

Anyway, moving on. Our first sight to see was Dunluce Castle, a majestic ruin poised magnificently on a peninsular rock with the sea crashing about it in a very wild and magnificent manner. Basically, the dude who built it was like, “How can I assert my dominance and show my neighbours that I’m the manliest man in all the land?” and then he answered himself, “I’ll build a giant castle on this mighty rock and generally be ultra-dramatic.” I can’t remember his name, but I relate to him on a spiritual level -except for wanting to be the manliest man, obviously. However, he didn’t really think things through (again, sounds like me) and this thing called erosion happened, and part of the castle has now tumbled into the sea. Still, I suppose that’s rather dramatic, so he probably would have wanted it that way. And I’m pretty sure it happened long after the castle had ceased to be inhabited, so all’s well that ends well. Underneath the castle is a little tunnelly, cavey thing that leads to the sea. At the mouth of the cave was this sign:

We obeyed it at first, and moved on from the cave. Then we thought to ourselves, “YOLO”, glanced around to make sure no-one was watching, and went in the cave. My explorer gland, jacked-up with rebellion, was now in over-active mode, and I said to my companions, “I’m going to go down where the water’s coming in and get spritzed by the sea foam.” Sounds like a cool, mythical-mermaid sort of thing to do, right? Well, because this is me, I over-estimated how close I could get to the incoming wave, and this happened:

This was the second time during my adventures in the UK that I had a wet-boot-and-jean incident, and I wish I could say it was the last, but by the end of the Ireland trip, the count had jumped up to four. More on that later.

For lunch, we dined at the fancy hotel restaurant near our house, and as we walked back home, we saw a seal laying on a rock that was jutting out of the water. Determined to get a closer look at this miraculous example of an adorable ocean puppy, I dashed down the steps to the beach, leaving Josie and Jeremy with little choice whether to follow me or not. (They would have followed me anyway, who doesn’t want to see a seal?) We got down to the beach, and spent a good 10 minutes cooing over the little creature, whom we ended up naming Nemo, although in my secret heart I wanted his name to be Bartholomew. We took a great load of pictures, and I got a video of him waving at us on my snapchat story, which was great. Nothing says “Lit snapchat story” like a friendly gesture from a potato-mammal.

That evening we went down to the beach to take pictures of the sunset, which was one of the most magnificently purple sunsets I’ve ever seen, and we came back up just as two slightly drunk Irish men were coming out of the pub, and they asked us to take their picture. One of them then said, “We just got married” but they were wearing those turtlenecky sweaters with the front neck zipper, so it was pretty obvious that they were straight. They then began a good natured argument about which of them would be out of the other’s league if they were a couple, which led to them asking us to choose which of them was more handsome. Obviously the proper response in buzzed-irish-men-asking-if-they’re-cuter-than-their-bro situations is to make non-committal noises and spew phrases about equal good-looks, and we did so. For those to whom this will be important, they were both reasonably good-looking. After they had settled this very important matter, Josie took their picture, and one of them gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I actually thought he was going to go for lips, and frankly that would have made a better story, but alas, it is my duty to record the truth and only the truth. (Snorts with laughter). Naturally, I didn’t get any kind of kiss from either of the drunk Irish men, and I am lightly salty about it to this day.

The next day we went to see the Giant’s Causeway. We walked along the coast to get there, and there was much magnificent and majestic scenery to be marvelled at. The waves were some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. One of the most magical parts of the journey was when we were walking along the cliff face, and as the very foamy waves crashed against the cliff, the sea foam got caught in a wind current and shot up into the sky, which meant that it was RAINING BUBBLES MY FRIENDS. Do you see now why I am uncertain whether this trip was a dream or not?

My other favourite bit of scenery on our hike was a lovely, sloping valley that smoothed out into the sea. As we approached this area, the sun broke through the clouds and bathed everything in a golden light, and it was all very beautiful and idyllic. I wanted to have a little cottage down there and be a humble milkmaid for the rest of my life. I’d even be willing to put up with the archaic facilities of a seaside hut, such was the beauty of that place. Josie would be the mermaid that visited me. It’s a flawless plan.

The Giant’s Causeway itself was quite majestic. Basically it’s a bunch of hexagonal (and occasionally pentagonal) columns of rock stretching out into the sea, because apparently God wanted to add a bit of flair when he created this particular coast. I think he used volcanoes or something to make it happen, so don’t try to tell me that when I’m being dramatic I’m not behaving like someone created in the image of God. We mucked about on the rocks for a while, and tried to snap a few photos during the rare moments when the scenery wasn’t cluttered up with Asian tourists.

On our walk back to the house, the tide was out, so we strolled along the beach and drew things in the sand. I wrote “Is mayonnaise an instrument?” because that is a Patrick Star quote that has really profoundly affected my life. I also wrote a Psalm because I am a Bible school student after all.

We spent the next day in Bushmills, the town nearest us, but it was a freezing-cold rainy day with gale force winds, so we didn’t last long. We went out for lunch at a fancy pub and Josie and I got a seafood platter to share, but you see, I forgot that only in America does “Seafood Platter” mean “Mysterious Vaguely Fishy Lumps of Deep Fried Goodness”. In other parts of the world, “Seafood Platter” means this:

Please note the little prawn dudes curled up in the middle of the plate. You can’t tell from the picture, but their beady little eyes were still intact. But, one must try new things, and so I gallantly partook of all the creatures that had been served, although Josie did have to get the edible part out of my prawn for me, because as I tried to dissect it, all of its spindly little legs unfurled, and I got totally freaked out. But anyway, enough of that, we must move on.

The next day our friend Billy joined us, and we cooked a big brunch of bacon, eggs and toast and enjoyed it together in unity. Then we went to the causeway again, so Billy could see it. We came around from the other side of the cliffs this time, and discovered another feature of the causeway, which was a giant boot shaped rock, the legend behind it being that it belonged to the giant who lived up on the cliff above the causeway. Rewind for a moment to our hike there on this day, which involved walking amongst green fields that were rich with dew. It was in these damp fields, that in my attempt to walk downhill in my zero-traction boots, my feet slipped out from under me and I completely wiped out, meaning that my jeans, like the green fields, were now also rich with dew. Thus, the third Wet Legs Incident came to pass. Fortunately, by the time Josie turned around to see what had happened I had arranged myself into this elegant pose:

As my favourite comedienne, Miranda Hart, would say, “It’s all about the recovery.”

But I told you earlier that there is a fourth chronicle to the Wet Jean Saga, and so there is. The next morning, we bid adieu to our lovely Airbnb, and headed out. It was on the bus from Colerane to Belfast, as I sat staring out the window while listening to music and pretending to be in a sad movie (as you do) that suddenly a small water torrent of unknown origin suddenly trickled out of the side of the bus and onto my seat and left leg. Why is this a thing and what is God trying to tell me through all these H2O based trials? That is what I would like to know. Anyway, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I endured, and eventually the bus got to the giant central-hub bus station in Belfast, where we had to hang out for 4 hours until we could go board our ferry that departed at 10pm. During this time spent languishing in the bus station, which was full of many a small shop like airports are, Josie and I decided to while away the time by going to the bus-station nail salon. If you are waiting for an exciting story about me getting a super-sketchy black-market manicure (as one might expect from any tale involving a manicure performed in a bus station) I’m sorry, but I must disappoint you. The dude who buffed up my nails with one of those electric rotatey things only made one of my cuticles bleed, and he was a very cute eastern European so I forgave him. Additionally, I got that gel nail polish stuff, and my nails still look as those they were done yesterday, so I am most content with my bus station manicure.

After nails were painted and food was consumed, eventually the time came for us to get on the overnight ferry to Liverpool. Rather than attempting to sleep in chairs or on benches in the central area, we decided to splurge and upgrade to cabins, which was a very exciting experience that made me feel vaguely like a pirate for absolutely no discernible reason. Still, it was grand, and I awoke the next morning much more refreshed than I would have otherwise been, which was good because after the ferry I split off from the rest of the crew –they were going to London, I was going to my hometown of Burnley- and I had to navigate multiple trains myself. I am proud to say that I did so with no catastrophe involved, and after 22 hours total of travel, I was back in good old Burnley in time for Christmas.