Ok so where did we leave off on my Ireland adventures? I think we'd just finished up day one.

So day two was definitely one of my favorite days of the whole trip. We took a day trip outside of the Republic to Northern Ireland, spending time in Belfast, Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede.

Quick history lesson to put this day in context: Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It is under British rule and is not part of the Republic of Ireland. This has caused tensions for years and years between the Nationalists (often Catholic) and the Unionists (often Protestant). Nationalists want all of Ireland to be united as one, free of the UK. Unionists often identify as British and want to remain part of the UK.



Political sign leading up to the elections in Northern Ireland

For years the tensions between the two, referred to as "the Troubles," were very violent. When my mom visit Ireland years ago, she couldn't even go to Northern Ireland because it wasn't safe. Since the Good Friday agreement in 1998, things have gotten a little bit better. Obviously, I was able to go and visit, but tensions still exist, and in Belfast, the peace wall between the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods still stands (though there have been talks to eventually remove it -- people that live there have lots of strong feelings about this).



The peace wall

Because of all this history, seeing Belfast was a really cool experience for me. We took a black taxi tour, and our driver took us around the city telling us about different historical events and the symbolism of the murals painted on walls and buildings around the city.


Megan and me in our black taxi

I had heard that it's pretty easy to tell whether your cab driver is Catholic or Protestant based on how they frame certain stories for you. We asked our cab driver if he was religious and he said no, but after about five minutes with him, it was pretty clear he at least culturally identified with team Catholic.



He often admitted violence came from both sides, but he made it sound that any violence that started on the Catholic side was largely in retaliation for violence from the Protestant side. I would have loved to repeat the tour with a Protestant cab driver to see how some of the same stories were framed.





Aside from seeing the murals, he also took us to see the church where many of the talks leading up to the Good Friday agreement were held.



And we finished our tour with him by signing the peace wall.



Being Irish Catholic myself, I found this half day trip to Belfast fascinating. The history and the tension is ages old, but at the same time still really recent. It felt like we were in the midst of living history while we were there. I know I'm lacking the words to describe this experience well, but it was powerful and really captivating.

After leaving Belfast, we headed for the coast of Northern Ireland. We made a quick stop at Dunn Luce Castle, where some of Game of Thrones has been filmed. This was the only bit of rain we got that day, which seemed fitting for the setting.
My crazy hair is kind of blocking the castle ruins



You can see the castle ruins over my shoulder

Then we headed on to Giants Causeway. The Causeway was formed eons ago as a result of volcanic activity in the area, leaving these stunning columns along the coast. If you believe the legend, the columns were built by giants (hence the name), and the causeway was eventually destroyed so that giants from Scotland could not battle the giants from Northern Ireland.



Today, it's a World Heritage Site that attracts tourists from all over for the stunning views of the coastline and the hiking opportunities.



We spent a while here taking in the views and hiking around.

Our last stop on our Northern Ireland trip was to Carrick-a-Rede, another point along the coast with stunning views. From here we could see all the way to Scotland (even though it was a bit cloudy).



We enjoyed some more hiking and got to cross the famous rope bridge that was originally built by salmon fishers to access one of the little islands off the coast.



After spending the last half of our day along the coast breathing in the fresh ocean air, we were all pretty tired. But we headed back to Dublin where we spent the night exploring O'Connell Street, home to the General Post Office, which served as the headquarters for leaders of the Easter Uprising.

We also crossed Ha'Penny Bridge and wandered around Temple Bar for a bit before crashing back at the hotel.

Ha'Penny Bridge

And the was day two in the books. Snapchat story with highlights below:

Well I've officially been back from Ireland for about 10 days now, and after this crazy month of travel, I think my internal clock has finally realized I'll be staying in the Eastern time zone for a while.



Unlike my trip to Japan, which was very spur of the moment, this Ireland trip has been in the works for at least a year. My friends started kicking the idea around last May or June, and we started keeping an eye on flight prices in the fall.

When we found round-trip tickets for $530 we pulled the trigger, officially making the trip real.

Our plan for the week was to see as much of the country as we could. We did two days in Dublin, a day in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland and then three days exploring the southern and western coasts of the Republic.



Day one in Dublin was jam-packed and also exhausting. We'd taken the red-eye from Philly to Dublin. I don't sleep well on planes, but I did manage to snag at least two or three hours of (frequently interrupted) shut-eye.





After landing, we dropped our bags at the hotel and set out to explore the city.

Dublin is very walkable and other than some cooler temps and wind on the first day, we had decent weather.

Our first stop was Trinity College. We took a tour led by one of the students and learned some of the history of the old buildings and the college.





The campus itself was gorgeous, though the main attraction was of course the library housing the Book of Kells. Considered one of the major works of art from the Dark Ages, the Book of Kells includes the four Gospels of the New Testament.

You weren't allowed to take pictures in that part of the library, but the Book of Kells features these crazy intricate illustrations and highly stylized Latin text. There are usually only two Gospels on display at a time. When we were there one of them happened to be opened to the page of Jesus' lineage that is part of the Gospel reading at Christmas, so I could actually decipher some of the words, which was kind of cool. The other book was open to a random page that I couldn't make out at all.

Upstairs from the Book of Kells is the Long Room, which features a massive collection of the college's oldest books. Seeing as how all the girls on this trip were from my book club, we obviously really, really enjoyed this room.







We stopped in a pub for lunch, where I had a delicious bowl of Guinness and beef stew and then wandered up Grafton Street, part of the main shopping district, to get to St. Stephen's Green.


Just hanging out on Grafton Street.



Entrance to Stephen's Green

The park, which years ago played a role in the Easter Rising, is gorgeous featuring fountains and waterfalls and lots and lots of tulips, my favorite flowers.



There were also memorials sprinkled throughout the park, like this one dedicated to those who died during the Great Famine.



Famine Memorial

We wrapped up our first day in Ireland visiting two of the medieval (non-Catholic) cathedrals in the city -- St. Patrick's and Christ Church. The churches were massive, and Strongbow, the Norman invader for whom my favorite cider is named, is buried in Christ Church. I was pretty beat by the time we made it to the cathedrals and we opted to not go inside.


St. Patrick's.

We eventually strolled back to our hotel where I grabbed a quick shower and promptly passed out sometime around 8 p.m. local time. Jet lag is brutal.

Here's my Snapchat story from our travel and first day's adventures:

Editor's Note: I know I owe a bunch of posts on my trip to Ireland. I promise those posts are coming. It's just taking a while to go through pictures, and I'm waiting on some of my friends to upload theirs since they have some of the best ones.

In other news, this morning Megan and I ran the Capitol Hill Classic 10K.



We had been chatting earlier this week after our Ireland trip how we felt like we needed to do something healthy since we ate so much heavy food on the trip, and we decided the 10K would be fun -- even though neither of us has run more than 5 miles in several months.

It was super chilly and windy in DC this morning, but at least it wasn't raining. DC had been on a 15-day streak of rain, so seeing the sun at the race was a very nice change of pace.

It was in the low 50s at the start, which is actually kind of perfect running weather, but the wind was just brutal. I knew it wouldn't be a super fast race for me, so Megan and I made plans to meet at the finish line.

We lost each other pretty quickly after the gun went off, but actually ended up finding each other in the crowds maybe a half mile in and we ended up running together the whole race.

The course was really crowded and at parts goes on a narrow trail, which was a little bit annoying because there wasn't much room to maneuver. There were lots of times when I felt like I was stepping on someone's heels or had a jogging stroller nipping at my heels.

Other than that though, I really enjoyed this race.

The first part of the course is largely downhill, then it's flat for a while, before climbing back toward the finish.

I was not loving the uphill climb at the end, and if I hadn't been running with Megan, not sure I would have covered those 1.5 miles as quickly as I did.

The official results aren't posted online yet, but by my watch we finished in 57:01, and Megan's watch said 57:00 so, I'm guessing our official time won't be too far off from that.

Even though it wasn't my speediest race ever, it definitely felt good to go out and get a solid run in to kick off the morning.