Living history: a blast in Londonderry

Yesterday, after a 3 hour ferry ride, we arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and headed north along a coastal route that took us to an incredible natural rock formation called the Giant’s Causeway, and then on to the city that some call Derry, and others call Londonderry,depending on their religion. This morning, a local guide took us on a fabulous tour that showed us the sites of the Troubles back in the 60’s, and ended by saying that although the religious differences still exist it was comforting to him that his children are growing up without the fear of religious intolerance and violence the way their parents did. We left Londonderry just before noon and headed across the border into the Republic of Ireland. Tonight at dinner in the coastal town of Sligo, we learned that only acouple of hours after we left, a bomb went off in the very area we had been walking. Although the bombers haven’t been identified yet, the effort sounded very amateurish and nobody was injured, it certainly shook us up a little and gave us some interesting dinner table conversation.

So far, coming directly from the highlands of Scotland, we haven’t found the scenery here exactly “Ah”-inspiring (houses and fields and sheep and a few low hills, for the most part), and the green of the Emerald Isle seems exactly the same as the green everywhere else we’ve been in Britain, but I have a feeling that our opinion could change before we finish our drive along the coast and arrive in Dublin in a few days.

Ireland, like Scotland, cried tears of joy on our arrival, and the tears continued through the day and only stopped in time for us to take a walk after dinner tonight to burn at least 1 or 2 of the hundreds of calories we consumed. Who but the Irish would serve whipped cream with chocolate covered cream puffs? I know what you’re thinking: who but Eleanor would actually feel the need to eat the cream that was served with chocolate covered cream puffs? But all of us at our table agreed that refusing to do so would be a terrible insult to our Irish hosts, and I wouldn’t want to be insulting. Besides, it tasted great.

We’re travelling through towns and counties and have visited places that we’ve heard about all our lives: Donegal and the Beleek china factory, to name a couple. Tomorrow we’ll have lunch in Galway, and spend the night at Limerick. Guinness and Paddy Irish whiskey are the drinks of choice here, so Richard is trying them out (for research purposes only, of course) while I test the whipped cream and the soda bread, which I’ve read about but never tasted before. We’ll definitely be hitting the salads and the cottage cheese this summer!