The Adventure: Saturday

Sorry for the week hiatus from updating you on Jenny & James' trip to N. Ireland a couple of weeks ago. A JBU team was here this last week to do some remodeling at the house to get it ready for the summer and fall. In fact, one of the things they did was put in a classroom with a projector and bring a 40 DVD collection of Irish themed films - so, here I sit, posting this, watching Waking Ned Divine ("I've been using some fruity soaps Maggie) on a big screen projector in my own private home theater :-). Don't worry - I won't use it often, but I was up at 3:15am this morning to take the crew down to Dublin airport - so this is the end to a long day. :-)

The Adventure: Saturday

Saturday kicked off with a trip to St. George's Market. It's an open air market on Saturday mornings in Belfast - rated one of the best in Europe. A great morning where we sampled sausage rolls, crepes, and other goodies as our 'breakfast'. :-) Afterwards, we were off to County Down to see Inch Abbey, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and enjoy some Irish Stew.

On the way, we popped into Inch Abbey. There's a picture up top of Jenny and James with the ruins of the chapel behind them. It's these incredible old ruins that sit in the valley, with St. Patrick's Cathedral overlooking it. Several years back, a JBU alumn got married there - it would be a beautiful place for it!

Then we were off to St. Patrick's Cathedral to do a walk around. Without much to eat for breakfast, we got hungry pretty quick and it was super windy - so we were keen to get off to lunch. We had Irish stew in the same little cafe I had discovered with mom and dad back in October. A great lunch - and really filling!

After lunch we headed to Castle Ward - by far one of the coolest places I've ever been. I'd been in 2007, but I was keen to go back and just hadn't had a chance yet since I moved here in September. The house is both neoclassical and gothic - the wife liked Gothic, so the back house is like Alice in Wonderland, and the husband liked the classical look, so the front 1/2 of the house (both inside and out) is very classical. It's the trippiest and yet such a cool place! There's a lot of history in the house - including 10 stuffed squirrels that make up a comic book strip - they were bought at the World's Fair. The house is full of cool, historical things like that (like a linen tablecloth that's 250 years old and in incredible condition!).

While waiting for the house tour to start, we walked around the gardens - on our continuing quest for a castle. No luck, but we did find a bridge with a walking path underneath it where Jenny and I pretended to be trolls. It was a lot of fun just being goofy (there's pictures up top). As well, we took a couple pictures of Jenny and James with the grassy, green hills.

From there, we were off to Newcastle. On the way, we popped up to the Dundrum Castle that overlooks Murlough Bay. I lived in Dundrum for a few weeks back in the summer of 2007 while I was on a mission trip. It's a beautiful view of the small town, the ocean and the bay, as well as the Mourne Mountains - the tallest mountains in Ireland. They're beautiful!

We stopped in at Newcastle for a cup of tea and some dessert cake (I introduced James to 'Banoffee' - this great bannana/toffee desert) at this great cafe that overlooks the ocean. It's a really cool little seaside tourist town. It's also home to one of Tiger Wood's favorite golf courses.

With the sun setting, we had two quick stops to try to make before dark - Tolleymore Forest and the maze in Castlewellan. We were pretty tired from walking around the gardens at Castle Ward, so we weren't up for walking through Tolleymore, but rather did a drive through. Even just driving through it, you get a feel for the incredible trees that are in Tolleymore - trees that are said to have spurred Tolkien and Lewis' imagination.

Last stop before heading back to Belfast was Castlewellan and this human size maze built with hedgerows. We only had about 15 minutes before the park closed - so after 5 minutes of Jenny and James having a go at figuring it out - we took off running to try to beat the maze in the ten minutes we had left. Thankfully Nate Menken had shown me the way last time we were there - so we made it in time - but had a lot of fun running around like chicken's with our heads cut off.

It was back to Belfast, a chance to rest at home, and then back in to town for a pub and Irish music. It took us a long while to find a place that had music - we ended up at Kelly O'Cellars, a Catholic pub in town that's been around for a long-time. About 10:00 or so there was a group of young musicians who showed up - they play most nights. We sat around and listened for a little while. It's a pretty rough place in many ways - so Jenny and James certainly got the full pub feel.

We headed home and to bed - a long day, filled with a lot of laughter, and some incredible sights. The next day we planned to sleep in, do a few things around Belfast, then head to Sunday Night Live at church and then to The Empire afterwards for live music.