Round & Wide

As it turns out, those are my favorite types of photos to take of Ireland. And given the country's expansive and bright green fields, and mountains that cut sharply into the cliffs over the sea, those wide-angle (and photosphere) shots tend to capture them best. I recommend you go through the post and sample photos below, then afterwards follow this link to get the full panoramics and Photospheres. For the Photospheres, make sure you view them in the actual sphere mode (you need to click on the little circle/sphere icon), and I apologize if you're forced to sign into Google+ for it.

My second weekend in Dublin began after a stressful and tiring work week, though I certainly wasn't going to let that stop me from enjoying my Friday night out. A fellow Googler was DJing at a club called Madison on the pedestrian-only Grafton Street downtown. I had heard many people talking about this party around the office, and even beyond my expectations, it seemed like the majority of the crowd worked at Google. That was fine for me, as that just meant I knew more people there, and since most of the music had words, I had fun.

 Headless Joseph & the Technicolor Apron

 The horizontally-challenged bar we started at had an open shaft spanning all 4 floors, with a small stage on the 2nd floor where a 3-person band could squeeze in to jam out.

Bray


The more I see Ireland, the more I understand why so many have told me it has an unparalleled natural beauty. Saturday morning I met my friend Talita and her two Brazilian friends at the DART station, where we rode the 30 min train to the nearby town of Bray. A quick stroll along the seafront brought us to the mountains that form the Southern part of Bray Head. From there we hiked for almost three hours up the mountain and along the cliffs and beach, until we reached the town of Greystones where we had lunch and then caught the train back to Dublin.

 The town of Bray

 Bray from the other way

 Ireland is a country best-experienced horizontally

 Greystones in the far distance

I'll try to keep future beach/bay wide shots to a minimum

Heading North

Though I probably would've behaved Saturday night anyway due to a general exhaustion, the 6am wake-up call for my bus tour Sunday was an added incentive to take it easy that night. Getting home at 2, I still spent an hour in bed with Harry Potter (jealous, ladies?) before I went to bed.

With no plans for Sunday, I decided I would take advantage and go up North, on a 1 day tour of Belfast and the Giant's Causeway. After getting a little more sleep on the bus, we entered Northern Island (no passports needed) and drove straight to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Strolling along the coast, with views of Scotland in the distance, some paid the 6£ (yes, Northern Ireland is part of the UK and thus uses £s) fee to cross the bridge, while I walked around and found more panoramic and photosphere shots to take.

Scotland in the distance

sold-to-be-more-scary-than-it-actually-is rope bridge to the right

Maybe I did cheap out over the he 6£ fee, but the way I see it, the views were way better on this side

Giant's Causeway

Formed over 60 million years ago, this natural wonder of the world (note the lack of capitalization and preceding number) is the result of the cooling and shrinking of successive lava flows, creating over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns. Basically, it's like mecca for geologists and volcanologists (aside: if I could go back and do it all over again, I'd definitely become a volcanologist, and yes at least 60% of that desire is so I could tell people that is my job). As with any other geological wonder, the only way to ensure a regular and captive audience is to create some legends of folklore around it, what with the kids and their attention deficit disorders these days. The Giant's Causeway is no different, and as legend has it, an Irish giant named Finn McCool (originally Fionn cum Machaill, though his Anglicanized is much, well, cooler) carved the causeway out of the coast after being challenged to a fight by a Scottish giant. To go with the story, random rock outcroppings and formations that look like random objects and animals have been incorporated into the story, and can be seen on your walk down to the causeway. To be fair, if you squint your eyes hard enough, anything can look like anything. But I obliged and played along to appease the local staff, of which likely 90% come from families that have been in that part of Northern Island for over 5 generations.

At this point, I'd encourage you to go to my Picasa album and explore the full set of photos and photospheres. With the rainy and windy weather, moving people, and short-lived tour time and battery life, they didn't all come out perfect. But I only included the ones that are cool to check out.

 The tallest columns reach nearly 40 ft high, though they go down over twice that depth below sea level

The Captain's pose (minus the touristy audio guide contraption)

 "The Giant's Boot", which had the same pungent smell you would expect from an actual giant's boot.

All I need is to apply an instagram filter and that'd be a beaut!

 That's The Camel in the distance. No, really.

Belfast

The last stop on our trip was Belfast, where we arrived at 5pm and had a little over an hour to explore the city. Our bus stopped near City Hall, opened in 1906. To be honest, I hadn't heard many great things about Belfast, and was thus ok with only doing a quick visit there. However, in my walk around the city centre, I discovered a nice energy not all that different from Dublin, though I heard far fewer foreign languages and accents. Some of the girls I met on my tour had done the 2-day tour with an overnight in Belfast, and said the historical tours of the city were really interesting. Perhaps I'll take a trip back and do that at some point. And of course, I wouldn't mind the opportunity to check out the newly opened Titanic Quarter Experience (seriously, it seems very well planned and designed).

Two weeks into my trip, I'm feeling like I've accomplished quite a lot. But my passport is just crying out for a new stamp, and I look forward to obliging it in London next weekend. So until then...

- From Erez with Love

 By the time our bus left, the lawn spanning the entire front of City Hall was filled with families and students laying around and enjoying the sunshine

 Victoria Square Shopping Centre (and no those aren't Northern Irish ghosts, just artifacts from the panoramic)

Our bus driver & tour guide warned us before we entered Northern Ireland (and Belfast in particular) that we'd be seeing a lot of flags. To be honest, I didn't see a fraction of the number of flags I'd see visiting any US city, let alone the capital.