Matthew's Abroad Adventures: Ireland!

So I got into Ireland predictably exhausted, managed to check into a cheap bed & breakfast for my first night and had a 30-minute conversation with the landlady, of which I might have understand five percent. Fuck Spanish, I couldn’t understand a word this woman said. Went around and did all the touristy stuff: saw the Book of Kells (about a millennium old or so), Trinity College, etc. Meh. Dublin is a really pretty, but I swear that I heard more Spanish than English… there was nothing particularly Irish about the city and if I want to see a cool European city, I’ll go to Paris, Madrid (yeah!) or London.

I skipped town pretty quick to go see Jon in Cork for a few hours (great to see him and got some ridiculously delicious dark hot chocolate. Wow.

Barely caught the last bus to Galway. We were late and it had left the station, but I spotted it a couple of blocks away, stuck in traffic. I ran up after it (giant backpacking backpack and all) and mimed/pleaded with the driver to let me on until he opened the door, when I realized that the ENTIRE bus of about 100 people are so had watched the whole affair. “Crazy/Stupid American” moment #1. I was all disgusting because Jon and I had run across the entire city with that damn backpack. Gross. I sat in the one empty seat, next to a very large man who looked none too pleased and I willed the evaporation of my sweat as much as possible.

Galway kicked Dublin’s ass. It’s a smaller, college city on the west coast with an amazing traditional music/dance scene. But I got in after at about 2 after a day of 8 hours of traveling or so and I headed straight to the hostel, woke up 3 hours later and took a ferry to the Aran Islands. Best thing I ever did. I rented a bike and went around these crazy-awesome, isolated, Gaelic-speaking, beautiful islands from dawn until dusk. There’s hardly any cars (far more horses), and I went towards the beginning of low season. So amazing. I kept promising myself I would take less photos, but after biking 10 feet, I would become obsessed with the next little bit of island/cliff/ocean/beach and whip out my camera for another few minutes. I ended up with about 500 pictures and had a great time talking to an Irish family having a picnic and stopping for a pint before going up to this 1000 year old, Gaelic fort on the highest part of the island. There were football field-length cliffs surrounding it. I felt sufficiently nauseated looking over the edge, though it was a little less intense than normal because apparently the wind has been known to blow its fair number of tourists off the edge. Cool.

The next day the front desk guy at the hostel never woke me up in the morning, so I missed my trip to Cannemara… weak. So, as my trip was freakishly short, I’ll have to come back later to see more Irish countryside (apparently where it’s AT). The cities kinda blow… I had a good time doing some touristy things in Galway, music and the like, though, just my luck for that day, there was the once-a-year Americana music festival. It was like I was in Nashville. Buggar (yeah, yeah, not Irish)!