Winter is Coming

This will probably be my most exciting and nerdy post of the entire trip. After the seriousness of last post, I wanted to lighten the mood by talking about the greatest day of my life: the Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland. Okay, I’m being a little dramatic but for a Thrones obsessor, it was fantastic. According to the tour guide, we were actually taking the same bus that the cast and crew used to be transported to the sites. First that came to mind:

I COULD BE SITTING IN THE SAME SEAT THAT JON SNOW HAS SAT IN. (Insert girlish scream)

For those of you who do not watch or do not care to know about the wonderful Game of Throne experience, please skip to the end of this post to read about our visit to Giant’s Causeway.

The first two places we drove by were “The Wall” which is the main camp for those who take the black, such as the lovely Jon Snow and the second was the rock where Ned Stark beheaded the ranger who abandoned the Night’s Watch (first episode of the show). These places we in the distance so I wasn’t able to get good pictures of them.

The next place we went to was the area where Westeros was filmed. This is the Stannis Baratheon and Lady Melisandre story line. We saw the area where Lady Melisandre’s boat arrived on the beach of Westeros and is met by Davos.

We then we able to go into the cave where Lady Melisandre (who happens to be my least favorite character on the show) gives birth to the shadow assassin.

After spending a little time taking pictures we got back on the bus and headed to Pyke, home of Theon Greyjoy’s father Balon, Lord of the Iron Islands. One of the scenes filmed here was the awkward first encounter Theon had with his sister, Yara, who he did not realize was his sister…. Acca-awkward!!!! (Pitch Perfect reference)

The last and definitely coolest place we visited was the Dark Hedges. These are snake trees spanning about one mile in Northern Ireland. Shockingly only one scene was filmed here…for 8 seconds. This is the King’s Road where Arya goes with the recruits for the Night’s Watch to escape King’s Landing after her father, Ned Stark, is beheaded.

Overall it was an amazing tour and it heightened my obsession for Game of Thrones. They already signed a contract for season 5 and 6! Woohoo. Okay I’m done now.

GIANT’S CAUSEWAY

Until actually being in Ireland, I had never even heard of the Giant’s Causeway. When I found out that we were going there for the last part of the tour I was like “Cool?”. I had no idea what to expect. The causeway is a group of interlocking basalt columns about 3 miles from the Northern Ireland town of Bushmills (yes, like the whiskey).

It was down pouring when we got there and apparently it take about 25-30 minutes to walk there even after we got off the bus. All I was thinking was that this better be amazing if I have to stand in the cold rain for am hour. Trust me, it did not disappoint.

On our bus ride to the causeway, our tour guide told us a story of how people believe the causeway came to be. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention. I was having Game of Thrones withdrawals. From what I remember, there was an Irish giant named Fionn mac Cumhaill who was challenged by a Scotish giant to fight. Fionn built the causeway so they could meet in the middle of Scotland and Ireland.

A more believable story is that the causeway was created as a result of an ancient volcanic eruption. Whichever story is true, all I know is that the causeway was marvelous. I wish I could use so many more adjectives to describe it but I don’t know if I can think of enough. It was unlike anything I had seen before. The way the rocks formed, we were able to climb them like stairs to get to the top.

Hands down the most interesting day I have had on my trip so far. Even if you don’t like or watch game of thrones, the landscape of the tour was amazing all on its own.

Today we are headed to the airport for our final leg of our journey. ON TO SPAIN!

Putting things into perspective

I may have forgotten to mention in a previous post that in Dublin we have been staying with Jenn’s friend, Shantanuh.

The night after we got back from Galway, before heading to Belfast, we went with Shan to his friends place for a birthday party. Everyone else there goes to Northeastern as well so we didn’t have to worry about awkward introductions and long silences in conversation. At one point in the night we were sitting down with Shan’s friend, Ebraham, who is originally from Egypt but is studying abroad in Ireland for a semester. Jenn and I got to talking about our trip and at one point he said “I wish it was that easy for me to travel places”. A little confused, I asked him to explain.

Apparently if you are Egyptian, you must fill out an application to visit most countries, even if it’s just for a vacation. Call me naive but I thought anyone with a passport could buy a plane ticket and visit another country for a short period of time. I didn’t realize that depending on your nationality, you could potentially be rejected from visiting somewhere. This was definitely a very eye opening conversation for me. I came to realize that I have been overlooking others ability to travel places. Why are people with a United States passport any different than someone with an Egyptian passport? Although I do not know a lot about the visa application process, I think that if a country wants to have an application to visit, it should be required of all travelers not matter what nation their passport represents. It had me realizing that I take some many things for granted in life and should be more aware of others’ situations.

We left Shan’s friends place and head for a bar called Quay. Definitely a very fun atmosphere. The best part was, it was open until 4:00am. We got Burger King in our way back to Shan’s apartment (first time I’ve had BK in like 10 years….) and drunkenly prepared our bags to head to Belfast in the morning.

Flash forward 6 hours to 10:00am and waking up was definitely difficult. Headache, nauseous, you know the drill….
We walked to the bus and headed to Belfast for our 2 day trip.

After checking into our hostel, we called scheduled a taxi tour from the West Belfast Taxi Tour. Just a heads up, this will be one of my more serious posts while I’m traveling. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the history, I’ll try to give a brief description of the conflicts that had, until recently been occurring in Ireland. Northern Ireland, such as Belfast, is separate from Southern Ireland, which includes Dublin, Galway, Cork, etc. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and is controlled by Britain.

The conflict in Ireland was caused primarily by the differences in religion. People from Northern Ireland being Protestant, also known as Loyalists who wanted to remain a part of Britain. The southern part of Ireland is primarily Catholics and wanted to be separated from the British state.

Anyway, until recently there was fighting going on in Belfast between the Protestants and the Catholics. Our taxi driver, Tom, a Catholic himself, was recalling the danger he experienced living in Belfast. In 1991, one of his very close friends was shot right next to him when they were driving in the city. According to Tom, taxi drivers are primarily Catholic because it is one of the few jobs in which they work for themselves. Tom took us around Belfast to the wall that divides the two sides of the city. It was interesting to hear all of his first hand experiences and to see all the murals that have been put up throughout the entire conflict.

Although Tom had experienced some difficult times and discrimination during his life, he has such a great attitude of how Northern Ireland will recover from the history of the past. He made Shan, Jenn, myself take a picture in front of the wall saying “someday you can show your grandkids this picture because when it’s taken down it’ll be as historic as the fall of the Berlin Wall”. According to politicians in Ireland, their goal is to have the wall torn down by 2023.

Having heard these stories, I was able to reflect on the differences in certain areas of the world. There are sometimes when I feel bad for myself but after hearing the first hand experiences from Tom, my situation was really put into perspective and I was humbled by the opportunity to hear his story and his hopefulness for the future.

Like I said, this will be one of my more serious posts for the trip. Traveling so far has been so much fun but it is important to learn about other people and the history of their country; personally, it helped me learn a little bit more about myself and how lucky I truly am.