The trip to Belfast and Dublin began with a flight delay.. well that is nothing new if you frequently fly on United! Some maintenance issues lead to a two hour delay! Once we got on the plane, it was fine.. well, kind of. As we were waiting for the door to close, I was happy to have the seat next to me completely empty! Well, not so fast.. right before the door closed, a young guy walked in muttering away and not looking very happy. As he plopped next to me, I could smell the alcohol on him.. oh no, I thought.. this is going to be fun. Well, I learnt a lesson- don’t judge a book by it’s cover. The guy ended up very sweet and nice- he was from Belfast.

Since then the experience has been absolutely lovely. I really appreciate friendly, helpful people and the Irish truly are.We easily got to our hotel, unpacked and ventured out. We were quite hungry but by the time we started walking, it was 2 pm and our choices for lunch became quite slim. We walked around quite a bit before ending up in a cafe and ordering a  scone, cappuccino and hot chocolate topped with yummy, fresh whipped cream for my daughter. The caffeine did us good and we continued walking around. As we sat by river Lagan, it started raining all of a sudden.. a few minutes before that we were enjoying a very sunny day. We ran for shelter and waited for it to do turn to a drizzle before we headed back to our hotel for a couple of hours before we ventured out for dinner.

Dinner happened to be right across our hotel. My daughter wanted fish and chips and the concierge suggested the pub across the street. I enjoyed a glass of Rose and a yummy burger on a traditional bap or a large soft roll. The food was yummy and beef patty was better than usual. We ended the evening with a sticky toffee pudding drizzled with butterscotch sauce with ice cream and whipped cream. The dessert was good but it was more of a sticky toffee cake not a pudding.

We headed right back to the hotel as we were quite tired and jet lagged. Off to bed to get ready for a full day tomorrow!

You are probably missing the food photos.. well, I had a technical difficulty.. I guess it was the lack of sleep!! Anyway, pictures starting tomorrow…