The Legend of Finn McCool

This weekend was finally a weekend where we got a chance to go somewhere. We had our day trip! Saturday morning we woke up way to early, got a cab (3 of us that is, the others who like the morning walked) and got to the coach buses at around 8 30am. It was a whole Arcadia trip and included students studying in Dublin, Galway, Maynooth, Cork, and Belfast. There were three huge buses that we all loaded on and started our 1hr and half ish drive to Giants Causeway.

I fell asleep on the bus on the way there in a very uncomfortable position but it made the trip pass quickly. when we arrived we all split into different groups so we were managable for the tour guides. Our guide was Colin. He was an elderly man who used to be a teacher and was hilarious and just brilliant at tell the legends. this is him below to the right in the red. Right away we became aware of the intense wind of the North Coast and the north Atlantic. But lucky for us it ended up being a very sunny beautiful day. Even though I still ended up being all bundled up.

After our quick introduction to Colin and the legend my handy dandy geology knowledge became very useful! I answered more then one question right about the rocks of the Causeway. One, that they are all Igneous rocks, and Two, that the red coloring is caused through oxidation. Go me!
The legend of Fynn McCool is kinda a silly one but it makes sense as you walk along the park. It starts off by telling you that he was a huge giant, they know this because they have found his boot, which has been scientifically measured to be a size 16 i think is what he said. maybe 18. im not sure but BIG. See above. Anyways, all of the legends match with some feature of the landscape. like he had a camel, and that was how he got back to his wife, and that he had dog that kept watch over his camel, which is perched on the overlooking cliff. There is also a legend about his grandma, and his house, where you can still make out the chimney. Clearly, I am not a great story teller, but Colin was and it was super fascinating and beautiful. here are a couple more pictures just so you can see the pure beauty of the coast:




























The rocks on the right is the main reason this place has become of the one historically recogonized national sites that fits in the same category as the Grand Canyon. All of the rocks are basalt, but are shaped with perfect sides, in either 6 or 8 sided octagon type shapes. with some having either more or less. But this is the one place in the world that has the most of these type of rocks that was caused by a specific type of slow cooling lava however many million years ago. Its pretty awesome though and is IDEAL for rock hopping. which i did and had a lot of fun with. The last legend ill mention is that there is a "wishing chair" which is a stone much like these thats set in a higher stack that makes it look like a thrown. The legend is that you sit in it, make a wish and shake your butt 3 times. no more and no less. then your wish will come true! It famous for actually working :) here is me sitting in the thrown

After we went through the park he had to hike up a TOWER of stairs where i thought i was going to maybe pass out since i got so hot, considering the number of layers i has on, and you can kinda tell from this picture. We went to the gift shop, i got some postcards, and then we got back on the bus to go to this small coastal town for lunch.
Got there, wondered around until we found a place pretty far away because we were told to spread out for food. Problem, we only had an hour, and this place was definitely on Irish time. aka slow and Late. we didn't even get our food until we were supposed to be back at the bus. We ended up making the whole bus wait for us and we got there 23 minutes past when we were supposed to. oops. At least we got food. After being stuffed from shoveling food, i passed out again on the ride home. We got dropped off at the hostel and had to walk the 30 minutes back to our housing and when i got home i passed out again for a close to 5 hour nap.

After that the weekend was pretty uneventful and consisted of watching Mulan with Clarissa after i woke up from my nap, then sleeping in Sunday until 2pm. Got super motivated and cleaned my whole room, organized, sanitized, and did laundry including my sheets! It makes me feel quite happy but also still only kinda productive. I am hoping to go to trampoline tomorrow, they had a competition this weekend in Scotland and I look forward to seeing how they did. Other then that I am looking forward to the weekend because Makenna is coming to visit me from WALES!!! I am SO EXCITED TO SEE HER!! its going to be wonderful to have her here and i cant wait to show her around the few places i know about and just have an old friend around. :) Thats it for now but I will keep you posted. Also, check facebook for more beautiful pictures of the Giants Causeway. Facebook was being dumb so i couldn't load them all, but I am working on it so keep checking back <3 miss everyone!