Sorry about the lack of blogging, I have been having technical difficulties with my computer, which also means that I will have no pictures posted in this entry since my computer is demonic and needs to be destroyed in a way I can only describe as “inhumane, even for a machine.” But here’s what was missed:
August 4th:
Coole Park
Today was more or less an easy day. We went to a national park that used to belong to a wealthy land owner and is known as Coole Park. This place specifically holds a great deal of historical significance since the lady who use to own it had many famous Irish authors, playwrights, and poets carve their initials in their tree in the gardens, which by the way, the garden is obscenely extensive. I ended up wandering around and taking a 1.7 km nature trail by myself. The trees growing in the park obviously aren’t natural, but due to Ireland’s climate the trees were mutated to monstrosities of how they normally looked…and I consider it an improvement. Other then that we wandered around city center in downtown Galway and that was it for the day
August 5th:
This day was eventful. We went to Connemara marble which is famous for its extensive use of all of Ireland’s marble quarries and effectively puts them in jewelry and charges for it justly. I think I was one of the only people that actually did not buy something there. After we did the touristy shopping there for awhile we drove an hour to the Kylemore Abbey, which is apparently still active and full of penguins. For the most part we weren’t even allowed to see a lot of the Abbey unless we paid quite a bit extra to get a private tour.
They also had a huge garden, which my posse was just going to skip but our classmate Michelle had to make an emergency run to the doctor so we had time to kill. We took an extended nature trail up to the gardens and came back an hour later, only to discover that they had been waiting for us for almost half an hour…oops.
We headed back after that to prepare for a feast we were to attend at Dunguaire Castle. When we arrived at the castle, they immediately handed me a cup of mead…a true sign that this was going to be a good night. The even sang pretty Irish songs to us:
As the night progressed, so did my alcohol consumption. I ended up drinking an entire pitcher of white wine almost completely by myself, and when we left the castle and went back to the hotel, I went down to the hotel bar, and got completely smashed (and according to my bartender had at least 6 complaints filed against me).
When I woke up the next morning, my roommate Adam informed me that I had allegedly peed all over his computer chair in our room, but I am rather skeptical to this, because when telling the story, he said I unzipped my pants, but I wasn’t wearing pants with a zipper when I woke up. Also piss would have caused one giant splotch stain on the cushion of the chair, but both chairs in this room have multiple miniature stains, not as when he explained that I soaked the seat with it. Either way, I can officially say that I have the most interesting “Guess what I did in Ireland?” story in this group.
August 6th:
Inis Mor
We Spent the entire day on the Island of Inis Mor, one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland. It was interesting to see such a small society being formed on these islands, and how much history such a small isolated island had maintained even in a modern society. Also, the Ferry rides are funny:
Dun Aonghasa
This is a semi-circular fort that is 2,000 year old fort that the Celts built to defend against roman invasion and protect their mercantile trade routes. It is also surrounded my limestone, which becomes extremely slippery when wet. Naturally, it rained on us while we were there, and I was wearing all cotton clothing….it was a long boat ride back to the mainland, to say the least. I also stepped onto an area our professor told us not to step on where you walk out over the ledge on rocks, unaware of the 10 foot cut back into the Cliffside a few feet down that you can’t see but from the side where he was standing. The climb down from the fort was lovely as well, especially since it’s extremely steep and almost completely limestone…and soaked at this point.
That concludes the last of our tourist trappy things on this trip, now we travel to the airport today, and leave early tomorrow morning back to the states….bittersweet this ending shall be.
~Will
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