One thing we’ve noticed since moving to the other side of the world is we’re probably actually seeing more of our mates than we do back home.
After hosting some of Mahlie’s friends from Geraldton in October (which we’ll write about soon), we had my old mate from school, Paul, come to visit in November. Paul’s been travelling Scotland for the last few weeks and raved about it so much we might even have to get the van across there on the ferry. We experienced a couple of firsts while he was here: first taste of Buckfast, and first visit to our local pub, The Stoker’s Halt, neither of which are likely to inspire him to visit us again.
Our road trip to the north coast, on the other hand, was epic. The weather was full-blown Northern Ireland storming, but the lads rugged up and went on a wee day trip. Stopped at a few of the classic scenic spots in the north, like the Dark Hedges, Carrick-a-Rede and Giants Causeway, but the one that stood out was Kinbane Head, and the remnants of the old castle there, which was destroyed by cannon fire, rebuilt, has seen sieges and massacres, and most importantly is free and far enough from the main tourist strip that we were the only ones there.
The following weekend (30 November) Mahls and I were joined by our English former neighbours (who now live in Edinburgh), Max and Hannah. We all bussed it down to Dublin for a fun long weekend. The reason for the trip was to see a gig from one of our favourite Aussie artists, Julia Jacklin (supported by Angie McMahon). She didn’t disappoint and neither did Dublin; I’m not sure what we were expecting but it had a serious buzz about it and is a very fun city to visit. We’d love to return and check out some of the parks, museums and everything else we didn’t have time for.
We stayed in a hostel which was chosen for being close to the action. It turned out to be a little too close. We were sleeping above a pub with live music until 2:30AM, but luckily didn’t get back there until around then after the gig anyway. Our memories of Dublin will be pints in cosy pubs, live music, expensive coffees, expensive everything, Christmas buzz in the streets and many, many rounds of the card game ‘Love Letter’.
It will also be remembered for Mahls booking us a ticket on the 3:30AM bus back to Belfast, rather than 3:30PM…
Belfast and Belfurious 