Finally Saturday came, meaning it was time to take my tour to Giants Causeway.  It’s a hexagonal formation of layered basalt due to volcanic a long time ago.  But as I’ve figured out with these tours at this point, they make you see other things too.

Game of Thrones is shot in Titanic Studios (right next to the museum I was in earlier in the week) and also throughout a lot of Ireland that we visited on this tour.  I’ve only seen one episode, but a lot of people were really into it.  So now I can say I’ve been where Game of Thrones is filmed at least.

I know my brother really liked the pictures of Giants Causeway and really likes Game of Thrones, and as if I couldn’t make him any more jealous, the hostel I’m staying at goes and gives me a duvet cover and pillowcase of one of his favorite shows.

The tour guide company I went with does the loop in reverse, so our first stop was at Bushmills Distillery.  The world’s oldest whiskey distillery.  This meant I got to do whiskey tastings at about 11:30 in the morning, which really made me feel like I was back home in the office again.

Now that we were good and liquored up, it was time to go look at castles.  Or Dunluce Castle.  It was pretty run down (it’s just ruins at this point), but pretty big and cool to look at.  Here is that castle:

And then we went on to Giants Causeway.  Which was pretty cool.  We climbed all over them, plus we took the longer trek around them to see some more cool views and cliffs and such.  There were a lot of stairs.  Sooo many stairs.  All day.  But anyways, pictures are a better way to go about this I think.  Here are the general view ones first:

And here are the actual pictures of different parts of the Giants Causeway itself:

We had goat cheese and onion sandwiches for lunch at a cafe near the causeway, and then moved on to the Carrick-a-Rede bridge.  It’s in Game of Thrones too.  But it’s basically just a bridge connecting an island.  Not nearly as scary as I was hoping.  But here’s a picture I snagged as I walked over it.

But the views from that little island and path in general were really cool.  Here are pictures of it.

On the way back, we took the Antrim coast road, which was very scenic.  Or at least that’s what the brochure says – I was asleep for some of it.  A few of the highlights included:

– More stuff from Game of Thrones
– Stuff from Sons of Anarchy
– Where Liam Neeson grew up
– A hotel Winston Churchill owned
– Island where Richard Brandon crash-landed his hot air balloon during his circumnavigation attempt
– Island (same one) where Marconi made the first radio transfer

Then the last stop was Carrickfergus Castle.  Here are a couple pictures of it.

And so that was the tour.

After the tour, I had to try to find a place to stay the night.  But I couldn’t.  All the hostels and hotels were completely booked, except for one that was like 170 quid.  I wasn’t exactly sure how much you’d have to pay me to stay awake walking around all night, but apparently 170 quid will do it.  I hung out in the bus station until about midnight, sat by the River Lagan and read and wrote for a couple hours (finished Middlesex), sat in McDonald’s for a bit (the only 24 hour place out there), and then sat on a bench like a homeless man for a while (I stayed fairly close to the nightlife area, as I figured with people around it was the safest).  It being Sunday, nothing really opened until 8am too, so I had a lot of sitting around to do.  I am very tired, so rather than try to figure out my trip to Scotland today, instead I’m going to spend the night here and head to Scotland tomorrow morning.  The hostel I booked for tonight cost 15 pounds, which is much more my style.  I think I’ll treat myself to a lovely dinner tonight for surviving my all-night Belfast ordeal and saving $280.