Anarchy in the UK

Greetings from Northern Ireland! The trip over from Newark was fairly unremarkable. The flight was about six and a half hours and we did our best to try and get some sleep on Saturday night. We arrived in Belfast about 8:00am on Sunday morning and worked our way through Immigration and Customs. Laura’s uncle Sam and cousin Sam Jr. met us at the airport and we were on our way.

We stopped at Uncle Sam and Aunt Belle’s place east of Belfast Harbor in County Down and spent the morning catching up. With the time change, we thought it best to take a few hour’s nap and try and get our bodies regulated to the seven hour time difference. After napping, Laura and I decided to stretch our legs, go for a walk and see the neighborhood.

In the afternoon, Uncle Sam took us up the northern coast to Bangor where Sam Jr. and his wife Dawn as well as cousin Helen live. We visited with Sam and Dawn for a while and set out to grab a pint and pick up dinner.

Further up the coast in the town of Donaghadee we visited Grace Neill’s Bar, the oldest pub in Ireland – established in 1611. Our bartender Ross set us up with a round of Guinness and let us run the bar for a while. Apparently we had just missed visiting with Van Morrison who lives nearby and frequents this pub. We asked Ross to tell Van next time he is in that he just missed seeing us. The Guinness was fantastic. I think the Irish keep the good stuff for themselves.

A walk through town took us to a Chinese restaurant where we ordered take-out and commented on how nice it was of the Chinese to settle the world as they did so that all of us could have something to eat.

Back at Sam and Dawn’s we enjoyed our food, some nice wine, whiskey and conversation and were joined by Laura’s cousin Helen towards the end of the evening. We left with Helen to head to her house and settled in for our first night. Having family to visit with on this trip is a wonderful thing.