West Yorkshire, England!

We have been with Vaughan near Halifax in West Yorkshire, England for the last few days. We have been driving around, going hiking, taking lots of pictures, and checking out the area. Vaughan is really into photography and has lived here for over 30 years, so he knows all the good spots! He has been making us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and we've had some good meals! Halifax is an old textile town and now it is mostly abandoned factories and immigrants, but still nice to see. Vaughan's house is up in the Pennine hills and is a really nice place to stay. We are staying here until Wednesday morning, so we are going to make a day trip with Vaughan to Lancaster and Morcambe bay area tomorrow.

More Liverpool and Scouse Accents!

Today was another awesome day in England! We slept in again, had breakfast, then had a photo shoot with Matt's Triumph. It turned out really nice! I don't have Photoshop, but I put the original shot from the camera on Facebook. We walked down the road to eat lunch at "Moby Dick", it was a great meal with lots of steak and potatoes (a real English roast). Then we walked past the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, home of the British Open a few times, to get Matt's car from the shop (not the Porsche, but his VW Corrado Storm that had a coolant leak). We got the train into Liverpool and took a "Ferry 'cross the Mersey" and Matt's showed us around the city. It was very nice...we saw the Cavern, which is the first place the Beetles ever played. We met up with Vicky again and walked around town some more before we watched a concert and crazy dance show at the docks by the Beatles museum and ate hamburgers! We went to a pub and heard a really good band play some rock music...Coke for me and Hayley! Now we are back at Matt's in need of some sleep, but tomorrow we are going to check out the "Iron Men" before heading to meet Vaughan in Halifax!

Liverpool, England!

We finally made it to the home of the Beatles! Matt picked us up at the train station and drove us out to his place in the neighborhood of West Kirby. It is super nice here! He cooked slaved over some curry for us and invited his two neighbors Steve and Shulah over and his friend Vicky. We had a good time listening to their awesome accents and they wanted to see our trip pictures, so we showed them a slideshow of every picture on our facebook for the trip! We slept in a little bit because Matt is a web designer and can work when he wants. Then, we got up and went out for the day in his Porsche 993 Carrera S! We went for a walk up on a hilltop and could see all of the peninsula around West Kirby and into Wales. Matt also has a Triumph so we went to the Triumph dealer and it was really sweet! We bought a British Triumph patch and two shirts. We checked out Chester, an old city in Cheshire that has old Roman walls around it from 80 A.D. Some of the buildings there date to the 15th century. We had awesome milkshakes, saw Paul McCartney's house and some homes of the Liverpool "footballers". We drove around in the Porsche for a while and checked everything out before going to the grocery store and cooking dinner at Matt's. Tomorrow we are having a photoshoot with the Street Triple and going to Liverpool!

Dublin!

We made it to Dublin! We were supposed to meet a couchsurfer, but we don't have a phone so when we got to Dublin we looked up their address...and it was an hour walk outside the city! They never said where to meet up so...we sent them a message and said we were in the city center, but couldn't walk to meet them. We already had another CS'er here for tomorrow night and we had no internet, so we gave him a call and asked if we could just come over and use the WiFi to get a hold of the other guy. Turns out, he said we should just stay here for the night and tomorrow too! We are getting some sleep, but checking out Dublin tomorrow!
UPDATE: We checked out Dublin! We walked around the city and ate some lunch at a pub, no drinkin'. Then, we headed back and met with Valerio, our CS'er, and went out with him and a guy from Israel to a pub. They wouldn't let me in though because I had open-toed shoes! So, we just walked around, went back to the apartment and cooked a pizza with garlic bread and a side of cereal and orange juice...we are being thrifty! We left Ireland for England!

Northern Ireland!

We woke up early in Galway, ate breakfast and caught the train to Dublin. Our rolling suitcase is no longer rolling and it sucks to drag around, but we made it across Dublin to the other train station to get the train to Belfast, then eventually to Portrush (the 55 degrees north city on the coast). We got here and decided since we have couch surfers all next week, we would just get a B&B for 2 nights and check out the Giant's Causeway and the northern coast. Last night we got pizza and brought it back to the room. We got a $5 bus that we could hop on and off all day long to see all the cool stuff along the coast. We rode it 3 times and then after the last bus was gone and we wanted more time to see stuff, we just walked along this coastal hiking trail that went about 10 miles back to Portrush. It was awesome! We saw lots of sweet stuff and had great time hiking back at sunset/dark! Tomorrow we are heading to Dublin to meet a couchsurfer.

County Clare, Ireland!

This morning we caught the train to Dublin with Matt and Kathleen. We got off at Limerick Junction to head out toward the Cliffs of Moher and they headed out to Dublin, hopefully we'll see them again in the States someday! We went as far west in Ireland as Ennis and caught a bus to the cliffs from there. We got there at about 4pm and had until 7:15 until the bus to Doolin was going to pick us up. We left our bags at the visitor's center for free and headed out the trail. The whole thing was paved and there quite a few people there. We walked all the way to the end of the path and turned around. At the other end of the path, there were signs that said "Do not pass this point!" and "Danger" and "Private Property", so we went past all those signs :) and walked away from all the tourist to find the best views of the cliffs with no railings, pavement, or walkways. Just the dirt and us. Then I had to do what I had planned. I bought her the perfect ring before we left. But, I didn't take it with us because I'd probably lose it on a train or leave it somewhere. I got her a small white gold band instead, took pictures of her real ring and hid the band and the card full of pictures in my camera bag. We finally got to the perfect spot. Sitting on the edge of the cliff, I wanted to make a video to show everyone where we were. So, we start recording and say "Hey everybody we are here" blah blah blah then I turned around, took a picture of the awesome view and got up to show the camera. The picture was actually a picture of the ring...she thought I was just being crazy showing the camera the picture of the scenery, but she saw the picture and couldn't believe it! She went from smiling to "are you serious" in about a second. Then I showed her the band and asked her to marry me, she said YES! She couldn't believe it and it didn't really seem real it was so awesome! We hung out there for a while and walked around on the "wild" side of the cliffs before we headed back to the visitor's center to get our bags. A bus pulled up going to Galway, which was better than Doolin, so we hopped on. In Galway, there is a week on horse race that has the entire town packed full of people! The only place to stay in this town is a B&B for $80, but we are going to sleep good and we'll head off tomorrow to the Giant's Causeway on the northern coast!

Killarney, Kinsale, Cork!

We have had an awesome time so far in Ireland! We ended up staying with Gaetan and Stefanny here in Cork for a 3rd night. They are really nice and have done everything to show us around, eat with us, cook for us, even let us do laundry! The first day here in Cork, took a train to Killarney with Matt and Kathleen that we met on the train from the ferry. We walked about 15 miles in Killarney! There is a national park there with a huge lake, a big waterfall, and some castles. We ate at a pub again too! Kathleen left her phone at the train station and the people here are so nice, these two old Irish guys were going to Killarney and they said they would look for her phone and turn it in, the conductor of the train called the other station, they found it and sent it on the first train back to Cork the next morning. Everybody has helped us with directions, even walking with us (two different time) to show us where a certain street was. Geatan and Stef met us in the city and we ate dinner. The next morning, I FINALLY found a real camera store! I got an awesome tripod and ball head to replace the one that I wore out 2 weeks ago (whooo nice pictures to come)! Stef walked around with us in the morning and showed us the town, then just me and Hayley got a bus to Kinsale near where the Lusitania was sunk. We rented bikes there and had no idea that we would have to ride over 20 miles to see the huge coastal cliffs! We got our butts kicked by some crazy hills, cliffs, and wrong side the road driving! But, we got there and back by 6pm. We bought a bunch of cereal bars, pringles, and a whole big carton of orange juice to chug for our accomplishments when we rolled back into Kinsale. We checked out the craft shops and came back to Cork. They cooked dinner for us and we hung out for a while at their apartment. Tomorrow, we are heading out of here on a train to Galway to see the huge Cliffs of Moher (hopefully at sunset)!