EUROPE: Dublin & Belfast

On April 24th through May 2nd Bryant and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Western Europe and see some amazing countries. (I'm going to try to blog country by country to avoid having one HUGE post.) Hopefully we'll have the chance to go back again someday soon!

While packing for the trip we decided to take one carry-on and one huge bag and leave plenty of room for souvenirs. This is what my bag looked like when I was all done packing:

Don't act like you're not impressed with my packing skillzzz

Someone was super depressed he had to go to the vet for 8 days

Our flight left Salt Lake at 11:00am on Tuesday. We had a two hour layover in New York at JFK, then around 8:30 pm our flight left for Dublin. We arrived  at 8:00am Wednesday morning.

Waiting to board in Salt Lake 

Our meal on the flight from JFK to Dublin

 Wednesday, April 25th, 8:30am, Dublin, Ireland

Getting our first taste of the freezing wind and rain of Ireland while waiting for the shuttle at the airport to take us into town 

On the way from the airport to the city center

Connolly Station, Dublin

 So our original plan once we arrived in Dublin was to find some lockers to store our luggage in so we could wander around town and see some of the sights. Instead, we started to get rained on, it was FREEZING, and we had absolutely NO CLUE where we were going. A sweet little guy stopped us in the street with a concerned look on his face and said, "Can I help you guys? You seem a bit lost..." 

He was right!

Once we went into the train station we found out that we could hop on any train bound for Belfast that day, so we decided to hurry and get on the one that was leaving in 15 minutes.

Connolly Station

 The following pictures were taken while we were on the two hour train ride from Dublin to Belfast:

Irish Sea

 12:00 pm, Belfast, Northern Ireland

This is one of my FAVORITE pictures from the trip. It totally encompasses how tired we were for the first few days of our trip. (I particularly enjoy his fluffy hair in the back)

The Titanic Quarter, Belfast

Harland and Wolff Shipping Company
(famous for building the Titanic)

The Titanic Museum

Bry was pretty excited for his Seafood Chowder

My delicious panini

Again, with our laziness...

Again, we really didn't know where to go or what to do in Belfast, so we decided to leave the museum. (which we had been spending HOURS in because it was incredibly cold and windy outside and the museum offered warmth and hot drinks!) We ended up walking a few blocks down to see where the Titanic was actually built, then launched.

The second we found what we wanted to see...INSTANT DOWNPOUR! It was quite impressive how quickly the rain started falling.

In packing for our trip, I was foolish in hoping that all the weather reports were going to be wrong and that it was somehow going to be in the mid 60's. (I'm an idiot and got the punishment I deserved.) I only packed one tiny umbrella that does little to protect me when Bryant holds it a foot above my head to cover his own. I was quite upset that the umbrella was offering NO protection so I bolted though the rain back to the museum.

So cold!

Again, we just sat around and killed a few hours.
And Bryant slept.

We finally asked a girl at the museum what she suggested we do to kill a few more hours until our 10:30 pm ferry that we had to catch that night. She suggested we go watch a movie at the theatre that was across the street. 

In our cab, going to check out the theatre

We had an hour to kill before the next movie so I'm sure you can guess what we did...
Sleep!!

The theatre was awesome! With our V.I.P. movie we got free popcorn and a hot chocolate.

This is how all theaters should be

After the movie got out we had just enough time to get to the dock to get on the ferry that would take us from Belfast to Liverpool.

In the waiting room, getting ready to board. And Bryant was actually watching soccer with all the other crazy Europeans.

A panoramic view of our cabin

A bed never looked so wonderful as these did, especially after not sleeping in one for what felt like an eternity! 

I was excited to have my first authentic "Fish & Chips". They were great, but the Mushy Peas (thats the official title on the menu) were pretty disgusting.

The end of probably the longest day of our lives.

So that night we sailed from Belfast to Liverpool, arriving at approximately 6:00 am on Thursday, April 26th.

Total miles travelled that day: 280