tattoo number two

A week ago today I got my second tattoo. Before Amy and I moved here we talked about getting a thistle tattoo as a lifelong souvenir of our year in Scotland. We looked online a lot trying to find a design that we liked but they were all too 'real' looking, and if you know what a thistle looks like you know they aren't really the most beautiful, girly weeds! I got my eyebrow pierced at a tattoo shop and while we were waiting we looked through some of the design books they had. We found a page with several different thistle designs, including the one I chose. It's pretty and girly and very... me. I love it!

The first two pictures were taken the day I got it done and the last was taken today.

Tales from Northern Ireland

Well, Amy and I got back from Northern Ireland on Saturday and I'm just now finding the time to sit down and tell you all about it! Work has been busy and I've been trying to spend as much time with friends as possible these last few weeks we're here. We were over there for four days and packed a lot in so this post may be a little picture heavy. Here we go...

We flew in to Belfast on Wednesday and were met at the airport by our flatmate Neil and one of his friends. They took us to Carrickfergus Castle but we didn't have time to go inside. To be honest, it didn't really look all that thrilling anyways. We did have fun taking some pictures with a good looking knight though.



After the castle we went back to Belfast to take a guided tour of the city. We saw some pretty amazing buildings, the dockyard where Titanic was built (so cool!) and a lot of murals on both the Protestant and Catholic sides of the city. It was pretty crazy to hear about all the unrest that went on in the city.





After the tour we went out for dinner and then headed to Tobermore, the small town that Neil is from. The next day we started off at the rope bridge I wrote about before. Amy and I were excited to go across but everyone else we were with were a little scared. We all managed to walk... or in some cases more like run... across to get some amazing views of the Irish coast.


We then headed over to Bushmills whiskey distillery, which, at 400 years, is one of the oldest in the world. We went on a tour of the distillery but unfortunately they were shut down for repairs that day so we didn't actually get to see any whiskey being made. At the end of the tour we were offered a free dram to try. The guide said there was one that tasted like chocolate and caramel, so I decided to go for that one. Lets just say it did NOT taste anything like chocolate OR caramel and I barely got one sip down. Whiskey is not my friend.

We then headed to Giants Causeway. The best words to describe it are: amazing, beauitful, weird and crazy. It's just so weird that all of the rocks are about the same size and shape. There are two different versions of why the rocks are there. The first has to do with lava many millions of years ago and the second is about the giant Finn McCool. I'll let you decide which one you believe.


After a delicious dinner and some fun and games at an indoor theme park, we headed back to Tobermore. The next day we went on a tour of Londonderry. It is another city that was really affected by the troubles between the Catholics and Protestents. Londonderry was a really pretty walled city. We went on a walking tour of the walls and got some history of the troubles that went on there. After a few hours we headed to a place called Musseden Temple. I don't know much about this place but it sure was beautiful. I'll let the pictures do the talking.



Amy and I had a ton of fun here snapping lots of pictures. It was definitely one of our favourite places on the trip. Overall we had a great time in Northern Ireland and packed a lot in to the four days we were there. Theres still lots of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that we want to see, though!