The Carrickfergus Adventure

At about 8:45 this morning, two friends and I, having nothing better to do (no class on Thursdays! Woo hoo!), set out for the nearby town of Carrickfergus (care-ick-fur-guss). The journey was a short and fun one - once we found the railway station! If any of you are ever planning on visiting Ireland, please remember this: a lot of stuff is tucked away in strange, random places. Even big things, like railway stations. We wandered up and down the street that the station was supposedly on, until we gave up and asked a random passerby - who directed us to a random, weird building emblazoned with the monicer: "Botanic: Suburban." Now, we were looking for the Botanic Station, and here it was; nowhere along the front, however, did it say Botanic Station. Craziness! Anyway...


A thirty minute train ride later, we were there: the wee town of Carrickfergus, built on the coast of the Belfast Lough, which connects to the northern part of the Irish Sea. After asking the somewhat snarky Irish receptionist at the train station to direct us towards "the water" ("Go down the street, under the arch down there, and go straight... there's a lot of water down around that way"), we wandered down to the waterfront. Amazing! The town was really quaint and pretty, with lots of interesting-looking shops and bakeries. The waterfront was absolutely beautiful, and it certainly helped that there was another castle built right along the coast! Which, of course, we promptly decided to explore (exploration fee: 3 quid).


Absolutely great fun, though. The castle was bigger, older, and certainly more amusing than the Belfast Castle this past weekend. Definitely got a lot of excellent pictures out of it. Here's one of them:

Very nice! This is the castle keep, the biggest of the castle towers, and the one in which the king and company had their large feasts and such. Pretty cool...

Well, after our self-guided tour of the castle, we decided to grab some lunch at a local pub. It was a place called Wetherspoon, and apparently it's sort of a chain pub. It seems to be kind of a big deal. It even has it's own magazine. Very flash! Anyway, lunch was delicious. I ended up getting a crayfish sandwich, which was definitely a good choice. I did, however, end up doing some expected and unexpected drinking... For the fun of it (and, of course, for the taste), I'd ordered a shot of Jameson's whiskey. Little did I know, however, that my meal (mmm... crayfish) came with a free pint of something. Taken aback, I got a pint of Strongbow cider. It was tasty, I must say. A bit like Martenelli's sparkling cider but, of course, "hard." Meh. I'd advise certain others (back in Claremont, some of them, and scattered around elsewhere as well) not to get any ideas; I'm not going to be joining you at TNC anytime soon. If ever.

After lunch, we wandered along the waterfront and explored the marina. Unfortunately, we had to catch the 1:30pm train back to Belfast, so that was the extent of the exploring for the day. But it was glorious! So if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Carrickfergus, fear not: it's an amazing place, and you'll have yourself a grand old time.