Claire Blogs Day 8: "Listen, Kanye was out of line, but he kind of had a point, and GAGA WAS ROBBED."

I'm pretty zonked, so I will replace attempts at wittiness with Pretty Pictures.

Holy moly, we slept well last night! It broke my heart a little bit to leave the Ballinalacken Castle House, given the beautiful views, comfortable beds, delicious food, and fine treatment we received there, but so it goes. We had a delectable breakfast and went on our way. This is a picture of the Castle House, complete with Castle:

We spent a windy morning exploring more of the Burren, which includes a number of prehistoric sights of interest as well as several castles and churches. We did not come near to hitting them all, but we did put in a valiant effort.

We started with the Kilfenora high crosses:
We moved on to a stone fort, circa 1000 AD:
Astonishingly enough, there is no mortar involved in the construction of the walls, which are significantly higher than I am tall. The fort came complete with an audio-visual presentation with an animated component that looked straight out of the Sims, Medieval Edition.

Next stop was the Poulnabrone Dolmen, a sacred burial site from...the Bronze Age? Can't remember:
We continued North to the Newtown Castle, 15th century, recently restored, and notable for being round, yet with a square base:
Did you know that the King of England incentivized the construction of castles in that era by giving 10 pounds to anyone that built one? The program was so popular the amount eventually had to be halved. Clearly the man was planning for economic future of Ireland by getting the tourist sites built early. Obama should take note.

Our last non-lunch non-gas stop before driving in earnest was at the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey, which was perhaps my favorite:
Along the way, we were also afforded numerous spectacular views of the countryside itself:
(that's the reflection of the sky in that there pond.)
(that's a mountain made of limestone.)

And then we drove back. As Emily mentioned, the Irish treatment of the "motorway" is interesting. It is VERY CLEARLY MARKED, almost to the point that you wonder if the engineers are a little worried, like, maybe this motorway thing is too confusing for a country of people accustomed to driving on roads with sufficient lateral space to accommodate 1.5 cars, maximum. The signage is superlative, and warn super far in advance of all oncoming hazards, exits, junctions, tolls...the only problem is, they still don't mark the presence/locations of gas stations, so we spent some time driving aimlessly around small towns in the center of Ireland. Can't win 'em all.

I find the Irish speed limit thing pretty mysterious. It's usually 50-60 km/hr in towns and 100 everywhere else. Well, except for the motorway, where it's 120, but that's fine. 100 km/hr is 62 mph, and "everywhere else" usually refers to narrow narrow roads that are windy, to boot. On the bright side, people never speed, but I think that that's because most cars don't have the handling required. It's easy to solve a speeding problem if you make it necessary to violate the laws of physics in order to exceed the posted limit.

We spent much of the drive to Dublin listening to Em's iPod. Country music was quite appropriate, since the Irish seem to really like it. It also allowed us to argue about the merits of Taylor Swift. Navigating the city was much easier this time around. Something about a decent map, more left-side-of-the-road practice, and sleep.

And now, as promised, back to the hostel life. Tomorrow promises a few more Dublin sites of interest, and then, sadly, our adventure must come to an end, we must return to work, and our travel blog will have to wait until our next adventure commences...

Bonus Picture Blog Post: Pictures That Wouldn't Upload Yesterday Edition

I'll do a real post later, but for now, a couple of pictures to illustrate yesterday's posts:

Cliffs of Moher, View 1:

Cliffs of Moher, View 2:
The sign we and hundreds of middle-aged Germans ignored:
The limestone of the Burren:
Ballinalacken Castle:
Unrelated: blogger's timestamps make absolutely 100% NO SENSE AT ALL. They end up showing our posts as being posted like 7.5 hours before they are. I do not know why.

The Irish discover the "moterway", and we discover that we are driving on a road that doesn't exist

Driving to Dublin from the west is easy, but peculiar, because all the maps swear that you have to take the N6 for a certain amount of time before you can get on the M6 (M's are the only proper highways in Ireland, N's are like the street I live on at home in NY or smaller, and R's are all teeny-tiny backroads....there are also things called L's-we've managed to avoid those, which is probably for the better as they are even smaller!). The thing is, all of the maps have the M6 beginning at a different point in the journey! So, with two college degrees, we did the smartest thing we could think of- we followed the signs to Dublin! This works just fine, and it makes sense once you get going, because the M6 is brand new. They appear to have started building in Dublin and are moving towards Galway, but the N6 is slowly becoming the M6. Anyway, the drive to Dublin subsumed most of our afternoon, but getting to the hostel here was WAY better than last time (when we had just arrived). We barely got lost at all, and it was not stressful (which was nice). We only have one more driving adventure left in Ireland (to the airport very early on Sunday), which is sad, because Claire has gotten good at the left-side thing, and I rather enjoy both the countryside and the hysterical signs.

However, our day did not begin with driving. Our day began at the lovely Castle house (where we both slept like babies), with a delightful breakfast of eggs, fruit salad, scones, irish soda bread, butter, jam, tea, yogurt, etc., etc., etc. It was wonderful! I think the tea, fruit salad, and irish soda bread with butter were the best parts. We then packed up and (sadly) said goodbye to the castle. We made our way towards Dublin very slowly at first, and we stopped at many sights in the Burren (which I misspelled yesterday- no surprise there). We saw a stone fort, a castle, a burial stone structure thingy from like forever ago....it was all very cool, and the terrain of the Burren is very cool with all the limestone around and just tufts of grass coming up between them (the cows seem to like this method of eating condensed grass). Speaking of cows, they have cows here in colors and patterns I have never, ever seen! So many kinds of cows!

Anyway, now we're in Dublin. Sharing a dorm with others for the first time in our trip, but it's a lovely room, and the other girls seems great. I'm hungry, so I think we're going to go find dinner and a pub, and then more adventures in Dublin tomorrow!

Hugs,
Emily

PS- my throat does in fact still hurt, but not quite as badly ;-).
PPS- Claire says "it's funny that we've now stayed in 2 hostels with confessionals on the grounds." I needed to share that with you all!

Claire Blogs Day 8: Drive Carefully, Castle Ahead

Title taken from an actual sign that we passed while driving to Doolin. Alternative title: "Keep Clare Clean", referring to the County, in which we are currently residing. Emily's response: "I try, you know, but it's not my fault you refuse to shower."

We have arrived at the Ballinalacken Castle House hotel, near Doolin, on the coast, approximately 1.5 hours south of Galway. We had, as usual, glorious weather for the drive. The guys at the next table at lunch, Irish guys on vacation, told us that this is honestly the best weather they've had in three years. To illustrate, one of them pointed to his sunscreen and said "Honestly, I last used this bottle five years ago." I had mussels again, since I had such luck with them last time. These were actually wild, and it makes a real difference, and not just because some of them have barnacles on their shells.

The drive to the Castle House was really breathtaking. I find Ireland really interesting in how it has so many different micro-climates, really, because the Burren is spectacular in a way that is totally different from the way Connemara is spectacular, and they can't be more than 2 hours from one another. This has been true in general as we've crossed the country. I only wish we had more pictures, as the drive took us right along the water, and the ocean is a very striking shade of blue.

After lunch, as our room was not yet ready, we went to the Cliffs of Moher. I've been trying to upload pictures of the cliffs for several long minutes, and I think the wifi just can't handle it, which is Very Very Sad. Ask me later, or ask flickr, because it's stupid of me to try to describe them. They're not the number 1 tourist attraction in Ireland for nothing. The cliffs are adorned with a very shiny, newish Visitor's Center and a well-paved walkway, with walls. At the end of the Designated Walk Area, one finds a sign that says, more or less "DON'T GO ANY FURTHER". On the other side of the sign is a well-trodden pathway along the cliffs, but no more walls between the path and the void. And many, many German tourists. So we ignored the sign. Emily did not let me walk as far as I would have, which is probably all for the best.

We then checked in to the Ballinalacken Castle House, which is gorgeous. We can see the sea from our room! The hostels have been very nice, but honestly, a nice hotel has a number of advantages over a nice hostel, like soft fluffy towels that smell very nice and clean and a gorgeous hot shower in a bath that doesn't require flip flops or repeatedly pressing a button to make the water come out. It's decorated in a Georgian style, and it's just very...grand.

Before dinner, we followed the directions of the apparent owner of the house: "Take a right, all the way right, then go up a hill and down a hill and up a hill and down a hill and up a hill, and park, and then you can walk along the Burren Way [a hiking path] as long as you like. You can't miss it. Drive carefully, it's quite narrow." That's a direct quote.

(related: I think the roads south of Galway are noticeably narrower than the roads north of Galway. This is not a good thing.)

Those directions were 100% accurate, despite my new found aversion to any directions that include the phrase "You can't miss it." All directions given by Irish people include this phrase.

The Burren is very peculiar and also very hard to describe; perhaps wikipedia can be more accurate than I. There are rocks right in the ground, and it's almost like they're in water and you have to jump a bit from rock to rock to avoid getting wet, only between the rocks, instead of water, there are deep indentations where grass and flowers (more buttercups than I have ever seen in one place in my life) grow. We didn't spend too long, but we had some great views, and the countryside is certainly unique. You can see the Aran Islands from there!

And then, dinner. Oh, dinner! We had the best table in the house, with a view of the sea and the cliffs of Moher. Dinner is included in our stay (very reasonably priced, btw), so naturally, Em got the duck spring rolls and the beef (all the cows here seem so happy it's kind of a joy to eat them), and I got a baked goat cheese on salad and the lamb chops (the above also applies to the sheep), and then we split chocolate mouse and sticky toffee pudding for dessert, and some peppermint tea. Oh, and wine. We really need to get on the digesting, because we have a full breakfast to eat tomorrow, and I may never eat again, as of right now.

The best part of the hotel stay so far, however, was after dinner. The Ballinalacken Castle House is right next to, guess it...the Ballinalacken Castle! Said castle was built by the O'Brian clan (short people, by the height of their doorways) in the 14th century, and added to several times, and finally abandoned in the late 18th century. The hotel used to leave the ruins open to the public, but the public was slowly destroying them, and so they have gated the walls and locked the entrance.

This made us a little sad.

Fortunately, we're apparently pretty cute when we're sad, because the hotel manager very graciously took us on a personal tour after dinner. This was exceptionally cool of him, as the restaurant was still quite busy, and, by extension, so was he. As for the castle, the tour was quite comprehensive: we went in the main room, and then up the tower to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors, and then the roof. Of course, the floors and roofs themselves are gone, but not entirely - the lower floors stone roofs, so we were able to walk around and admire the fireplaces from various eras. The manager knows enough about the architecture to fill in some interesting details. Yes, I got pictures, that I will post eventually when I'm on wifi that doesn't hate me.

Funnily enough, the manager went to Montauk on vacation several winters ago. Also funny: he asked how we had heard of the Ballinalacken Castle House. I told him that our mother had suggested it based on the March Bon Appetit review, and apparently the author of review is actually coming to stay here this weekend. I'm sad we're missing him!

Tomorrow: more Burren exploration, and a drive back to Dublin, and back to hostel life!

"So, are you like the keeper of the castle now?"

Well, Claire is working on a lengthy post for you all, but it's late, and I am excitedly awaiting falling into the nice soft bed waiting for me here at the one (very) nice hotel of our time in Ireland! We are staying tonight in a lovely hotel next to a castle dating back to the 1300's. The coolest part of today has definitely been that the manager of the hotel gave us a tour of the usually locked castle. He took us up into it (it has a tone of floors, and all of the stone is still standing). It was SOOOOO cool! Non of our castles thus far have been safe to climb up in, but this one was, and he told us all about it. This was made even better by the fact that the manager was wearing a suit and Claire and I were in sundresses climbing up a medieval castle! At this point, I asked what should have been the silliest question of our trip..."so, are you like the keeper of the castle now?". This would have been a silly question, except the manager just answered "yes", as if it was a normal question! The castles here are great. They're just like the ones in fairy-tales from when we were little.

We've had lots of other fun today! We drove to the Buren (pronounced Burn), which was a beautiful drive along the sea. After stopping by our hotel, we headed to the Cliffs of Moher, which are a breathtaking set of cliffs that drop right into the sea. We took like a million pictures, and we only ventured a little past the signs marking the end of the (very safe) tourist part (but don't worry, lots of other tourists did too!). We then went for a nice hike in the Buren, which has a very peculiar landscape, much like the Aran Islands. Almost everything is made of very porous rock. There were beautiful views of the sea and the cliffs, and lots of strangely colored cows.

We then headed back to the hotel, where we both took long, luxurious showers in the very nice bathroom here, and had a 2.5 hour AMAZING dinner at the restaurant here. I'm sure Claire will tell you all about it, and I'm really looking forward to my bed, so I'll spare you ;-).

Tomorrow we will have a leisurely breakfast here at the Castle house, check out a bit more of the Buren, and then head back to Dublin.

My sinuses are much better, but my throat is not happy! Oh well, I'm not letting it ruin my fun!

Hugs,
Emily

Claire Blogs Day 7: I Am a Very Handsome Woman, and Easy on the Eyes

I love Galway. I really do. It's more like a big town than a city, and very very pedestrian-friendly. We dealt with our mid-vacation exhaustion by taking today pretty easy, but still managed to see the whole city, do some shopping, visit a pub, take 130 pictures or so, and meet some incredibly entertaining locals.

This morning was for the history, as we went to the Galway museum and visited the various other sites of interest around the city. This included a couple of churches, such as the one in which Columbus is purported to have prayed before setting sail for America. Mostly, though, we wandered, in and out of shops, around pedestrian malls and streets, and into used booksellers. In the West End, we found a bookshop that not only sold us each three books for 10 EUR, but also contained a couple of locals who could confirm the Irish interest in American country music. This was good, as we had been wondering; more than one restaurant we have visited has had country music playing, and we were definitely Confused. One of the men also mentioned that the weather we've been enjoying on the whole (sunny and beautiful) is not normal, and we shouldn't expect it again if we come back next year. I think we're just good-weather totems, at least for vacations (albeit not for graduations).

The afternoon was spent drinking tea, window-shopping, and reading; I picked up some sci-fi, Irish mythology, and Irish history to keep myself busy (yes, I brought books, but somehow they haven't been matching my mood...). This was fitting: as we applied sunscreen this morning, it was, of course, raining, and so reading-in-coffee-shops was a better plan than spending-much-time-outside.

We had a pasta dinner along the primary pedestrian street. 6.90 EUR each for giant pasta plates! Best deal in the city, as far as I can tell. Galway has been hella cheap, actually, as we followed up cheap pasta with a free chamber choir concert at St. Nicholas's church (this adds to the free beer and bar snacks and free wandering and free museum...). Although St. Nicholas is now considered the patron saint of children (Santa Claus), he was once largely thought of as the patron saint of sailors, which is why seaside towns like Galway are rife with Churches of St. Nicholas. The music was lovely, in any case, and a good, wholesome way to spend the evening.

But it was not the best part of the evening

No, the best part of the evening, by far, was afterwards, at Richardson's, a pub off Eyre Sq (where our hostel is located, roughly). I cannot recommend the pub thing in Ireland enough. Pubs in Ireland are large, with plentiful seating and good lighting and appropriate noise levels, and most have some sort of live music almost every night. Pubs in Ireland are just places where strangers hang out and talk and make friends, and have a drink or two at totally reasonable prices, and eat some food if hungry, but not if not, really, whatever suits you, and the locals, usually oldish drunk Irish guys, are both the friendliest and the funniest of the bunch. This pub was no exception.

Richarson's was quite empty when we got there, around 9 pm, but with promises of live music to come, we settled in with some pints and hung out. At this point, Sarle, a regular, passed our table on his way to the men's room. He saw us, and started making conversation. Just friendly stuff, how are you, where are you from, what do you do, etc. He was obviously far beyond his first beer: "I'm sorry, I'm just pissed. In fact, I've been pissed since......what's today?" "Wednesday." "...1976!" "1976?! That's a long time..." "No kidding!"

By his account, his goddaughter has been staying with him, with a friend. They're both 14, and have scared him out of the house.

It only got better. Sarle's friend Tom came by too, both with pints, and really, I can't convey this in a blog post, but it was hilarious. The Irish have a concept they call craic, pronounced crack, which means good times and laughter and fun, and that was all anyone was after, so the conversation was just funny and goofy. The music started, a guy with a guitar, and Tom, Sarle, and I ended up swaying in a row and singing along (most especially, but not exclusively, to the song "It's a long long way from here to Clare"). Emily is sad she has no photographic evidence of this, but I think it's one of those things we'll just have to remember. Neither Sarle nor Tom was trying to pick us up (unlike our friend in Cong), and in fact, a running joke was the comfort zone of space that Sarle and I left between each other on the bench so as to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. He did, however, see fit to give us a compliment or two. I am evidently a very handsome woman, and Emily is also fairly easy on the eyes, but as she is but a child, at 21, we aren't to tell anyone he said so.

We took our leave not too late, as we have a busy day planned tomorrow, but it was really an incredibly funny evening all around.

Also, I had too much Guinness and now must go lie down without posting pictures. I'm sorry! Tomorrow we're off to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, so hopefully I'll make it up to you then.

a lazy couple of days in Galway

The epic-ness of our adventures have finally caught up with us! Claire is sleepy, and my sinuses have decided to hate me, but thanks to coffee and sudafed (respectively), we have not let that interfere with our fun. I may, however, completely lose my voice before we get back to the states!

Last night we had a delicious dinner of chocolaty crepes (we had had a late lunch), and then headed to a pub that was playing "trad"-traditional Irish music. We met some nice Professors from Hofstra University and their students and enjoyed chatting with them about all sorts of things for a couple of hours. We then returned to the hostel, at which point I, voiceless and tired, fell right into bed (while Claire updated you with lots of picture).

This morning I decided that I wasn't going to live to see the end of our Irish adventures if I didn't do something about my sinuses, and Claire had some misfortune with instant coffee at breakfast, so we started our morning with a trip to the pharmacy (there's one like every 100 feet in Galway- I don't know why or what you could possibly need that many pharmacies for) and the coffee shop. We wandered down to the river and sat for a bit (where Claire had more misfortunes with coffee- this time involving spilling...she was sort of having a rough start), and we watched the HUGE number of swans that live in the river parade around. Once my advil had kicked in and Claire had finished her coffee, we made our way into the Galway museum. It's a cool history museum and I learned a lot of Irish history! Did you know that Hitler once asked Galway to move their annual horse races so that he would be able to attend? Ireland responded by setting tank traps and spikes all around Galway and not moving their races ;-). Claire and I worked on figuring out when Ireland was fighting with Britain and when they were fighting against Britain, and we learned how much the Irish really loved JFK. We also saw lots of traditional boats and some very interesting political cartoons and old army advertisements.

We then checked out a cathedral built in the 1960's that manages to be just a beautiful as the ones built in the 1800's- the stained glass was amazing! We also found a great used-book shop, where I bought a lovely picture book about a horse made of sand, a book of silly children's poems, and a beatifully illustrated book of traditional leprechaun stories. I think the leprechaun stories will serve me well when St Patrick's day rolls around this year! And it was all only 10EUR! Claire bought some books too (sci fi and irish history), and we got into a conversation with one of the locals about country music in the states, and how the weather has been unseasonably nice recently (we apparently should not expect the same weather if we come back next year, but we contended that we must have brought the nice weather with us)!

We then grabbed lunch at a Chinese food restaurant after Claire declared that if she ate one more sandwich she would kill herself, and briefly headed back to the hostel to drop off our new books. The weather this afternoon has been dreary and drizzly (of course, I wore sunscreen today, so naturally it's raining), so-like true Galway locals- we've spent most of our afternoon popping in and out of stores and stopping at multiple cafes for a pot of tea and to read for a bit. It's been very relaxing. We also stopped by a very old church where Columbus supposedly prayed before setting sail. We're planning to go back to the church tonight for a concert of traditional music by a British girls' choir. I also think we may try and find dinner tonight that is not just chocolaty crepes ;-), and we'll probably end the evening with a drink at a pub (of course).

We have just three more full days in Ireland (sad, but we must eventually get back to work, and we're both broke enough as is), but they should be three great days! Tomorrow we're off to the Cliffs of Moher- the top tourist attraction in Ireland, and we're spending the night at the one really nice hotel of our adventure where we are supposedly getting a great dinner and breakfast!

Hugs to everyone,
Emily

Claire Blogs Days 5 and 6: Getting Lost on One of Three Roads, Johnny Can Sing, and Free Beer

The internet was spared our ramblings yesterday because our hostel on the Aran Islands charges 2.50 EUR per half hour of internet access, which is highway robbery, and I don't negotiate with highway robbers.

Yesterday morning, after more fresh-baked scones for breakfast, we bid farewell to our new friends at the Old Monastery Hostel (human and animal) and drove to the pier at Rosseaval to catch the 1 pm ferry to Inishmoor, the largest of the Aran Islands. Because we were early, we did not get lost, and in fact arrived almost 2 hours ahead of the boat. We thus sat in the only bar:
...where the fishermen were enjoying their pints of Guinness (...at 11:15 am) and speaking Irish with one another. We shared a pot of tea and enjoyed the ambiance, and I obsessed very slightly about the weather, which was bad. It wasn't raining hard, just consistently, and given that our stated plan was to go to an island with very little on it but ruins, and to get to those ruins via bicycle, it was making me a bit antsy. But, though it rained at breakfast, and all the way to Rosseaval, and all through tea, and on the boat:
...it stopped more or less exactly as we pulled into Kilronan, on Inishmoor. In point of fact, we had absolutely glorious weather on Inishmoor, sunny, with some puffy clouds, a light breeze, not too hot, a little chilly in the evening. Perfect!

We probably walked way more than we had to - dragged our luggage the 3 km to our hostel, and then walked back to Kilronan to rent bicycles. Oh well. We had the best room in the Mainistir hostel - a (very squeaky) canopy bed with a really gorgeous view of the sea:
(that's the view between my feet, from bed)

Inishmoor is spectacular. I'm only sad we didn't stay longer. Emily (sensibly) pointed out that it's kind of inevitable that I will feel this way about every place we only stay one night, but I think it's especially true of the Aran Islands. We didn't see half of the ruins, despite biking for 5 hours. I'm not really complaining, I'm just saying that it was so, so lovely. Related: biking around the Aran Islands is excellent, and I highly recommend it. Biking there has given me fantasies about coming back to Ireland and biking through the south.

Inishmoor is a strange place that has been inhabited for thousands of years, and is thus criss-crossed by thousands of kilometers of stone walls:
Oddly, though, there isn't much livestock, with the notable exception of a particular horse sticking his head over a wall between his pasture and the road around a blind curve, who whinnied more or less exactly as he came into my view, effectively scaring the living hell out of me.

We saw a ton of memorable scenery; for brevity's sake, I will present you only a Thatched Cottage:
and Celtic crosses:
We went to Dun Aengus, the primary tourist attraction on the island, a Bronze Age stone circle fort right on the edge of the cliff:
The only fence involved in this whole operation was the one keeping the cows from wandering into the fort. Note: there was no such fence to keep the tourists from wandering off the 91m cliff, around which the fort is built.

At one point on the way back, we ditched the bikes to walk to the cliffs, where we could climb down closer to the water. We ended up in an area that was much like a playground, for me; I could have spent all day there, climbing up and down the rocks. Well, with the exception of the high-tide parts of the day:
We unfortunately missed the seals at the seal colony, as they evidently fish during that portion of the day; we did see a large number of trumpeter swans, however. Instead, to get back to the hostel, we hiked up the steepest hill I have ever seen, came up at the top...and were totally unsure which way to turn. We had to ask a passer-by for directions, and she actually, and legitimately, laughed at us. Yes, folks, we're Ivy League graduates who got lost on an island with infinite visibility and three roads. I will distract you from how ludicrous this is with a pretty picture I took at the time:
We had a delicious dinner at the hotel, which is where we first met Johnny. Johnny is an (Aran) Islander, in his 70s, and the dominant first impression he left was that he belched loudly through dinner. We will return to Johnny in a moment.

After dinner, we walked to the nearest pub (with the sun setting behind us), where three guys, locals, played music. I ran into Johnny at the bar. He recognized me from dinner, and introduced both himself and his equally-old friend Paddy, who told me about the time in his youth he spent touring the Eastern seaboard of the US, picking up girls. He went all over: Richmond, NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Orlando...no luck in Richmond or Orlando, apparently, but when I said "Well I'm sorry you had no luck in all that...", he said "Oh don't worry, I had plenty of luck along the way."

The guys jamming were actually, 100% talented. Honestly, they were fantastic. A lot of covers, but well-chosen, some local stuff, some new stuff. But the best part of the night was when they called for Johnny. "Johnny? Johnny?! We know you're here, Johnny..." Johnny joined them up at the front, and they handed Johnny a guitar....and Johnny was amazing. Not just like, oh, I'm on vacation, I've had a few beers, it's fun to watch old local Irishmen jam good, but seriously, no lies, awesome. They had to turn down the volume on his guitar because he played so hard:
Johnny's on the left. People danced.

Sadly, the Aran Islands are experiencing a very severe drought, necessitating the shutting off of water between 8 pm and 8 am. I contributed to this cause by not showering and instead falling into bed. A little drunk.

We left this morning (after a friendly hostel breakfast; I like hostels because you can actually meet random people and talk to them. It's funny to me how surprised people seem to be that Em and I are actually travelling together and are not about to kill each other. I think a lot of people have sister animosity in their lives). We had an entirely uneventful ride to Galway; I'm getting good at this left-hand thing. Our hostel here is significantly nicer than I expected, decorated with art and murals, brightly painted, and the only obvious difference between our room and a proper hotel room is the need to share a bathroom. It's also supremely-well located.

We took it quite easy this afternoon, as we're staying two nights, and we're both a little beat. We did, however, get to take in a local hurling event at a bar not a block from our hostel. A sports channel was interviewing (and broadcasting the interview live) several past greats of the sport of hurling on their opinion on the upcoming All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships. It seems that Kilkenny is highly favored to win over Galway. I have since read about hurling on wikipedia; it didn't help much. But anyway, it was very interesting, and we got both free Guiness and free bar snacks just for showing up.

We ended the night at a bar known for its trad [-itional Irish music] sessions, and enjoyed the music with a drink or two. We met a large group of Hofstra students + professors in Galway on summer session, with whom we had a number of interesting conversations. They too have noticed how friendly the Irish are to Americans, and how much they seem to just like the USA. It's an interesting change; not that I've met many openly hostile people in my life, but the Irish are not only super-friendly in general, they're specifically very positive about the US. Obama helps, of course, but this isn't just "Oh, you guys are great now that you've elected a guy who isn't an asshat", it's more general than that, and it's nice.

Before that, though, we grabbed a quick bite at a crepe place down the road. I leave you with photographic evidence:

In which Ireland buys me a beer simply because they love a sport no one else has heard of...

We haven't been in touch for a while, because we would have had to pay for internet while we were on the Aran Islands, and who does that! We left the Old Monastery Hostel (sadly, because it meant leaving the puppy and the fresh baked bread at breakfast), and headed to the sea port to the Aran Islands. We were very early, and it was very rainy, so we sat in a pub and drank tea for like 2 hours. Finally, we headed out on a ferry ride of about an hour, during which I realized the true meaning of a sub-climate- though it was raining in Ireland, it was nice a sunny on the Island!

When we reached the island (the largest of the 3 Aran Islands) we stopped for lunch because we were sooooo hungry, then we headed up a steep hill with all of our luggage to our hostel. The hostel was great, and the view from our room over the sea was AMAZING, but it was quite a hike from the pier. Once we'd checked in, we headed back down to the pier to rent bicycles. We rented bicycles and headed out to see a super old stone fort on the edge of a massive cliff. Though it involved many encounters with livestock and quite a cardiovascular workout (and avoiding hitting the dog who was following us), we made it to the fort- which was very cool, and yes, indeed, super old. We then tried (repeatedly) to find the "worm hole", but we didn't really know what a worm hole was, so instead we found very cool rocky beaches with waves that would hit the cliffs and splash up in your face. The only problem was at this point my legs were so tired from biking that I was having a hard time climbing the rocks! After the cool rock beaches (which may or may not have been the "worm hole") we tried to head back by a different road and ended up hiking our bikes up the steepest hill EVER! I can't remember the last time I was that tired or thirsty! But...the countryside was amazing, and nothing like I've ever seen before- lots and lots and lots and lots of stone walls forming square farm plots, many of which are unused, all surrounded by rocky beaches and the beautiful turquoise sea.

Luckily, the hill ended about 200 feet from our hostel (yay!), and we went in for a dinner described by our guide book as "the best deal on the island", which was quite good, and had lots of veggies, which I think at this point we needed. We relaxed for a bit after dinner, and then we headed out to a local pub where a local band was playing. They were GREAT, and we ended up staying WAY later than intended because they were so good. Have I mentioned that I really like Bulmers Irish cider? Well, I do. We got back and fell intro bed exhausted (which was for the better, because the island has a water shortage, so you can't shower between 8pm and 8am anyway).

Today we've taken it pretty easy. Though my mind has finally acclimated to being here, my body is sort of giving out on me. My allergies are getting worse (but I bought Zyrtec today, which here is by a different brand and spelled Zirtec), and I am a bit sunburned and sore. You ask yourself, "who gets sunburned in Ireland?" Well, I do, and I am, but today I finally gave in and bought sunscreen!

We had a nice breakfast this morning at the hostel and met some other travelers. Then, we hiked back to the pier with our bikes and our bags (this was quite an impressive feat!). We did some window shopping of the lovely Aran wool, and then caught our ferry back to the mainland. At that point, we drove about an hour to Galway, where we are now staying at a lovely (and very brightly painted!) hostel. We checked in and got lunch, then we took a bit of a break. Around 5:30, we walked around the area; this is a great city, with lots of street performers! We then managed to end up at an event supporting the senior championships of Irish Hurling (a strange sport somewhere between lacrosse, field hockey, and handball) that will be occurring on Sunday (in which Galway is playing). This event at a pub near our hostel was where they were broadcasting from for a Q&A with famous hurling greats! It was cool and funny and we each got a free Guinness and lots of greasy bar snacks! It was lots of fun!

We are now chilling for a bit, and then we are going to head out to find a light dinner and some "trad" (traditional Irish pub music) around 9.

Alright, I'm sure I've missed something, but until next time...

Cheers!
-Emily

Bonus Picture Blog Post: Old Monastery Hostel Edition

Edit: somehow I posted this while signed in as Emily and I don't know how to fix it. --Claire

We've mentioned more than once the epic awesomeness of our current hostel. I thought I'd bonus-update the blog tonight with a little picture tour! This is the Old Monastery Hostel:
(note the broken-down piano to the left of the main entrance).

A little grim, yes, though the little tent to the right is actually the path you take when you first walk up, and it is full of win:


(all of the chairs are labeled).

I don't have any photos of the puppy, sadly, though Emily does. Instead, I give you kittens:
This is the view from our room, down the front hallway:
Our room actually has two sets of bunk beds, though we have it all to ourselves; this is one set, the other is to the left:
Next to the bed is a fireplace full of seashells, over which there is a mirror:
(there are many books, all over the place.)

To the right of our room is another set of rooms, plus the stairway downstairs to the breakfast room:
I don't have a photo of the breakfast room, but as the building is set on a hill, the breakfast room has large windows overlooking the backyard, and you can hear the creek in the back. The puppy came up to the window as we were eating this morning and stuck her head in.

To the left of our room is the hall past the sitting room/kitchen, to the bathroom and some other dorms:
I am writing this post from the sitting room; there is a fireplace and some couches, and a large wooden table, from which this photo is taken:
And the bathroom! The bathroom! The bathroom is the best part. Everyone shares the one, though I think there's an extra downstairs. I've never used it, because who can resist this:

Just inside:
There's a fireplace burning a peat fire right next to that bookcase, in front of the couch. Imagine classical Gaelic music playing, since it is. To the right, the showers and the toilets:
So you want to shower, you go to the purple door on the left, for example (the blue doors work too, and they're all the same). You open it, and (I warn you it looks grody in the picture, but it's just stone, and it's clean):
...and then, you look up:Yeah, exactly. It's amazing.

Claire Blogs Day 4: We Are Too Polite For Our Own Good

Breakfast this morning was fresh-baked scones, porridge, coffee, oranges. I sort of wish we could live here forever. I took photos of the bathroom because it otherwise defies explanation. Let's just say it involves a fireplace, blue Christmas lights, and a disco ball.

I love that it's apparently baby-animal season here in Ireland. Maybe the Irish tourism board just breeds them year-round, but we've seen baby ponies, baby horses, baby donkeys, baby cows, baby sheep, baby cats, baby dogs...

Today, after church (it was...fast), we did the Proper Tourist thing and went to Kylemore Abbey:
We toured the Victorian Gardens with a large number of middle-aged German tourists, and I took the opportunity to take a number of cheesy macro-mode flower pictures. I think I liked the gothic church best, however; it was like a miniature cathedral.

We skipped a boat tour because the weather was crazy windy, and then rainy, and then sunny, and then windy, and then rainy. And then sunny. You get the idea. It's been making for dramatic pictures, at least. Instead, we drove to Clifden, a slightly larger town a couple dozen kilometers from Letterfrack. It's super adorable.

I wanted to go to Clifden to check out the ruins of Clifden Castle, which was built in the 17th or 18th centuries. As I said: "We came to Ireland to stomp around in ruined castles!" (Emily: "I thought we came to Ireland because it was cheap."). This took much longer than intended, because of this sign:
That sign does not, in fact, refer to the road next to which it is posted, or if it does, it doesn't mean it. So we wandered around lost for a while before figuring it out. The castle was totally worth the trek, though. We climbed in through a not-totally-blocked-off door:
We crept around the ruins, taking pictures and disturbing the birds. The ruins come complete with black birds circling ominously overhead and making a racket; we got a number of pretty excellent pictures:
Though this one may be my favorite (click to enlarge, a directive that actually applies to all photos, come to think of it):
The castle ruin was right next to a cow field:
The following conversation actually took place:

Claire: "That one must be the bull, it's the one without milk."
Emily: "It's also the one with the huge testicles."

After that, back to Clifden, where I had, I AM NOT KIDDING, the best mussels of my entire life:
That was all dinner was: the biggest bowl of mussels you have ever seen, and they were glorious. They melted in one's mouth.

Now we're back at the hostel, hanging out with other hostelers, getting involved in their dramas. It's fun.

Tomorrow: the Aran Islands!

Day 4: In which we trespass through some more sheep fields

Well, last night after I updated we headed out for dinner at a pub in this tiny town with a girl from New Zealand. The pub fed us soooo muuuuuch fooooood. Claire had beef stew that came in a bottomless bowl, and I had a giant and delicious cheeseburger. Then, we headed to the bar across the street to watch the America vs. Ghana world cup game. I had a bulmers irish cider (way yummier than Guiness ;-)), and we stayed through the rest of the game (and overtime). The Irish were mostly rooting for America, but the French were definitely rooting for Ghana. We met and sat with two Archeology PhD students studying Ireland over the summer who were great. Just as things started to get really bad for the Americans, one of the Irishmen magically materialized an American flag that he draped over the shoulders of the Archeology students. We got great pictures of all of us looking sad while holding the flag after we lost. It was a great time considering that we lost!

We slept well, and then had a delicious breakfast at the hostel of irish brown bread and soda bread and porridge and tea. It was great. They have puppies, kittens, and yummy breakfast here; I could move in. We rushed out to get to church (which is luckily almost attached to the hostel) where we sat through the actual fastest mass I have EVER heard. Seriously, Sunday Mass, with music- it was over in 30 minutes. They are not kidding around here in Ireland. The prayers were said so fast that I couldn't even keep up (and I know all the words!). It may have been because the priest has to say mass at 2 other parishes in the area in the same morning (or perhaps the Irish are just very speedy at praying). Either way, it was fun and I'm glad we made it to a proper Irish Catholic Mass.

We then considered going for a boat ride, but it was too windy (we considered again later, but that time it was too rainy), but it's totally fine, because tomorrow we need to take a ferry! The weather overall today was very Ireland- blustery with intermittent rain. BUT...we did not let the weather stop us, and we headed out to Kylemore Abby (probably misspelled). It's this beautiful old mansion/castle that was bought by benedictine nuns and turned into an Abby/girls' school. We saw the Abby, the church, and the very cool Victorian walled gardens. It was all beautiful and on a very picturesque lake. Castles in Ireland are awesome, because they're just like the castles we would draw as kids- apparently those really exist! We also had lunch and some amazing ice cream at the tea room in the gardens.

After the Abby, we decided to try and find an old ruined castle in a neighboring town. This would have been easy if we'd just followed the directions that the guide book gave, but we instead misinterpreted a no-trespassing sign, walked way to far, and then tried to climb through a sheep field (and failed) to get there. Also, this all happened during intermittent rain! Then we walked back to the original entrance, walked a while in a different wrong direction, and finally we asked someone who said she thought it was not trespassing to take the road (we eventually decided that the sign referred to the field). We got to the ruined castle, which was beautiful, and had a great view of a bay, which appeared to have a salmon farm in it. There were lots of cows (penned up) and sheep (not at all penned up) around the castle, and we also got lots of pictures of donkeys, horses, and ponies during our 2.5 hour (should have been 1 hour) hike. I think this is all part of Claire's plan to completely exhaust me while making it look like an accident ;-).

By the time we got back to town we were a little damp and STARVING, so we stopped for dinner at a rather nice seafood restaurant, and now we are back at the hostel (playing with the puppy and kittens of course)!

Tomorrow, we head offshore to spend a night on an island, so it remains to be seen if we'll actually have internet tomorrow.

Cheers!
-Emily

Claire Blogs Day 3: We Get Lost in a Gaeltacht

...and I learn what a bellwether* is.

First things first, we got the hostel shower to spit out hot water this morning, which was awesome. And we had a full fry for breakfast, with, as the owner of the hostel put it, "Coffee for the Americans!" Apparently Bill Clinton was known to have been useless at the peace talks before his coffee. Also awesome. And then we hit the road.

So, you say, the easiest drive of the vacation so far was this morning, right? Must have been all peaches and cream, right? Wrong. Took a left at a Y-intersection in Clonbur, drove for a half hour, came out at the right side of the Y. In Clonbur. In my defense, the signs were all in Gaelic.

We are staying at quite possibly the coolest hostel ever opened by man. It's in an old monastery, with giant windows, but all the walls and doors are painted wild colors, and it's full of very random...stuff. Animal skulls, random pictures painted by former guests, a very broken-down piano, a less-broken down organ, fast free wifi everywhere (including my bed), a really painfully adorable puppy, and 3 kittens.. Tomorrow morning there promises to be scones and porridge for breakfast. We're staying two nights, and I'm pleased as punch. It's also full of interesting people; the first one we met was a certified California hippie.

W started by hiking up Diamond Hill. This is Diamond Hill:

Misnamed, but beautiful. We're both either sunburned or windburned now, though. I'll go with windburned, since getting sunburned in Ireland is a little embarrassing. Here is a picture to prove that we made it to the top:


6.7 kilometers, and straight up for the up part, I'll have you know. I'm worried my quads are going to feel like jello tomorrow.

Dinner was at a restaurant downtown with seriously the biggest portions I've ever seen in my life, and then to the pub across the street to watch US-Ghana. We met a couple other Americans there, along with the New Zealand girl with whom we had dinner; they're all at our hostel. The Americans are PhD students in Archaeology; evidently they come to Ireland every summer to excavate. Cool job, huh? It's sad about the game, but watching Emily (the girlscout) and Jerry (the owner of the pub, maybe?) argue about how to properly fold a US flag (he had lent us his US flag, which he had had his brother in Boston send to him after 9/11) was pretty awesome.

It's 10:50 pm, and it's not dark out yet. Ah, the North. Bed now, though. I promised Emily I'd go to mass tomorrow morning, after all.

*A bellwether is a sheep in a herd that all the other sheep follow, and we don't know why, and, importantly, the bellwether does not know that he is the bellwether. This is bad because if the bellwether is stupid and walks off a cliff, all the other sheep do too. Emily taught me that. This is a sheep, of which there were many today, most up on the side of the mountain (in a "How did they get there?" kind of way):