Day #66

As my friend recently said, "I hated this godforsaken place... But Ireland has redeemed itself". Our twelve hour tour was a phenominal success. Although we thought we were going to be late after leaving our hostel at 7 and finishing our breakfasts at 7:30, but the tour started promptly at 8 as scheduled. Our tour guide was a lovely Irish chap named John with ginger hair and endless anecdotes. Our bus stopped twice before noon for coffee and bathroom breaks, and I finally got a real feel for Ireland. Since I've really only been to cities so far (London, Canterbury, Bath, Gillingham, etc), it was a very nice change to see the rolling verdure, ancient stone walls, and countless acres of countryside spattered with small cottages or a small village with pastel colored houses by the sea, such as the one pictured below.

We had a truly Irish day- it was cloudy and windy, but that meant traveling by bus was perfect. We had enough time to explore each place, and we're glad to get back on the bus after taking pictures. Our first real stop was at an abbey near Galway. The Irish used to worship Celtic gods, such as the sun, moon, fairies, and whatnot. They believed fairies lived in raised mounds in the countryside, and would help you if you were nice and bring harm if you weren't. The British were excited to prove them wrong, so to impose Catholicism they built an abbey right through a particularly nasty fairy mound. For one reason or another (freak fires, storms, and accidents, to name a few reasons), the abbey was never finished and eventually the Brits gave up on that site. Some say bad luck; I say don't mess with the fairies.

Our next stop was the somewhat ironically named "baby cliffs". The only thing baby about them is that they're smaller than the Cliffs of Moher. I attempted to conquer my fear of heights while trying to avoid falling to my death. John even took a picture with us!

We made a quick stop for lunch before heading to the Cliffs of Moher, the main attraction! Unfortunately it had started to rain by that point, so we rushed inside the welcome center and played with interactive games until the fog started to lift. Luckily, within the last 15 minutes before we had to get back on the bus, the fog finally started to clear!

ALSO WE SAW SO MANY SHEEP AND COWS AND EVEN SOME DONKEYS AND LLAMAS. Or alpacas. I wasn't sure.

We made another pit stop on the ride home, and got to hear John play an authentic Celtic tune on his recorder and also sing us an old Irish lullaby. What an incredible experience!

When we came back to Dublin, we ate at the Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Ireland, established in whopping 1099. 

The chowder was hot, the bread was delicious, and we met another American family whose son is a freshman at Northeastern (hi Matthew) and spending his first semester in Dublin!

I am finally clean and laying in bed at our wonderful hostel. As we've been saying, we were not robbed today, so it was a success. My friend was able to get a temporary passport, so we will all be flying back to London at 4pm tomorrow. Oh Ireland, what an adventure you've been.