The smell of burnt bread greeted us as we walked down the hallway to the kitchen on Friday morning. On the menu was toast and your choice of hot or cold beverage. I pulled out my Ziploc of tea bags from home for the first time and tried to sniff out lemon zinger but instead Eden ended up with peppermint and I had green. The kitchen was bright with different-colored walls and the various groups of people stuck with their own. Pity. This has been a recurring theme, but I do love being surrounded by so many languages being spoken.
Oh, I love how some of the Irish people say simply "morn" to each other by way of greeting over steamy mugs of coffee or hot chocolate (yes they do offer hot chocolate here. Why do other hostels offer coffee and not hot chocolate? It's a mystery to me.)
Made it to the bus station with time to spare. This feels like a major accomplishment given certain recent experiences. By 10, when the board told us we were set to depart, our bus to Galway had not yet arrived. The ticket masters are amusing to listen to when they radio in the bus drivers; "bus to Galway: any time now." Yesterday when we were waiting for our bus from the airport the friendly official said, "still waiting on bus to Dublin." Passive aggression must be a genetic inheritance.
Followed the river Liffey out of town past some bronze sculptures with a very distinct style - the people are all stick-like with long thin faces and wearing rags.
The morning spent with music in my ear watching the beautiful countryside. Some fields combed yellow, some with rocks and green growing wild beneath the chestnut and alabaster cows who sat munching on their beds.
Further down the line of rural towns that string along towards Galway and the coast I saw low walls of dark stone with bright white lichen patches on them and beautiful overgrown houses (not inhabited I presumed). The stone walls remind me of New England and the vibrant countryside reminds me of New Zealand.
After the Galway stop, where we caught a bus to Doolin (and during which time we were not able to use the bathroom coz the in-between time was too short) passed by white houses with dark roofs covered in red and green ivy. Some were right at the edge of little inlets where the tide had washed out, leaving muddy tracks and glistening pools all the way out to the bay. Ireland's western countryside (this area is called the burren) seems to be comprised of cows, rolling green pastures lined with rock walls, dense thickets of a small tree with tiny leaves and red berries that I don't know the name of, more cows, crumbling stone ruins, and, closer to doolin, all was shadowed by large hills that were completely covered in bits of light gray rock (or, as I would later find out, are actually just this rock with a little bit of grass and swathes of trees growing on them).
We made a few lurching stops when the driver realized he couldn't go 65 km around the narrow bends when another car was to our right. Otherwise it was smooth sailing during the last leg of our journey.
As we neared the sea saw yellow, pink and white hydrangea, which was cool as I had never seen yellow flowers before. We were finally off the bus by 5 and ready for dinner in a big way.
Ate at McGann's pub, a short walk down the road from Doolin's center (about 5 buildings). Cidona is the name of their apple cider and it is wonderful. Shay is the name of a local who sat down at the table next to us outside and started up a conversation. He hails from Dublin and was at ease talking with tourists and even seemed genuinely interested in our backgrounds. We talked about Irish music for a minute and he promised to burn me a cd with a recommended song (not recorded on the internet) and leave it at the bar for me to pick up later, as he was returning to Dublin that night. I did so around 9 and look forward to listening to it.
After dinner booked our ferry tomorrow to take us to inisheer, one of the Aran islands off the coast of Doolin. The booking agent looked at me like I was an idiot for asking her to mark the way down the one road we have to follow in the morning to get to the ferry but I was persistent.
With about an hour of daylight left Eden suggested we walk down the road (just 20 minutes) to get the finding of this place out of the way. We never actually made it to the ferry departure point as we got distracted by the block-like rocks of the burren siting like a shelf above the ocean. This was our first experience of the real west coast and I think now I am ready to move here (you guys think I'm kidding.)
The deaf roar of the waves and fluorescent gleam of the lighthouse on inisheer island sometimes appeared beyond the lacey sea spray. We found one spot where we could hear the hollowness of the rock by the sound of the waves hitting it. Beautifully overcast, very friendly people, many cows and good music in the bars at night. I'm sold.
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