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Published: September 15th 2012
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After my tour-filled day I took a long shower and got ready to enjoy my last night in Dingle. I sat in the Hideout common room for a while to relax and met three Australian girls (who had been on my Fungie boat tour earlier) and a man from Israel. We watched the closing ceremonies of the special Olympics on TV.
After a while I got up from the comfy sagging couches, told them where I'd be if they wanted to join later, and headed back out to find food before going to the Courthouse pub. I was determined to figure out what was so great about the place, and on a Sunday night I figured it wouldn't be as crazy packed as it was before.
First I went back to the Dingle Hotel bar to see if Peter was actually working, and he was. It was about 10:00 PM when I walked in. I sat in a bar stool and he saw me and said, "I didn't think you were gonna show up!" I just replied, "I made it!" The place had stopped serving food by then, but he got me some garlic bread anyway to go with
my Heineken. I knew I needed more food than that, so when I left I found a local fast food place where I got a really good burger, and ate it while walking to the Courthouse.
The Courthouse turned out to be full but not uncomfortably so; low-ceilinged and cramped, but intimate. The three main musicians, a fiddler, an accordian player, and an guitarist/singer were all fantastic. I even recognized the guy who works the music shop there listening in. I actually got a seat in front of the musicians after about 30 minutes and stayed until 2:00 AM. By then, five other musicians had joined the three, and they continued playing after I left. They said they would be stopping for the night several times but kept playing more, at the crowd's requests. The bartenders gave them the thumbs up, so they kept the feet in the place tapping. The place not only had spontaneous musicians appear, but also plenty of spontaneous dancing going on: in the pub, in the doorway, even spilling over out on the sidewalk outside where the music could be heard. I wanted to stay longer, but I knew I had to pack and
be out of my room in the morning.
Here's the awesome part: I saw Carla there at the Courthouse, come to say goodbye to her friend who was there. I said hi to her and thought it must be fate so I let her know that if they were still going to the Cliffs of Moher the next day and wouldn't mind if I tagged along, I would like to go with them. She was really nice about it and said she'd check with her aunt (whose birthday it was that day), and that she'd call me to let me know in the morning. While I was getting ready in the morning, Carla called and said they'd love to have me along and that their driver would come with all of them to pick me up a little after 10:00 AM. It was raining pretty hard outside so it was a real treat to have this nice comfy minivan pull up for me to take me exactly where I'd wanted to go (I'd been hearing good things about visiting the Cliffs and had seen many tours advertising it since arriving).
I had a morning talk with my dark-haired
new roommate, who'd appeared last night while I was out, Meem, from Holland. She has the coolest accent ever; we talked of each other's spiritual experiences in meeting people in Ireland. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to talk before I had to leave.
Almost the minute I got all packed up and signed out, Carla was at the door. I met Ellen, Sandy's good friend, who was there traveling with them. I asked the driver, Pat (who resembled John a bit), about where I could get dropped off to get to Galway later on, since Carla and Sandy were heading back down to Shannon airport after seeing the Cliffs and the Burren. We got that settled easily, and headed to Adare to get lunch at the Heritage Center (which had surprisingly good food) and to walk around the cute, tidy little town of green parks and thatched roofs.
Carla was my buddy on this day, she is totally awesome. She's tiny little lady, almost 40, with very long blonde hair and blue eyes. She's a mom and a therapist, so she was very warm and kind to me. She was in Ireland taking a break from her
busy life, kind of like me. She's a Christian too; we connected and had a lot in common, despite our different life stages. She was a very sweet lady, and very interested in the sociological questions behind everything in Ireland: divorce rate, depression/suicide rate, pub setting and norms of interaction, everything.
Ellen and Sandy were cute, writing everything down--things that Pat said, and the names of places we went to see. They joked that they wouldn't remember otherwise.
By the time we ate and walked around Adare and drove up to the Cliffs of Moher, the clouds and fog had cleared out enough to be able to see the Cliffs fairly well. They were breathtakingly beautiful--huge, and so steep, mossed over with green like icing on a cake, planted firmly in deep blue water which was constantly cresting with white caps around the edges. There was also a sightseeing tower that looked like part of a castle, built in the 1800s for viewing the Cliffs. We walked by some signs that warned of "falling" off the edge, and to keep off the walls. There was one point we passed along the edge that had no fence.
Right
when we were getting back from taking all our pictures it started to rain, so we went inside to warm up and get some hot chocolate. We then re-assembled ourselves in the van and Pat drove us through the Burren--which is basically barren land--not enough for much to grow on. It looked desert-like from the car window, just in hill form. It was certainly different from any other Irish landscape I'd seen.
That was on the way to Gort, a little town from which I could catch the bus up to Galway. I hugged my ladies goodbye and waited for the next bus, which came in only about 20 minutes. In 30 I was in Galway, granted, totally exhausted, but there. Of course it started raining again so I started walking to find my hostel. I saw a tour office open on my way in the wrong direction so I stopped in to ask about a Cliffs boat tour, which Maria had suggested I do. Since I thought the Cliffs were so beautiful I wanted to see if I could go back on a boat and see them from a different perspective. The man there was very nice, big
and balding, and while he didn't have a boat tour (those only go from Doolin), he did have a tour of Connemara. John my Dingle driver had suggested seeing Connemara over the Cliffs if he'd had the choice. I planned to come back in the morning, if I could find my way. I asked the man for directions to Kinlay House, which he happily gave me, but for some reason I wasn't able to follow them properly and ended up walking quite far out of the way in several wrong directions. This was all in the rain. I finally had to ask someone on the street where to go, and made it, after walking for about 45 minutes in the rain.
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