Chapter 53: Gone in 60 Seconds, Irish Edition

Well, everything works out in the end. We finally made it onto our train for Belfast and immediately felt much better about the whole episode. The views the whole way to the Scottish coast were so fantastic that it was somewhat tricky to stay irritated about the fact that we were being forced to enjoy them. And the ferry was like being on a freaking cruise ship. (Note: I say this because I have never in fact actually been on a real cruise ship.) We spent the whole time eating fries (chips, should I say?), watching penguin footage (yeah penguins!), and playing Dance Dance Revolution until we ran out of coins. Good times.

Of course it was completely dark by the time we got to Belfast at like 10 PM. Driving through the town to the hostel we could see almost nothing, and what we could see didn't look particularly fantastic. We made it to the hostel, beginning to wonder if we should even bother trying to walk around Belfast at all or if we should just call it an early night before an early morning. Then it turned out we were sharing a room with two really nice girls, one from Sydney and one from Cambridge, and the four of us just inadvertently ended up chatting until about 2:00 in the morning. It was pretty cool, and we felt like our trip to Belfast had not been entirely for naught. Plus, we felt like we'd final gotten a proper hostel experience (you’re supposed to meet other people in those places, aren’t you?).

Then three hours of sleep and back to the ferry. This time we could actually see some of Belfast. Looked quite cute, actually, now that the sun was around to illuminate it. And the Irish countryside (or what we could see of it beyond the town) was BEAUTIFUL. I'll definitely have to go back there sometime. Well, I'll have to come back to ALL of this sometime....