Aran Islands: Inishmore

Update Time!! Sooo, the Aran Islands =)

I have to say that this trip was pretty incredible. Even if it was for a short while, it might have been my favorite, even more than Dingle. Part of it is the place. Inishmore so reminded me of Northern California (Monterey and Carmel ... etc). I know I've said that Ireland reminds me of these places before, but nothing reminded me of them more than Inishmore. I think part of it was the experience I had, but I'll get to that later.

We left at an actual reasonable hour for this trip. The bus picked us up around 9:30 and we arrived in Doolin where the ferry would take us to the Island.

This was before we got on the ferry, look at the cute little boats!

haha of course the ferry that took us over is owned by O'Briens =)

This was just the coastline where we hung out while we waited for the ferry. It was such a beautiful day and the water looked wonderful! It would have been great to just jump in and swim around except for the fact that it was probably freezing haha. Florida ocean water has spoiled me =P

The ferry!

At the expense of looking really stupid I obviously had to get a picture with it, haha.

We got on the ferry and started heading out towards the Islands. There are three of them (Inisheer, Inishmaan, and Inishmore). We were heading to the largest of the three and also the most far away so it as about an hour/hour and a half long boat ride. It was wonderful though! I miss being on boats, I don't go on them often, but I love it when I get the chance to be on the water, so even though it was just a ferry, it was still a treat, haha.

Some of our group on the ferry

The first of the Islands

Once we docked we headed to our hostel and then all immediately dispersed to get food, below are pictures of our cute little room. The hostel was really nice, actually, probably the nicest we've been in.

This is the cafe were we ended up having lunch. Hannah, Erica, Shawn, and I were starving and I was feeling picky that day and wanted a cup of coffee in addition to sitting down so instead of getting food at the deli next door at Spar we found this place. Hannah and I maybe didn't make the best choice of food, but the cafe was nice and I got my coffee so it was alright. Also, I decided to show you this photo because this painting on the front cracked us up every time we walked by hahaha.

We got a bit of a later start than everyone else on what we were doing for some reason, but after lunch we went back to the hostel to see if we could find anyone anyways. We ran into our friend Meghann on her rented bike. She had just gotten back from a little adventure of her own and helped us decide that renting bikes for the day would be the way to go. After a very confusing and embarrassing (in terms of our math skills) interaction with the very nice bike renting guy we had our bikes and were ready to take off. Luckily Shawn was there to be dad again because otherwise we would have looked like total doofuses trying to understand the guy/understand prices, deposits, and our own money counting haha. He also got a map from the guy so we could figure out where we wanted to go.

As we headed out we caught Meghann and she decided to come with us. We were in search of 1. an old run-down lighthouse and 2. "The most spectacular cliff fort in Europe" aka Dun Aonghasa.

We decided to stop here to check out the rocks and the view since it was on the way. We were on bikes and it was a beautiful day, why not explore as much as possible? The burren landscape is just so interesting to me, look at all those beautiful rocks!

Remember the layers of mud I was talking about earlier that you can see in the rocks from the side? Well there you go! That's exactly what I was talking about, all those horizontal lines are separations of the layers.

So many rock walls everywhere. I love them! Gordon D'Arcy said the rock walls on the Aran Islands are some of the best rock walls in the Burren.

Shawn and Meghann ON BIKES!

We finally reached our first destination, the old lighthouse. This lighthouse is the highest point on the island, and you can tell! Not only was it quite a hike up on the bikes, the trail was steep too. Some of us had a bit of a hard time getting up there, we had to take a lot of breaks (it's the food here! We are all so squishy and out of shape, haha) but we finally made it to the top and it was amazing. Enough chatter though, here are some pictures =)

On our way up to the lighthouse.

Inside the building next to the tower. (This photo is especially for Uncle Jim and Aunt Terri: Kind of resembles a medieval version of that house we explored on one of our trips with all the... uh... graffiti, yeah? hahaha)

Inside the staircase towards the top of the Lighthouse

View from the top!

Erica, Hannah, and me on top of the lighthouse

Aaaand on the tippy top! It was kind of scary up there, not gonna lie =P

So after that we headed to our next destination, BUT, we got distracted by the prospect of a seal colony. Like I said before, we had bikes and it was a beautiful day so why not explore? We got to a fork in the road and took the one along the coast to find the seals. It took us a little while but we finally found them! I didn't take any pictures of them because I didn't have a zoom lens with me, but they were there, far away, but there haha. On our way to the colony we stopped at another little beach with lots of rocks and lots of tide pools (since it was low tide) and we found a TON of snails! It was pretty cool.

This was the beach with the snails.

And our bikes =)

We stayed at the beach for a good while hanging out on the rocks and we ran into a few of our other friends. After a while though it was decision time since it was getting late an we were all getting pretty tired. Shawn still wanted to go to the fort and everyone else was pretty tuckered out. Erica and Meghann decided to head back and Hannah and I, intrigued by curiosity and the promise from Shawn that it would indeed be spectacular, decided to join him to the fort. It was VERY tiring and the information building had closed by the time we got there so we had to figure it all out ourselves. It kind of almost felt like we were the only people left on earth because it was so quiet. Well, except for the wind and the ocean pounding against the cliffs in the distance. It was sort of a zombie apocalypse type feel, but cool nonetheless. Despite our exhaustion, I have to say it was pretty incredible. We were almost shocked at it's beauty; and even though we were there fairly late in the day, we got to see the sunset start over the ocean which was wonderful. I have to say, to be so high up on the cliffs, over the ocean, watching the sunset... it was quite a sight to see. These photos, again, don't really do it justice, but you can get an idea.

Cool house and tree on the way there

What the fort looked like on the outside as we walked up to it.

The view from the inside

haha, I was REALLY high up, it was a little disorienting, but also remarkable. I can't even describe the feeling of sitting on the side of a cliff at sunset with nothing but the sound of the ocean and the waves. That will probably be one of my favorite memories from my stay here in Ireland.

Also, there were a ton of little wildflowers growing through the rocks on the cliffs. I actually picked some and pressed them in my moleskine that I had with me =)

Above is what the inside of the fort structure looked like and below is the other side of the semi-circle.

So yeah, that was Dun Aonghasa. Quite spectacular. Now we were really tired and it was starting to get darker so it was really time to head back to the hostel. We got back on our bikes and made it back somehow haha.

Above is the sunset on the bike ride home. It was really beautiful. The bike ride back to the hostel was pretty long but we took the road along the coast that looped around and Hannah, Shawn, and I went at our own paces so it was some nice quiet time. Remember in the beginning when I said this place reminded me of Monterey/Carmel? Well this part especially did. Mostly it reminded me of the trips I take with my sister, Aunt, and Uncle and our adventures along the coast, especially at this time of day. The cool sea breeze, the smell of the ocean, the low sunlight casting blue shadows and a pink glow to everything. It's so magical.

Once we got back, Hannah, Shawn, and I were in dire need of dinner so we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and went on a search for some food. We ended up at the American Bar, haha, ironic, right? I got the fish and chips because what else would I get on an Island in Ireland? It was alright in reality, but I was starving so it actually was delicious at the time. We stayed there for a long while chatting and observing the bar goers, it was interesting to say the least. Afterwards we split with shawn and after a bit of roaming around Hannah and I decided to go to bed. It was pretty early, but we were so incredibly tired from that day we just didn't have the energy to do anything else.

The next day we got up around 9:30 so we could bring our bikes back to the renter by 10:30. After giving them back we headed back to the hostel and ate some light breakfast, mostly toast with jam, and hung out with our friends for a while. Most of us opted to take it easy that day since the day before we had done a lot of physical activity. Now, normally I would have been totally gung ho to do some more exploring, but there was something about that day in which I really wanted to just hang around. I kind of wish I had explored a little more, but I vaguely remember my mental state that day and I've settled with the idea that it was probably better that I didn't.

After hanging around for a while I needed some coffee so Hannah and I went back to the cafe we went to the day before. We finally started to wake up a little bit, but she was NOT feeling well (she was sick previously and was starting to feel ill again, I could definitely hear it in her lack of voice - another reason I opted to stick around home base as opposed to leaving her behind) so neither of us were that talkative, which was fine actually. After a while we ended up getting a second breakfast, haha, because why not? It was really good, I had some porridge with honey, cinnamon, and raisins. I'd never had porridge before and I liked it a lot! Anyways, we hung around there for a long time, long enough to sit through the stampede of church goers just getting out of mass. It was a nice people watching experience as well as a nice breakfast experience, haha. We finally left and made a stop at the Woolen Store, because of course we had to browse what the Aran Islands had to offer in terms of sweaters and such. Everything was very expensive of course, but I got a nice scarf and Hannah got a BEAUTIFUL sea green cardigan that is absolutely to die for. We then headed back to the hostel to hang out with Mandy and Scott (her boyfriend that was visiting) for a while after making a quick snack stop at Spar. It was pleasant, but everyone was so tired by Sunday that we were ready to leave, which we finally did around 5:30.

Ferry ride back, clearly we were tired, haha.

The woolen sheep hat Mandy got at the Woolen store, it matches her eyes!

So that was the Aran Island trip! It was a pretty wonderful experience and everyone had a really great time (not to mention everyone got a little sun, finally!) It's so funny seeing everyone now, some people take to the sun so well and have lovely tans. I'm not one of those people haha. This is a really long post, but the subject matter definitely deserved it considering how spectacular it was. I'll do a little update in my next post and show you some stuff around school, but for now I'm going to just do nothing for about 20 minutes since I've had an extremely productive day and I'm kind of tired. =)

Irish Studies: Burren National Park

Hi! So quick update on my life:

1. End of semester is coming up FAST, maybe a little too fast

2. BUT I'm wicked excited to start my traveling adventure afterwards so at least I have something to look forward to =)

3. Lots of artwork to finish: two paintings + final photo assignment

4. Going to the haunted castle this weekend! Whoo hoo!!!!

Alrighty, enough of that, now I'll tell you about my last Irish Studies class. So for this class the lecture was about modern Ireland (especially the Burren) and how the farming community is affected by change. I missed some of the lecture because I had to finish some emails and then I was VERY tired that day for whatever reason so I didn't retain much of what we talked about. Mostly though it was talking about the issues of preservation of the land and placement of certain buildings and structures as well as how the farmers of the past used to do their farming compared to today. Going off of those ideas we took a trip to Burren National Park to take a hike up one of the beautiful mountains there.

It's sort of funny because as untouched as the land is in the park, I feel like I see and experience a lot of what I saw living right here in Ballyvaughan. It was a pretty incredible experience though. For once we went on an actual hike, like up and up and up a mountain! It was so refreshing and tons of fun, not to mention it was a BEAUTIFUL day and the view from the top was spectacular. Unfortunately, like I have said before, none of these photos really get across how amazing it was up there. Even the photos of the view are nothing compared to the feeling of the wind on my face, how far back I could see through the Irish countryside, the warmth of the sun on my skin, and the smell of fresh, clean air; but maybe try and imagine all of those things when you take a look haha.

That's the mountain we climbed, above with one of the many rock walls, below is the tourlough with crystal clear water, so beautiful.

Start of the hike, haha Hannah being silly in the background

So, fun fact about the Burren: this whole area was once the ocean floor. Yup, way back when, most of Ireland was deep under the ocean, so all of the horizontal stripes in the rock (when you see it from the side) are the layers of mud and sediment that flattened and hardened through various weather treatments. All of the cracks on the top of the rocks are stress cracks from the weathering of the rock. So interesting, right? Anyways, this is relevant because the photo above is a coral fossil in the rock! There are lots and LOTS of fossil prints in these rocks because they are so old. I think it's really incredible and it's amazing how, when you look at the landscape, you can just imagine it being the ocean floor.

Lots of little wildflowers are growing!

Incredible view! It gets better, this wasn't even the top =P

haha that tiny grey and white dot in the middle is Gordon D'Arcy. He's like a mountain goat!

This is what I'm talking about, people! Look at those stress cracks! This is pretty much what we were walking on all the way up.

I love the rock walls here, I'm going to miss them in the US.

Up and over! This is a view of the other side of the mountain from the top.

Aaaand our descent. It was pretty much a cliff, folks, pretty difficult, but satisfying once we hit the bottom!

So on the way down my friends Loretta, Kendal, and I found this little valley with a bunch of really cool dead trees. Turns out there were more cool things in this little valley, the coolest being a skeleton of a dead bull! It was SO COOL you guys! Here are the photos of the bones, I've never seen the skeleton of a full animal other than in a museum, it was awesome.

There was this really amazing snarly tree, if I could have named the little valley it would be called death valley haha.

Aaand where the trail let out.

So that day we didn't have our regular bus driver, Brian, with us and the bus driver we DID have with us didn't quite understand what Gordon meant when he said meat us buy the end of the famine road. What's the famine road, you ask? well below you will see us walking it. I don't really know what it was all about, if that was just a name or if anything happened there, but it was A LOT of rocks and we were really tired haha. We got to the end and instead of having a comfy bus awaiting us, there was nothing. We ended up having to send one of our professors to go get the bus and we sat and waited a little while until we could board and be on our way back to Ballyvaughan.

I have to say that was probably by far one of my favorite Irish Studies trips. I know I said that about Coole Park, but this was even better because we were actually out in the wilderness, just us and whatever nature had to offer. It was a beautiful day and the place was incredible, we just couldn't have asked for anything better.

Alrighty, well my next post will be the Aran Islands but I have to edit the photos first so we'll see if I get it up by tonight.