I recently traveled on an Ireland and Northern Ireland trip with my parents last August before starting the school year. We decided to go to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday, although ironically we are not Irish. People always look at me funny whenever I tell them that, and yes I have even been asked why I have not traveled to Scotland, Germany, or China yet. I couldn’t really tell you why we haven’t been there other than my parents have been more interested in seeing other countries and showing me my mother’s home country Indonesia. For reference, I am half Chinese/Indonesian and half Caucasian with Scottish, German, and English descent; England is the only country of my Caucasian descent that I have visited. My dad just adores Ireland and its history and culture; he has now traveled to Ireland five times.
We first stopped at Dublin, then traveled up north along the coast to Londonderry/Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland. While I enjoyed talking to our tour guide cab driver and enjoyed the sites and castles, I was not too impressed by their drinking culture. I personally do not like alcohol, but I was especially in culture shock seeing bars in every single restaurant in mainland Ireland. I chose this picture since I didn’t have any pictures of the bars since there is a candle behind me on top of a bottle. What is in my hand is cranberry juice, not wine.
We came in at a very warm and fortunate time. Ireland tends to be cool and very rainy, even during the summer. The Irish kept joking to us that we brought the warm weather with us. You could even see how blue the water was and you wouldn’t have known at other times how clean their waters were.
If there is one thing I love about tourist attractions, it is finding street performers and watching their performances. Dublin is known to always buskers, which is what the Irish call their street performers. There was a young man who played “Zombies” by The Cranberries on our first day of the trip, and he was very talented in his singing and guitar skills. I would like to show you, but I would probably get hammered down by copyright. Overall though, Dublin is a beautiful and fun city to tour around with delicious food, but we were disappointed that there was not much to do during the nighttime because of businesses closing before 6 or 7 pm.
One interesting highlight that I never thought I would come home with is Irish milkshakes. I have to admit that I find Irish milkshakes to be better than American milkshakes. According to my tour guide cab driver, cows are more grass bred than American cows are, and frankly I sometimes find American milkshakes to be too sweet. We found a restaurant that was serving their version of American food and that was when I tried their chocolate milkshake and was mind blown.
I definitely enjoyed the trip, don’t get me wrong, but I would not want to come back and I think I’ve seen enough even with all the green Ireland has to offer. I don’t think I could stand all of the Irish restaurants having very limited menus with always the same choices or the weather always being rainy or cloudy. I also appreciated seeing the comparisons of drinking culture in America versus Ireland and Northern Ireland and drawing conclusions of the pros and cons of each country. I love educating myself about culture differences in my travels, and I also love taking many pictures along the way too.
Enjoying my travel blog posts? You can read about my second most recent trip to Sweden here.