Giving Thanks in Northern Ireland

Armed with the foreknowledge of how much I missed everyone for Thanksgiving last year, I decided to visit my friend, Lyn, in Northern Ireland for Thanksgiving in 2007. Lyn agreed it was a stellar plan and the plotting and planning began. Lyn was particularly excited about celebrating Thanksgiving which is not something they celebrate in the UK.

I flew out of Heathrow at 3pm on Wednesday and landed in Belfast less than an hour later. It was on the darkish side, so I only got the merest glimpse of the city, which is about a third the size of Portland.

After an excellent meal at the local eatery and a relaxing evening chatting and watching telly, we slept in a bit on Thanksgiving morning. After a quick breakfast we hit Sainsbury's for all the necessary accoutrements for a traditional Thanksgiving feast with an Irish twist.

Since there were only two of us, we opted for a turkey joint rather than an entire turkey as that might have been construed as overkill. To accompany the turkey were roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, gravy, a gorgeous stuffing made by Lyn, Irish treacle bread (also made by Lyn), and of course the one item required by any feast as which a Meliza presides... olives! For dessert there was pumpkin pie... naturally! It was made by yours truly as the entire UK thinks pumpkins are pig food and can't fathom why one would eat pumpkin in pie form. However, I have now converted Lyn to the glories of pumpkin pie.

On Friday we began our sightseeing adventures.

Northern Ireland, being mostly surrounded by a lot of water, had many gorgeous sea views. Beautiful. They've also got a seriously cool parliamentary building in Belfast. We took a quick car tour through the parking lot so I could snap a picture.

After driving through some seriously gorgeous countryside, we arrived at our first destination: Castle Ward (that's Lyn in the Castle Ward grounds on the left). I'm afraid Castle Ward looked nothing like a castle. Not a rampart or turret in sight. In fact, it looked like a big manor house. A big CLOSED manor house. For despite checking online to make sure it was open, it wasn't. However, the grounds were very pretty, so we consoled ourselves with a bit of a stroll around.

After our stroll, we decided a trip to the nearest town for a bathroom break and tea was in order. So, we clambered into the car and set off for Strangford...