One of my bucket list items was to see the trouble spots of Belfast. I grew up hearing about the troubles on news and television. We organised the black cab tour of the trouble spots through the concierge of the Hilton Hotel. The bloke that picked us up is in in his 60s and had lived in West Belfast through the troubles. He could describe what it was like living there during the troubles and how it is slowly changing. I was amazed to see the peace wall (massive s...

Leaving Donegal we trudged our bags from the hotel down to the car park. Right next to the car park was an old anchor. Reading the plaque it turns out thus anchor is from a French ship that was dropping off Wolfe Tone and some French soldiers to support the 1798 uprising. They cut the anchor to escape a British attack. The ship, was later captured and renamed as HMS ??? and used in Nelsons fleet. Looking at history maps here I didn't realise how many ships of the...

A fairly quiet day. 12 hour flight to London Heathrow, overnight at Sofitel Heathrow them off to Ireland in the morning. It felt like Cathay Pacific set their cabin temperature higher than QANTAS. Laid my seat down to have a sleep, woke up an hour later saturated. I ended up just watching movies and had another hours sleep just before landing. There was a selection of classic films on the flight so I watched Forrest Gump. I had forgotten how good it was. Landed 2...