Today, we got a late start getting out of Dublin because our driver, Ray, was stuck behind an accident on his way to get us. He is a nice guy and not overly talkative but friendly and seems to know a lot about Ireland. He’s from Limerick, so we talked about the possibly of my teaching there next summer.

The drive from Dublin took 2 hours (roughly). The country side is beautiful. I was struck by how clean and unpopulated the rural areas are. I also loved some of the highway signs. The sign that says we will take a picture of your speeding ways was an old fashion camera with bellows. It cracks me up. Dad was impressed by the gas station: Apples. It is very nice and clean. It reminded me of the ones on the highway in Italy.

Then we got to Belfast. We went straight to the Titanic Museum: “Titanic Belfast” it was rad. First off, we had lunch at Bistro 401 and I had beef stew. It was delicious, a little sweeter than what we eat in the US but full of mushrooms which balanced it. Again, yummy. Then we went through the museum which was really well done. You could spend days in there reading all the content. However, I was impressed by how spaced out everything was and how much they relied on information graphics verses just text. Cool parts: to take you through the building of the Titanic, you got on a ride a ride like a roller coaster. It had great speakers and talked you through the experience of building the ship. The ride was on cables so you went up and down and then spun left to right (slowly) as needed. It was so cool and you got the information without being crushed in the crowd. The next thing that was amazing: three full walls that took you into the Titanic. Think virtual reality on steroids. I was dizzy for a full ten minutes afterwards. It was not good. Actually, it was awesome if you could handle it. I loved the SOS room. I took video. Nancy was in heaven as she loves the Titanic. She got 5 keychains!!!!!

Our hotel in Belfast was the Europa, the most bombed hotel in Western Europe. It was bombed 11 times by the IRA. You can’t tell at all that anything bad ever happened. We decided to walk to high street and walk around the shopping district. Unfortunately, the damn map the hotel gave us was so inaccurate that we just wandered around for 2 hours. Also, we weren’t two blocks and I got shit on by a bird. We finally ended up at the Josper’s for dinner and it was okay. The worst meal we’ve had but not horrible. We all kind of sat there in a stupor; I think we are a bit tired and worn out.