Day 3 - To the End of the Earth

After two days in Dublin, we took the super long journey of 3 hours to the other end of the country.  As Prash quickly learned - I suck on road trips.  2 coffee's and a cappuccino and I was still asleep within 45 minutes.  So....sorry, babe. I had 24 hours and 3 goals to accomplish in Northern Ireland: 1) Bushmills Whiskey, 2) Stand in the ocean and 3) Giant's Causeway.  While I may be terrible at staying awake in the car, I am GREAT at getting things done.  Not to brag...but we did them all.

We were staying at a place we found on Air B&B and I was only kind of scared because of that story about the lady locking a visitor in a room and not letting him out...in case you missed that, here ya go!  Anyway, that didn't happen.  We stayed in a house overlooking a golf course and white rocks beach.  That's the golf course -->. Antrim also had really cool clouds so that was fun.

In case you just have literally no idea...Irish oceans are really cold.  So I stood in the ocean for approximately 2 seconds, and then I was completely done.

We checked into the room.  There were two other couples staying there.  We had to share a bathroom with him...the bathroom had a clear door.  That looked directly into the clear shower...so, pretty much if you were a creeper you could see some naked people.

I feel that Ireland gets a bad rep for being cloudy and rainy all of the time.  1) it rained only for a few minutes at a time while I was there.  2) It was still one of the most amazing places I've ever seen.  Even through the rain.  I just had to get that out there

Having accomplished goal number 1, it was time to move onto goal number 2!  We headed right on over to Bushmills for some Irish Whiskey...because Lord knows there wasn't enough of that in Dublin.

That is the only original building on the premises.  I want to say that the tour guide said there was a fire?  But I could be getting that confused with somewhere else we went.

The tour was really cool!  Word to the wise, it is very warm, and has a lot of very narrow stairs.  So if you aren't into that, maybe just skip ahead to the tasting room.  My favorite part (aside from the tasting room)  was the room filled with barrels where you can see what happens to the whiskey as it ages over time.  While it ages it evaporates to approximately 50% of what it was before.  Our guide said that they didn't like to think about losing half of the product, instead it's called the Angels' Share.  Apparently, there are angels looking over the whiskey and occasionally like to taste it.  That way, it's not evaporating, so much as making for some very drunk, happy angels.

ANOTHER THING I LEARNED!  When they make the whiskey and mash the barley for fermentation - the barley left over after they drain out the alcohol is sold to local farmers for cow feed!  They claim there isn't any alcohol left in the grains...but those look like some drunk cows to me.

After the tasting, we headed into Portrush for an early dinner.  We went to Neptune and Prawn, it's an Asian Fusion place where children (fortunately or unfortunately) are not allowed.  It was absolutely delicious, a really cute place, and it had a great view of the harbor.  

After dinner we walked through the town and I went gambling for the first time ever. It turns out I'm actually pretty lucky.  Prash made a 3Pound investment and I made 15 POUNDS.  The kind lady on the machine next to me had to show me how to use the machine.  Now, you don't actually pull a lever on a slot machine, it's just a button.  Which, is kind of a bummer, because I've always wanted to pull the lever.  I got so excited when I won that I jumped up and down and the lady beside me laughed at me.  I celebrated my winnings with Little Penguin screw top wine in plastic wine glasses.  Because I'm a classy lady.

After the gambling and before the wine, we went to the closed tourist attraction that is Dunluce Castle.  Maybe you want to go when the sun is out, maybe you want to go when it's actually open, but I think it's pretty great walking through the ruins when the sun is setting.  Also, when you're walking down the stairs it looks like you will just walk into the ocean.  Just know that what goes down, must come up.  These stairs go right up the other side.  The stairs lead under the ruins to an archway overlooking the sea.  It made me want a castle on the sea.  real bad.  Maybe not this one though. 

 

In case I haven't said it enough, I love the sunsets and sunrises in Ireland.  and I love the clouds.  Okay, so I just love Ireland.