It's been only about two months since our last Ireland visit, but the traditional yearly family party was the reason for another trip so soon. This time, however, we decided to fly. The flight to Dublin was smooth, Ronja even got her own seat since the flight was not fully booked. From Dublin we went "directly" to Kilkeel. This being geographically simple. This part of the trip, however, was not so much fun: we would have just made the 1:20pm bus, but when Matt asked about buying tickets he was told that there were only twelve spots on the bus, which were already reserved for other people waiting. Further enquiry revealed that there also wouldn't be any guaranteed way to get seats on the bus an hour later (the bus starts in Dublin itself). Waiting in the cold for the possibilty of seats did not seem too attractive to us so we decided to take the train. Two hours later, having spent €11 to get ourselves into the center of Dublin and with the cheesiest baked potatoes I've ever eaten in our bellies we finally sat on the train to Newry. There we had to take a shuttle but to get to Newry bus station from where we got on another bus for the final stretch to Kilkeel - so in the end, even taking the plane, the trip took about 12 hours.
Today is actually our last day in Ireland already. We had two fun days in Kilkeel including a walk at the beach, an evening of music, poems and sketches and a short dip in the ice-cold river the next morning. Then it was back to Lisburn for a few days - the highlight this time: the visit of the Titanic quarter.
