ADVENTURES IN GUINNESS, or my trip to ireland
my sister is currently living in ireland on a study abroad/student teaching deal. when she first got there, i asked her how the place was, if ireland was cool, and all the standard questions one would ask of a place that she has never been. my sister described it as such: "amy, i'm out in the middle of a field of sheep, teaching little kids." at first i didn't believe her, and thought she was exaggreating, but after spending a week there with her and my mom, i was convinced otherwise... sheep, cows, and a few horses for good measure were abundant, and playing "name that animal smell" was an excellent way to pass the hours we spent driving around the country.
now i had about three days between the move and the time i had to get back on this plane for 10 hours or so, so i was a bit delirious, as you might imagine. i met up with my mom in atlanta, and we flew into shannon. from shannon, it was a 3 hour drive out to where my sister lives in tullycross. on two lane highways. on the wrong side of the road. on less than an hour of sleep. but finally we got there, and all was good. we saw a bunch of the major sites in the country, went to galway for an afternoon, which was my favorite place because it just had a really good feel to it. smallish kind of town, they have two universities there, so the people were all cool. lots of little shops selling really cool books and jewelry and crafty type things. and they had a killer aquarium. (ok, maybe that last part is a lie, but my sister really wanted to go there, and so we went and within minutes of our walking through the door, all the power went out. she kept apologizing for bringing us to a place that sucked so bad. it was hysterical.)
from there, we drove the 5 hours or so to dublin and stayed there for two days. the hotel we stayed in was right across from lansdowne stadium, and on the day we arrived there was a huge rugby tournament there, so there were people all over the place, which was really cool to see. highlights of dublin were the guiness brewery (a well-designed place in terms of the exhibits and that it all looked really cool, but it was kind of badly set up and the crowds didn't flow so well. thankfully, the pint you got at the end of the tour flowed just fine...) and the book of kells. that was pretty amazing. it was completed almost a century ago, and the detail in the manuscript was just incredible.
from dublin, we went back up to the northwest, and we went on a couple day trips. drove down to the burren and saw both ailwee cave and the cliffs of moher. nature day. that kind of stuff always makes me feel small and insignificant, knowing that man could never create things like that, no matter how hard he tries. i took some photos at the cliffs of moher, but they suck, because the sun was at the wrong angle and they came out all dark and glare-y. but trust me, they were really beautiful. windy like mad at the top tho. i was totally scared that i was going to blow off. there was a guy selling cds of irish music at the top, and my sister joked that it was the soundtrack to the cliffs ("aaaaaahhhhh!!! *splash* "). little does she know that when she was in the bathroom, i snuck back and bought her one for christmas.
on the last day we were there, we went to kylemore abbey. it was this really cool castle that used to be owned by some nobleman, but was sold to a bunch of nuns after the guy died. the nuns run a boarding school there now. they also have quite a large flock of sheep. but the grounds of the abbey are really beautiful, and i took a bunch of photos there.
and that was pretty much it. on the whole, a good time was had by all. my only regret was that i didn't get to bring a sheep home as a souvenier. customs would never have stood for that.
<-- back home
