40 Saturday, May 3rd, 2008: Trip to Belfast.

Half pass one the whole O' Mathuna family and me packed into the car -like sardines- and headed to Belfast. Belfast is in Northern Ireland which is not part of the Republic of Ireland (<-- I live there). Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and in the Ulster provenince of the entire Ireland. They do have their own government which is based on courts and tribunals instead of executive and legislative branches. The technical term is common law. Cheri and Donal (D.C.) said they would take me on one big trip and I decided on Giant's Causeway. It is a beautiful and fascinating place. Giant's Causeway in Antrim County was not far from Belfast. Luckily D.C. knew some college boys and girls that we could stay with. Donal offered to take me, Conor and Peter mountain climbing in Armagh County, also in Ulster. This is where I started thinking about the implications of the senior flavor, 'Risk'. Obviously I have taken risks but this was a different type of risk. I am afraid of hights and have never climbed a mountain before. The "mountains" here are basically hills. The tallest "mountain" is only 3,000 plus feet. The mountain that we were to climb is Slieve Gullion ('slieve' means mounatin in Irish) at 1,894 feet high. For someone who is afraid of a 20 feet climbing wall this truly was a mountain. I decided to climb it for three reasons. One being the taking risks factor. Two being to hopefully conquer my fear of hights. Three being that there was an archaeological gold mine on top of the mountain; two passage tombs that dated to 3,000 + B.C. Slieve Gullion has been mentioned in text since 600 AD in the Táin Bó Cúalnge, an epic tale about a man named Cuchulain (pronounced coo-call-in) who must defend Ulster single-handedly. In the book they call Slieve Gullion a more Irish sounding name though. Physiclly it was a volcano that had a massive explosion 60 million years ago. Which I later noticed on the mountain that the dirt was black. I was armed in 6 layers including a water proof windbreaker, gloves, a water bottle and double socks. The mountain is not covered with trees and is very bare excpet for shrubs, grass, rocks and small flowers. The incredible force of the winds I had not anticipated. I have never in my life felt like I was going to be blown away until I was on Slieve Gullion. When I got out of the car my body was pushed back a few steps. The hiking boots I have has a fabulous grip on them so I felt pretty secure. Physically it was strenuous. Walking with gravity against you opposed to behind you is difficult. Determined not to seem tired, out of breath and weak made me forget about the steepness of Slieve Gullion. I watched a documentary a few months ago about Earnest Shackleton with my dad about how he and his crew survived in Antartica for two years. What he did was insane. Anyways, I have used Earnest Shackleton for motovation (haha, Graham School mural) in difficult times like climbing Slieve Gullion. But I am happy and proud to say I made it to the top. I was so happy about seeing the passage tombs and Calliag Bheara's Lake (Lake Hag or Witch) that I skipped down the mountain. Then suddenly I fell in a hole. To be more precise one leg fell in the hole, there was only enough room for a leg. The hole was so deep that it came up to my thigh. I imagined a diamond back snake sunking its poisonous fangs into my leg. I was at least 6 minutes ahead of everyone. I scrambled out of that dang hole. That had to be scariest part of the mountain climbing. I arrived on the step of the Belfast boys door looking like a walking mud cake. The guys were sweet and hilarious. They cooked food on the grill for me, D.C., P.C. ( Conor and Peter). I changed my pants there because they were covered in mud. When I went to leave (Murph was walking me to the girls house) the house I almost forgot my pants. I asked Murph and Matt if they saw my pants. I said they had mud all over them. They started cracking up and I thought it was about something else. They could of stopped me from bursting into the living room where a bunch of people were at. Which I loudly exclaimed if anyone had seen my muddy pants. What I forgot was that pants mean underwear. Trousers are pants. So embaressing! That was my first cultural ut-oh. I really had a great time at the boys house. The girls house I just slept at.