Shelli's blog: A Quick Change of Plans

Yesterday started with us hurrying out of the house to catch the 9:15 train to Portrush. Steve was interested in seeing their airshow. At the station it was not looking good there were a lot of people waiting on the platform for the train. We have experienced a train ride to Portrush with standing room only and were not excited to repeat the process. When the announcement came minutes before the train arrived at our station that it was already standing room only our decision was made. We would visit somewhere else. Standing for 2 hrs on a train is not much fun. And who knew if we would be able to fit in a train with the big crowds to make the trip back. Some days being at the mercy of trains and buses is not easy.

Steve has been told by a number of co workers that Lisburn was a great place to go swimming. It is southwest of town, perfect everyone else was heading north to Portrush. The town of Lisburn has built a pool with a river winding around the inside instead of a pool and it has four water slides. It is an amazing set up for the small area it covers. I have borrowed a picture from their web site because photographs were not allowed.

Lisburn Valley Leisure Pool

They have a two tube rides, a falling rapids ride and a space bowl ride. The tube rides have jets on the bottom of the slide that propel the tube up hills to help gain more momentum for the downhill part. You really zing up the hills. Falling Rapids allows up to three people to slide together it is wide the whole way down. The catch is there are pools which catch you and push you under water before you surface and continue your trip down to the next pool. The kids loved this ride. The Space Bowl sends you down a fast slide and whirls you around in a bowl like a flushing toilet before dropping you out the bottom into a deep pool. This one was a little hard on small bodies Samuel's side was quiet sore after one ride.

Steve is still cautious of his back so he mostly watched us from the bubble pool and the river. The girls partnered up that left Samuel and I as partners. We were off to enjoyed the sides. Being the only pool of its kind in Northern Ireland makes it a very busy pool. They have color coded the wrist bands to help people know when their 90 minutes of pool time is up. The front desk did not mention this to us so we got an extra 30 minutes of swimming before a lifeguard mentioned our time was up, oops.

Outside the Leisure pool developers have built a theater and several restaurants. Perfect who is not hungry after swimming? We tried out a restaurant called Springsteen's. The kids and I were a little nervous to try it. We have discovered North American restaurants in Ireland can be some of the worst food we have eaten. We are happy to say, Springsteen's was not one of them, the food was great.

We walked through downtown Lisburn to return to the train, stopping at a museum along the way. The Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum was neat to see. They didn't allow photography so the only picture I have is this one.
Queen Elizabeth's table clothes are said to be Irish linen. I have heard even the White House uses Irish Linen on their tables.

Linen sellers - thread and material.

Back at home we watched the preparations for the BBC's Proms in the Park. The season finally was to be held on the Titanic slipway. Hundreds of people started walking by the apartment at 6:00 to get to the concert area. We were not able to purchase tickets but cold listen to the music on the radio. The concert took place on the far side of the museum so we could not see it but we took a walk and saw stage.