Ireland: Thank God for free healthcare

We woke up at 7:45 this morning and stumbled off to breakfast. After eating, we helped them clean up the camp and packed ourselves lunches for the day. Our bus driver for the day showed up around eleven to take us to Belfast.

The first thing we did was go to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. We walked down a long path that led to a rickety rope bridge suspended about 80 feet above the water. The bridge moved as you crossed the 60 foot wide gap between the mainland and the island. It wasn’t as rickety as I hoped it would be though. It was like crossing a playground bridge.

Waiting in line for the bridge

Still waiting...

We started the hike back and Amanda fell down on the path. We had to run and track down the bus and ice for her because she was crying in pain. Once they managed to help her limp off the path, we decided she needed to go to the hospital, so we dropped her off.

The makeshift splint

Then we continued on to the Giant’s Causeway, which wasn’t anything like I expected. The rocks weren’t nearly as pretty as I had hoped. We climbed around on them though and took pictures of the coast while we were there before we went to the main building gift store.

We got back on the bus and headed to Dunluce Castle, which was actually just a remnant of what used to be a castle. Part of it had actually fallen in the water. We met a group of Girl Guides who are from the area and they walked around the remnants with us.

We went to their campsite down the road and they served us dinner. We had chicken with buns, corn on the cob, multiple flavors of ice cream, and chocolate cake. It was kind of weird because the girls could only cook so much at once, so they just kind of watched us eat. After dinner, we showed the girls our patches. They put theirs on camp blankets. I think that is much more useful in terms of display.

We had to leave them to pick Amanda up from the hospital. It turns out that she sprained her ankle. She is supposed to stay off it for 48 hours, but they didn’t give her crutches, so that should be interesting. Apparently their free health care only extends to walking aids if something is broken.

We came back to camp in order to do our clean up chores to prepare for the morning. I vacuumed the room with a cute miniature vacuum named Henry. We swept the hallway too and now we can’t do anything else until tomorrow.

Ireland: Fairy Liquid

I got up at 6:30 this morning to take a shower. Afterwards, we went down to breakfast, which was cereal, croissants, and French toast. We washed our dishes with fairy liquid, which is what they call dish soap.

We walked to the other side of camp and loaded onto the bus. It took us to a local roller skating rink in Bangor, which is apparently the only rink in Northern Ireland. We tried to bring a little America to the rink by requesting the “YMCA” and “Cha Cha Slide,” but the girls had already heard the songs. I can now say I roller skated in Northern Ireland though.

We took a long, boring walk through Bangor afterwards until it was time for the bus to take us back to camp. For lunch we had ham and cheese sandwiches, penguin chocolate bars that taste like kit-kats, traybakes which are chocolate covered sugar cookies, ham slices, and an apple.

Following lunch, we participated in a camp Olympics. Our group was in charge of the egg race for the Streamers group. We came in second for the competition. It was really boring to watch though and it started to pour halfway through so we had to finish inside.

We went to the camp store afterwards to buy notebook paper and postcards. Then at dinner we had noodles and meat sauce that I didn’t try. There were peas, some sort of apple crumble dish, jello, and ice cream too. Ice cream from Northern Ireland tastes good with jello.

The closing ceremonies for camp Yahoo were tonight, so we were treated to a talent show performed by the girls and participated in camp songs.

Ireland: Camping

We woke up at 3AM this morning and I called home because it was actually a fairly decent time there. Everyone got ready really quickly and we met Tony outside and hopped on the bus. Everyone fell back asleep the second we sat down while he drove us through the Irish countryside and up to the outskirts of Belfast where a Girl Guide camp is located.

After the bus ride this morning that I mostly slept though, we finally arrived at the Girl Guide camp in Belfast. The ride took six hours. We ate breakfast in the main house on fancy plates. I ate rice krispies, apple, and some toast. I really like the imitation American food they have here.

The main house where we ate breakfast

The Girl Guide camp is so much better than the hostel we stayed at in Cork. Instead of two rooms with three sets of bunk beds and a private bathroom, we have four rooms. Our room has four beds with drawers and closets. We have a somewhat clean bathroom down the hall.

After breakfast, we unpacked before heading to the climbing cube. We were talking to the girls at the cube who were ranging in age from eleven to fourteen and they brought up the show “16 and Pregnant”. They asked if it was a traditional in America. It’s funny the type of culture we convey through the television.

The climbing cube was fun. The first run was rather boring, but the second time up I was able to jump off a landing and hit a small punching bad while they took a picture.

After climbing, we went to archery, which made me rather uncomfortable because I’m not very good at it. I was able to hit a couple of bull’s eyes, but I didn’t win anything. Amanda won a curley-whirley, which is like a candy bar, for getting the most points.

Next we split up with our rooms for lunch. I had a ham sandwich on wheat bread with an apple, salt and vinegar crisps (ew!), a kit-kat, and some type of cookie with chocolate on top in a brownie shape. It was filling. It was kind of weird though because they had us eat under a huge tent all by ourselves.

After lunch, we went to shooting and practiced with BB guns. At first I didn’t get it because I wasn’t looking down far enough, but I finally figured it out and managed to hit a few targets before we switched to the sling shot activity that was really boring. Finally, we went sledding down a grassy hill using sleds with wheels on the bottom. The sleds were way too small for us.

We went back to our rooms and some of the girls changed so they could go on the river run, which looked torturous. Guys walked them through a freezing river with water up to their waists and threw buckets of water at them. I’m glad I didn’t do it. Some of the girls from our troop who participated walked away with large scrapes on their hands that had dirt in them. They had the hardest time finding peroxide to clean them out, apparently they don’t use that as much over here.

For dinner, we had ham and mashed potatoes. There was also sweet green peas and pineapple. At first, we thought we were going to starve because the portions were tiny, but thankfully they gave us seconds. Desert was vanilla ice cream and apple crumble. The vanilla tasted different, but good. I didn’t like the crumble though. It tasted too much like apple pie without cinnamon.

After dinner, we felt like celebrities. Everyone wanted to swap badges with us and talk to the Americans. We participated in a challenge that involved running around camp and doing random exercises. We met these girls – Caitlin and Chloe – who were really awesome. They joined up with us and we did pretty well. We tried to exchange facebooks and e-mails with as many people as possible. Everyone loves the Americans.