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Geo: 53.2789, -9.06619
Oy with the banging and rattling doors! I think no one was occupying the room next to me last night, but I suspect that – like my own room when I first checked in – a window was open, and that made the door shake all night long. These doors are kind of nifty with their skeleton keys, but I wish they fit a little tighter in their frames. Again this morning the wind was baying but at least it wasn't raining. I looked down the little street that I can see from my room, and everyone's garbage bins were scattered around and blown over, and there were bits of paper forming tiny tornados. At breakfast, I watched an empty tour bus (not ours) sway every time there was a big gust of wind. I'm really surprised this place didn't lose power at all.
Really nice things about my room: (1) water pressure and hot water, and (2) not just an overhead light in the bathroom, but a light over the mirror as well. It's actually really hard to see one's face with the strange indirect lighting that hotels often have. Really dumb thing about my room: It's nice that
a hair dryer is provided, but it's one of those that has a toggle for on/off, and you have to keep your finger pressed on the “on” end the entire time you're using the dryer. Why? Are they afraid someone will walk away and leave the hair dryer on? Has anyone ever done that? By the time I'm done drying my hair I've got finger cramp. At least it's not one of those ridiculous wall-mounted hair dryers that looks like a vacuum tube and that quickly heats up to 250 degrees so that you can't even hold it without burning your fingertips.
Since today was supposed to be our day on the Aran Islands, Declan had to improvise. He did the best he could, but it ended up being a nothing sort of day. We left the hotel at 9:00 to drive to the Connemara National Park, about a 2.5 hour drive away. Remember how I complained a few days ago about twisting, winding roads? Yeah, triple that. The two other bus tours I've been on have had their share of winding roads, but they don't compare at all to Ireland. I think Rick Steves needs to add a disclaimer to the Ireland tour description, or at least advise strongly that people pack Dramamine. We had to pull to the side of the road once so that one of the guys (who was sitting up front even) could get out for a few minutes and breathe in some fresh air; he was about to lose it.
Along the way we saw some old stone cottages without roofs that clearly hadn't been inhabited in ages. Declan explained that these cottages hadn't been lived in since the potato famine. During those years, not only could the people not get enough to eat, they also didn't have money to pay their landlords. So the “smashers” would come along and basically use battering rams to take down the front doors. A little bit of wall would fall down with the doors too, so eventually the roof would fall in, leaving the starving people homeless.
Except for yesterday when we went to the Burren, Declan always wears flip-flops. Now, apart from the fact that his feet must get cold, I just don't see how he can do all this walking around in them. Granted, they look like pretty good flip-flops – sort of Birkenstocky – but still .... He says he doesn't like having his feet confined. I get that in a way: I don't like wearing socks. Katherine even accidentally stepped on his heel yesterday evening, but he didn't seem at all phased by it. Crazy Irish! ;-)
We also stopped briefly to look at some turf that was drying by the side of the road. The turf is dug up in chunks about the size of a large brick and then left to dry. Once it's dry, it's still burned in fireplaces. Declan says it gives off a fair amount of heat – though not as much as coal – and that it's got a cozy, incense-like smell. Since we've been driving all over bogland, there are piles and piles and piles of turf everywhere.
Declan tried very hard to keep us entertained while we were on the road and take our minds off our collective queasiness. He pointed out a small fisherman's cottage, saying that it was a typical example and starting to go into an explanation of fishermen's cottages, but then he changed his mind and said, “Actually, that cottage isn't very interesting at all. In fact, that's a crap cottage.” He also pointed out some sheep grazing by the side of the road, one of which was startled by the bus and started running. “A flock of sheep has a collective IQ of about minus three.” That's going to be my new thing: “She's as dumb as a flock of sheep.”
He also told us the breaking news that an Irish Army unit was being sent to Libya to take out Gaddhafi. “So far, they've taken him to the cinema twice, and tomorrow they're going bowling.” (Yeah, I know I probably misspelled Gaddhafi, but have you ever seen it spelled the same way twice?)
We stopped at a tea room around 11:00 for some tea or coffee and fruitcake. Because we didn't go to Inishmore, Declan still had the budget so everything was on him today. We finally made it to the park just after noon, and we immediately had lunch. It was a little too soon after our tea stop, but my egg sandwich was good anyway. (What? I like egg salad. It's like a treat for me. And I'm on vacation: I can have as many egg sandwiches as I want.) Ordering an egg salad sandwich will get you the egg mixture, with lettuce and tomato on bread. You have to order egg mayonnaise if you just want the egg part. If you just order egg salad, you get the egg mixture on a plate with some lettuce and tomato.
It was still quite blowy and threatening to rain, so some of the group stayed behind at the visitor centre, and some of us went on a hike. Declan said it would all be flat, and then proceeded to take us up a mountain. I made it to a point where you could either continue on and circle straight back to the visitor centre, or you could take a trail that looked like it was going vertically farther up the mountain. Guess which one I picked. Four of us got back down the mountain, and the sun came out! And it was warm too! It was so exciting. When the others got back, we all watched a little film about the park's ecosystem. Turns out that while there are rhododendrons in the park, they are considered a weed because they block all the light for smaller plants, so they are constantly being cut down. I wish our rhodies would grow like weeds.
About ten minutes down the road from the park is Kylemore Abbey, so we stopped there for a quick photo op. It's a huge house built in the late 19th century by an American man. When his wife died (I gathered fairly young), he left, and the house was taken over during World War II by an order of nuns that turned it into an elite boarding school. The school closed just last year, and now it's kept alive by tourism.
After much more bumping and thumping and weaving and winding we made it back to Galway. John the driver let some of us out near Spanish Arch so we could walk back through town to the B&Bs. Katherine and I elected to do that, but Michelle isn't feeling well, so she went back to lie down. K and I hit Boots to get Michelle some feel-better stuff and some other bits and pieces. Then we went to the grocery store at Marks & Spencer (after asking a trio of young teenage boys where we could find a grocery store; they were very polite and gave us three options) to get some dinner. We're all eating in tonight. I got a chicken and sweet corn pasta salad and a tiny chocolate mousse. The pasta salad was better than I expected, and the mousse was good too, although I got a little bit of it on my shirt. I'm hoping no one will notice the small stain when this shirt comes around again in the rotation.
Still very windy out, but at least all the bins have been retrieved from where the wind tossed them this morning. My big plans for the evening include watching mindless television and reading the gossipy magazine I got at M&S. Par-
tay!
(P.S. I added a few pix to yesterday's entry.)
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Kate
non-member comment
honey, you eat as much egg as you want!! But maybe not right before a long bus ride on windy, curvey Irish roads...sheesh, I'm thinking I'm not ever going to be able to do a bus tour through Ireland. Hope the winds die down so your doors
aren't banging all night!