Well, we left Bundoran, and would stay the night in Dublin. We first stopped in Belleek, to see the pottery there. It’s amazing what they make there, and it’s even more amazing they make it by hand. There was this girl claying little baskets, a man making roses, a guy painting shamrocks on vases and so on.

Anyway, we arrived in Dublin, and did a part of the tour there already, the northern part. Dublin looked really interesting. I thought we could shop there some, but the problem was, our hotel was WAY outside Dublin, and you could go there by bus, or go with a cab, which was about 20 euro’s. 

The hotel itself kinda sucked. My parents had a room that consisted of a small hallway, two big closets, a bathroom, bedroom, sitting room, and a kitchen! My room only had a bedroom and a bathroom and there was no curtain for my bathroom window. You couldn’t really see much through the glass, but it did make me feel very uncomfortable when I could see cars passing by when using the toilet… So I got a curtain the next day. There wasn’t anything to do there either, there was some pathetic excuse for a pub, some rooms with a bar, but it sucked as well.

We went to Grianan of Aileach first, some kind of fort, a temple for the sun or something, which failed to impress me. The view was great though misty, and it was damn cold there.

We went on, to Northern Ireland, the UK. We went to the Giant’s Causeway first, which are a lot of six-sided stones piled into a huge heap, but not done by humans, but by nature. It looked funny and I climbed it, but it started raining, so the rocks became all slippery and I climbed down again.

Northern Ireland is kinda scary. If you see a police-station… well, the point is; you DON’T see it. It’s behind some huge wall with barbed wire. And there are soldiers walking around, armed. The guide also pointed out a pub to us, which had been bombed seven times…

We made a stop in Kells, you know, of the ‘book of Kells’ (that’s what the guide said, no idea what it is). There was also a high-cross in Kells, which had a roof, to protect him from the rain, because we wouldn’t want him to catch a cold!

Anyways, we went to Derry, walked over the city’s walls. Later we went back to the hotel, and we got some good news as our missing suitcase had been found and delivered at the hotel. In the evening we had dinner at the hotel, which was very gross, tasteless pasta. I threw up that night, and felt really sick the next day. Though if you don’t want to get sick in Ireland: don’t drink tap water. For me, there was way too much chloride in it and it upset my stomach a whole lot.

For the ones that don’t know: (like me before) Donegal is a county in the north. Still in Ireland, not the UK. So, around nine we left the hotel to drive there. On our way, we stopped several times to take pictures of the scenery.We went to Glenveagh national park, and first watched a movie in the visitors centre. We had lunch, and then walked to the castle. We were told it would take around 20 minutes, but in tine end it took 45… But it was a nice walk. Lots of mountains and hills over there. Holland hasn’t got a single mountain, so imagine what I think about them. They’re very rocky, so the rainwater can’t seep into it so there were quite a few waterfalls.

Unfortunately, there was no good spot to take a photo of the castle. We had a tour there, a guy called Eamonn told us everything about it. The estate was created around 1858 by a man called John George Adair. Around 1870 he built the Glenveagh castle, but died a little later. Then it it became a hospital for the IRA, later some guy from Harvard bought it, and then another guy from the USA. He decorated it, and the castle is still in this style.

It has lots of funny things,  such doors that can’t open, a little staircase to reach a high bed, a paper-mache chair, petticoat mirrors. It was only used in the summer, to entertain guests. They would hunt for deer around the estate, and spend the evening and nights in the castle. 

Back in Bundoran we went to the beach, which looked really cool, but unfortunately smelled really bad.

I woke up around seven, and my brother drove us to the nearest train station, where we took the train to Schiphol, the airport. Around 10 o’clock we arrived at Schiphol, carried our luggage around, checked in, did the security checks, looked at the shops and went to the waiting hall.

Summerholiday 2003. In the past years, my family and I didn’t go on holiday anymore, but this year, my mom promised me if I graduated, we would go to Ireland. I always wanted to go to Ireland. Photos of it looked so beautiful, and ever since I was a child I wanted to go there.

So, amazingly, I graduated from highschool, and we booked a fifteen-day excursion tour, called ‘All of Ireland‘ by De Jong Vakanties. The tour would take us to various famous sights across the whole country and we would stay in six different hotels during our trip.

The map on the right shows our route.

So on July 26st, my mom, dad & I left the Netherlands to discover the green, mystical island called Ireland.