The Aran Islands

This past weekend I took my first trip with the rest of the group to the Aran Islands. The Aran Islands are three small Islands off the West Coast of Ireland, consisting of Inish Maan, Inish More, and Inish Eer. We spent our time on the largest of the three islands Inish More, and spent most of the time there walking and touring the island. The best part of touring the Island, in my opinion, was being able to walk along the cliffs that are there. 

I had never seen the sea or cliffs like this, and they were absolutely stunning. There are few things that make you feel as small as seeing the sea rush up, hit the cliffs, and then a second later feeling the ground under you vibrate ever so slightly from the pounding of the sea. 

We spent around a half hour on the edges of cliffs, admiring the view and watching as waves crashed against them hundreds of feet below ourselves before moving on. We were all fairly well speechless. It was terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. The sea was not calm, and somehow I am thankful for that. If the sea was calm, I would not have been in awe as I was, or realize just how dangerous it can be.

After we had spent some time at the cliffs near some old grounds, our guide moved on to show us a natural formation that seemed completely unnatural. If you have ever seen video's of Redbull Cliff Diving competition, this is where it was done. There is a link here is you want it. This formation is called the Serpent's Lair in English, and I cannot remember what the Irish name was for it.

The picture above shows part of the formation. The square you see there is completely natural, even though it looks like a man made Olympic swimming pool. The water rushes over the top and down into it, creating a pool that is nearly 70 feet deep, if memory serves correctly. The other odd thing about this is that it has a hole out to the sea that water can drain from and is normally hidden from view under the water. This lets the water be circulated, and animal life to come and go as they please. Seals are even found playing around the hole when the sea is calmer, our guide said.

Other than the amazing view of the land that I got there, I got insight into what it would be like to live on an island like this. We talked to our guides for quite awhile through our trip about how it was different from living on the much larger island of Ireland. Everything they have there is shipped in, minus most of the stone they use to build up their fences. This makes like much more difficult and expensive while they are there. Their power, most of their food, and even the materials used to build their houses come in on a ferry from the main land. It made me think about how easy we have it in America at times, and how much people like to complain about certain things. It made me realize just how much we take for granted.

A few nights in Kilkenny

This past weekend I went with a few people to Kilkenny, I spent Thursday and Friday night there, and came back to Spiddal somewhat early on Saturday. The trip was full of adventure and a few mishaps, as any should be.

To start off, me being the fool I can be, I took the wrong train by accident. Getting on the first train was simple, and much less hassle than I imagined it would ever be. We had a stop in Kildare and had to get on another train on another platform.

While the rest of my group, there were four of us altogether, went to the bathroom, I was waiting out on the platform, and a train came by and stopped. I was thinking that trains generally stay a bit longer at stops, and that this would be our train, albeit five or ten minutes early. I got on, and about 30 seconds after I sat down, the train took off.

I ended up getting off right away at the next stop, and talked to a nice gal around my age originally from Boston about what I should do. Everything ended up working out alright, I got back to Kildare and met with the rest of my group, and we got on a train to Kilkenny shortly after that. There was about an hours delay or so, but everything ended up alright in the end.

Friday we got up a little early, around 7:30, and started our day fairly early. To put things in perspective, we were up on the Northwest edge of this map, over on Dean street in our Hostel.

We ended up walking down what they like to call Medieval Mile, which is both St. Kieran's Street and High Street. We walked down to Kilkenny Castle, stopping in a few shops that were open at the time along the way, and got to their Rose Garden just as one of the caretakers, I will call him, He talked to us for a little while about the castle and about America, but I will talk about that along with other conversations and interactions I have had here in Ireland at another time.

We spent some time in the Rose Garden, and walked around the castle grounds. It was stunningly beautiful. I wish I had a much better camera, and could capture it all. I did take some pictures, but they couldn't capture what I saw accurately. It was amazing, there are not many words for it other than that.

We took a tour of the castle, which was really cool as well. It was a self guided tour, so we took our time walking around and admiring the art that was there. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside of the castle, but the thing that amazed me most was all of the tapestries they had there, and just how old they were, and how much detail they had there.

We continued our tour of Kilkenny, checking out there different old Churches and Cathedrals. I wasn't as excited about them, but they were really cool to look at and see, because they were so old and kept well on the outside, but on the inside they felt new, like churches that have been built recently, but still keeping to the old styles somehow.

We eventually hit all of the places and were just walking around when I went to clean my glasses from the very light rain, and they broke. I went to an optometrist that was nearby, and saw if he could fix the. Unfortunately, I had to take some time and head back to the Hostel on my own and fix them with a bit of superglue. Thankfully my mom is sending me new frames here soon!

We spent some time walking around and shopping, though that is pretty much my trip in Kilkenny, for we were quite tired at that point in the day. Kilkenny was a great place, full of really friendly people to talk with and a lot of sights to see. Some day I will come back there and visit those castle grounds again, it would definitely be worth it, and I will definitely recommend the town to whoever comes to Ireland.

Today's walk to Spiddal

I woke up around 11:30, and the cabin was in quite disarray, thanks to my cabin-mates. (Thanks guys!) I decided that I would go to Spiddal, and ended up going on my own, and I am quite glad I did. The weather was beautiful on the walk there, even a little warm. In just jeans and a t-shirt I was sweating by the end of the walk to Spiddal, which is about 30 minutes at the leisurely pace I took.

I walked over to the beach, which was actually showing because it was near low tide, I think, and ended up falling, but all was well. I walked a bit more around Spiddal, and around the docks to the other beach.

Unfortunately, by the time I was all the way over by the other side of the docks, it started sprinkling just lightly and getting colder. I stopped in a cafe and ate a sandwich and some hot chocolate to warm myself up.

I stopped at the Texaco on the way back and grabbed a few necessary food items, and headed back. It's weird how quickly the weather can change, because my arms were pretty damn cold in just a t-shirt on the way back.

On the way back I was thinking that Ireland reminds me of Nebraska, a little bit. A warmer island version of Nebraska. There is a lot of country side, and that became really clear to me on my train ride to Kilkenny, but more about that in another post.

I can't help but think about how great it would be to spend a year or two here working. The land is beautiful, the weather much more mild, and the people just as if not nicer than back home. That being said, though, there are small moments of homesickness. They may come in short bursts, but there come and go every so often. This walk today helped a lot with that, however.

Experiences in Galway

So it has been a little while since I have posted here yet. I have been Ireland for over a week now, and have been loving every day of it so far.

The main thing this post will be about is Galway, a beautiful and old town, full of old buildings and a ton of history every step of the way. I first went to Galway last Tuesday, over a week ago, on a trip with the rest of the group. 

We had a walking tour through the old town in Galway, starting at the Hall of the Red Earl. We visited that, the oldest church in Galway, shown below, stopped outside of the King's Head, which is now a bar shown above, and finally ended up in the mall that is in the old part of the town to see the old city walls and fortifications that are preserved and part of the mall still today. 

It was very weird to see all of these things, and hear about all of the history, and then just across the walkway there is a Subway, or McDonald's even. It is also very strange to me that you see some of these old buildings, and then right next to them a more modern building, obviously built in the space between two older buildings. It is fairly disconcerting to me to see this, the old and the new side by side, because I haven't ever experienced it before.

The same can easily be said of the picture above. This is the oldest church in Galway, the Church of St. Nicholas. (Yes, one and the same, Santa Claus!) What I caught above is the space between two of the three peaks at the front of the church. It is weird to me that you can see a divide in the stone they used, the upper left is quite different from the lower right. This is because the church was added on to at multiple times by different wealthy families in Galway at the time, and they wanted to kind of show off to the rest of the city, so they added on an entire other section to the church. 

When I think about if I have seen anything like this in America, I personally cannot think of that many examples. It may have to do with how little I have traveled in America itself, or it could even be that the buildings in America are all much younger than this church, but I cannot think there would be too many places that we would add on to a building like this, rather than tear it down and build anew. It is really cool to see this, and to see that they did this multiple times over the many years that this church has been standing. 

I really loved walking around the old parts of Galway, and seeing buildings older than America that are being used as a bank, or a pub, or something so modern as that. It makes me want to explore other, even older parts of the world and see if there are changes such as this as well.

I am looking forward even more to exploring the rest of Ireland, and seeing all that there will be to see. There is a lot more to talk about, but that will come in future posts!