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Saturday, May 16th-Landing in Ireland
Flight: For all of the other Aero-Enthusiasts out there, I sat window side on all of the plane rides. I managed to get a few good shots of the wing in the clouds. What can I say, no trip is complete without plane shots.
Summary: We landed in Shannon, and then promptly started on our two hour plus adventure to our cottages by bus. We rode on the left side of the rode. The neat thing about western Ireland is that the roads are really narrow, and that they are lined on both sides with pastures full of sheep, and some cows too! You’ll notice that the sheep at different parts of the highway have been marked with different colorings to identify them by their owners(red, blue, black, stripes, etc).
Weather: Cold(~8 degrees Celsius), rainy, windy. Not exactly my favorite combo. Especially when I packed for summer for the rest of Europe! Hopefully it will warm up soon!
Food: Groceries are fairly cheap. No complaints here.
Pub: Foxy John’s, half-hardware store half pub, no music, but good conversation with the locals. One across from Lord Bakers, two guitar players who played
mainly contemporary American Folk/Atlernative Songs. Small Bridge, Guitar player(room one), full band playing rock/some Irish music(room two). Small Bridge is the Hang out place, it was absolutely packed until I left at 2 and was full of all sorts of people(young and old alike). Small Bridge was one big party, Irish-Style.
Sunday May 16th- A day with the locals
Summary: Started the morning off early at the Gaelic Mass. The entire service was in Irish. It is so interesting to see the different ways that people celebrate mass, worship, and what not. There was no music, and the entire mass was read or recited. We met up with my roomate’s, Deidre’s, cousin at mass. On the way to breakfast she explained that the homily(sermon) was about famine.
Deidre’s cousin took us to her home in Castle Gregory and Limerick. We took the Connor Pass to get there. It is this really neat one lane but two way road winding up the hills alongside the rock face edges. The view was spectacular. Ireland is absolutely beautiful. At one turn on the road there were two sheep trying to climb up alongside the hill, and another curve
there were cows that had gotten out of their pen.
The most interesting part is that the rain. Ireland gets a ton of rain, falls down these mountains creating all of these mini-waterfalls all down the side. There was even one large waterfall, we got a picture at. Meeting all of her family was absolutely charming and a wonderful experience. We got to hang out with the Irish people, having tea at each of the houses, and just experience their life. It was very cool, and an afternoon very well spent.
Food: Breakfast was HEARTY! The Irish know how to eat breakfast. I had eggs and toast. Most of the non-Vegetarian breakfasts had multiple varieties of meat, along with toast. All the entrees were served with tea. Tea is big in Ireland, as I soon came to find out. Dinner at Murphy’s Pub. Had broccoli and potatoes soup with brown bread. Very good, and cheap.
Pub: The Dingle Pub, guitar player playing old traditional Irish songs(think Molly Malone). Small Bridge, accordion, guitar, and fiddle playing some more older songs.
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Cindy
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Sarah, I can only imagine how much you are enjoying this trip. The pictures tell the story, and thanks for sharing them. I am enjoying this as well! This blog is great!