The Adventure: Friday

So, last Friday morning we kicked off the first full day by heading to Enterprise and picking up our car for the week, a Chevrolet Captiva SUV. Now, if you've never heard of a Captiva, it's because they don't make them in the US. Not a bad little car, actually. There's a picture of it in the slideshow above with James and I (the drivers) standing in front of it.

We headed straight for the North Coast - considered one of the most beautiful parts of N. Ireland - and cut out towards Carnlough and drove along the coast up to Ballycastle. A beautiful ride through the Glens of Antrim.

Our first stop was Carik-a-rede, a rope bridge that spans the mainland with a fishing island. Fishermen, a while back, stretched a rope bridge to this island from which they'd fish. The National Trust has since taken it over, but it's a beautiful place.

The rest of the day was a stop off in Bushmills for Fish & Chips for lunch, a tour of the Bushmill's Whisky factory (distilling whisky, with license, since 1608), a refreshingly cold time at the Giant's Causeway, and a stop over at Dunluce Castle just as it was closing - one of the key things on James' list. James really wanted to see a castle while he was here - unfortunately, the Germanic, large castle form never really made it to Ireland, so the majority of 'castles' here are like big, walled manors/mansions.

The last stop over for the day, before heading back to Belfast, was coffee at Roughan's, a second-floor coffee shop in the seaside town of Port Stewart that overlooks the bay. That was a really restful time after a long-day of sight seeing.

After the 1.5hr drive back to Belfast, we finished off with pizza and pasta from a local italian joint, a bottle of wine, and a great night of sitting around and talking, before hitting the hay. We'd hoped to do a pub with Irish music that night - but we were all just too exhuasted. We also tried our hands at making homemade chocolate chip cookies - which was a pretty funny experience since the kitchen here is set up for cooking for 50-60 people, everything is HUGE! The measuring scale, the beaters, the bowls, etc. (See the pictures up top :-)

It was a great day, with really meaningful and fun conversations and karaoke sessions in the car. There's two new R&B songs we had stuck in our heads - 'you turn me right round' and 'heads, shoulders, knees, and toes'. :-)