May 28, Day 4

Hey everyone, it's day four and we're still having a wonderful time and today is Pat's birthday! We've done so much in the last 24 hours, I'll try to remember it all. So after we got picked up from downtown Cork, we went back to Pat's uncle's house where we met a ton of family and ate A LOT. Then his uncle, Tadgh, invited us to join him on his sailboat and to compete in the Royal Cork Yacht Club sailboat race. Okay that was incredible. We sailed for over an hour and came in second! won a case of beer too. unfortunately at the expense of dave's face... we were using our body weight to weigh down sides of the boat and in changing sides, dave got attacked by a sail. a small price to pay :) we went to the bar at the club and celebrated with a round of drinks. The Irish like to drink! We left and went to visit Pat's cousin, his wife, and their two adorable baby girls, Queva and Marie where of course... we drank more. Who drinks straight whiskey? We stayed for about an hour and went back to Tadgh's house where we slept over, but first they let us use their computer and made us even more drinks. It's near impossible to refuse a drink from these people. Anyway, we got up this morning around 8, had an incredible traditional Irish breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice, tea, and pudding and headed to the train station. We caught a 10am train back to Dublin where we had lunch... Cottage Pie, and caught another train to Belfast. It's dark, cold, and a little scary here but we just went out to eat and the people are so incredibly nice. We ate at a pub and our waiter was fantastic! We got a discount for staying in a hostel and got a free bottle of wine for Pat's birthday... ironic as he doesn't drink so the three of us celebrated for him! haha now we are back in the hostel and aren't really sure what to do. We don't want to go out... it's a little sketchy but we're hoping to find some fun people in the hostel. Debating going to the Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-rede rope bridge tomorrow but its looking like a no. Its pretty far, a little expensive, and we would have to bring our giant 30lb backpacks... we might catch an early train to Glasgow instead. It's crazy here, its almost June and its maybe 55 degrees here. Also, we are at such a high latitude that the sun doesn't go down until 11:30 pm. Anyway, we're off to explore the hostel and make some friends... miss you all. Thanks for reading :)

Off to Scotland tomorrow, I'll post again soon.
Love, Jen

ps. R.I.P. Gary Coleman