In consulting the map of Europe, I am fast finding myself crossing off more and more countries of which I had had no intention of visiting prior to arriving on this continent. Switzerland, Belgium, and now, Ireland. My motive for going to this island was two-fold. One, my good friend from high school, Anna Haugen, is studying there in Galway, and I'd not seen her for several months. Second, I was weary of the French language, French Catholicism, and French limestone formations. So, instead, I decided to hit up their Irish counterparts.
(Figure 1: Meg Young - without whom none of these pictures would be possible)For reasons surpassing my knowledge, southern France has a number of small cities with even smaller airports that are perfect for budget airlines. The one in question is the ever-infamous RyanAir, which flies direct from Carcassonne, about 120 kilometers from Montpellier, to not one but several locations around Ireland, including Shannon - the closest airport to Galway (Okay, so Galway has its own airport, but I couldn't very well get there, now could I?) At Anna's request and my own desire, I decided to take a long weekend and go to visit her. Leaving Friday morning, I walked to the train to take a bus to take a plane to take a bus to walk to find Anna. It took about 10 hours, and since Anna doesn't have a cell phone, I was more or less going on faith that she would a) be waiting for me, and b) that I would be able to find her. After a few minor hiccups (I came in at a different bus station than she had anticipated), we met up, checked into our hostel, and since it was still relatively early, set out on the town.
(Figures 2 & 3: Christmas Decorations; The Arc de Triomphe de Montpellier)Galway is a city on the Atlantic coast of Ireland - just about as close to the United States as you can get, although it's at the same latitude as Newfoundland - and has a population of about 70,000 people. It is distinctly small, but like Montpellier, is nonetheless lively and interesting. I suspect cities like Fargo or Cedar Rapids would have a far more interesting life in Europe. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about Galway, as I didn't see a whole lot of it myself. I was there for a three nights in total, but only about half a day. That first night, Anna showed me about and took me to get fish and chips. Fish and chips, for those who might not know, is essentially batter-fried fish and fries. The Irish love it. The English love it. I don't. I don't like white fish in the first place, and the addition of batter and a hefty 8.50 euro bill doesn't make it any more appetizing. They didn't even include tartar sauce. After that, we walked around, since fish and chips is a heavy meal and doesn't sit well for the uninitiated. We ended up walking the length of the main shopping street and then out to the pier that juts out into Galway Bay. At night, there is not much to see except a bunch of swans, but it was neat nonetheless. We walked back inland and went to a bar, where Anna introduced me to a real Guinness. Indeed, what we all think of as the classical Irish drink (aside from whiskey) is better in its homeland than abroad. In part, the Irish manufacturing techniques that allow Guinness to be brewed to its particular flavor (a bit like coffee, a bit like tea, not a lot like beer) are forbidden elsewhere in the world, and thus the stuff that is exported is not the same as in Ireland - similar, but noticeably different and inferior once you've tried them both. And, at 4.10 euros, it was one of the cheapest things in the country!
(Figure 4: my flight aboard RyanAir - perhaps the first flight in years I've been on that wasn't full!)Ireland's joining the European Union was perhaps the greatest thing to have ever happened to the country - even more so than the departure of the snakes, the British, or U2 to the global music scene. Its economy in the 1990s and early 2000s saw unparalleled growth, one of the fastest and most profitable booms in all of Europe. This is partly due to its original misfortunes - the effects of the Great Potatoe Famine, coupled with four centuries of British oppression, left the Irish economy based almost entirely out of heavy manufacturing and industrial production. This turned into a boon when the rest of Europe and the United States began to experience mass deindustrialization in the 1970s and continuing to this day. What had been a crippling absence for Ireland now became an opportunity not to be burdened by a crashing market, and it quickly and smartly made its way towards transitioning its economy straight from primary economic production to tertiary and quaternary economic sectors. In other words, from farm to finance without the furnace in between. One problem has been Ireland's lack of population. The Republic of Ireland is a country of about 4 and a half million people - most of whom still live in a rural setting, a situation which is unheard of in almost every other country of Western Europe. Had it not suffered the mass emigration and population depletion following the famine, it would have anywhere from 20 to 40 million people - Dublin would be more like London in size, and much of the Emerald Isle would be blacktopped and urbanized. Regardless of whether or not having a low population has been good for the environment, it was never particularly beneficial for the economy, and so the Irish, once the economic pariahs of Europe, have begun to accept guest workers - mainly Polish - in record numbers. In Dublin, nearly one out of every five signs was in Polish, it seemed.
(Figures 5-11: Mr. O'Connell, with a gift from the pigeons on his head - and the Spire; Anna's friends outside a pub; the quays of the River Liffey; looking south on Gardiner Street; a sign in Gaellic (Irish) and English; The Bank of Sciretland)The economic boom has given the Irish a lot of cash and their joining the eurozone has been good, too. However, the increase in wealth along with the only-too-true stereotypes of the Irish being abusive, dysfunctional alcoholics has lead the Irish government to raise taxes - especially Sin Taxes - markedly. Some say it goes a long way to cutting down the rates of alcoholism, traffic-related deaths, abuse, homelessness, and so on, others say it is crippling to the lower classes who are most affected by regressive taxes. Whatever might be said by whomever, the fact is - Ireland is expensive! I will not share with you how much money was lost traveling to this small, lovely and wallet-shrinking land, but needless to say that despite my penny-wise planning and actions, simply being there is in some ways pound-foolish. Thank you, as always, to my many benefactors in the Banks of Help Peter's Broke Self Out. Enough of that, though. I must also give a thank you to my friend Meg Young, who graciously agreed to lend me her digital camera for the trip - since she herself could not go to Amsterdam the weekend I went to Ireland, and thus had no pressing need for it. It is thanks to her that I am able to bring to you, in glorious technicolor, Ireland! Also, I've now single-handedly beat my own record for longest post by outdoing my trip to Geneva.
After returning to our hostel from the bar, Anna and I consulted that it would be best to leave for Dublin as early in the morning as possible so as to give us the most amount of time to get around, and because she had another group of friends from her college coming in to Dublin that morning. So, we went to sleep and woke up the next morning around 5:45 AM, got dressed, scrounged a bit of breakfast, went to the ATM, hopped on to the bus and conked out almost the whole rest of the way. Dublin and Galway are on opposite sides of the short axis of the island of Ireland, and are about 430 kilometers apart from each other (about 4 hours on the bus). We arrived in Dublin around 10 in the morning to a sky of broken clouds with just a bit of sun peaking in. Dublin, like Galway, is further north than any point in the continental US, and thus the sun rises around 8 AM and sets around 4 PM. Having two-thirds of the day in darkness is, even for me, disorienting. Montpellier is almost at the exact same latitude as Minnesota, and so the decrease of daylight here has, at some basic level, left me unfazed. Going north though was absolutely bizarre. Still, during those 8 hours, it was quite pleasant. I checked into my hostel, a small B&B run by a man from the Mauritius Islands who shook my hand when I told him I was an American, and Anna into hers. I had tried to find couchsurfing hosts, but alas, my efforts were for naught. We met up with her friends at her hostel, and then proceeded to wander aimlessly for a few hours, as groups of seven people are wont to do.
I do not like traveling with more than one or two other people for long periods of time. I've found that one person is excellent at making up his or her mind, two people compromise well, three people is a nice democratic assembly, four is where cracks start to form, and any group more than four should be rightly considered a mob and thus swiftly put to death. Still, I had a nice time. Anna's friends all go to Saint John's University or its sister school, Saint Benedict's College. They are both located about an hour and a half north of the Twin Cities and are home to perhaps the most stereotypical Midwesterners - polite, mild-mannered, good-natured people who smile like it were a sport and are overwhelmingly likely to be blonde, blue-eyed, and descended from Scandinavians. Even though I am on a program here in Montpellier based out of the University of Minnesota, the hard, gritty life of the city has blackened the hearts of many of my companions, and so it was almost shocking to be amongst people with whom I'd grown up and from whose stock I came.
First, we went to see Trinity College, a landmark in Dublin, mainly because it takes up like a fifth of the city and is the principal source of Irish intellectualism in, well, the world. It was cool. And, it houses the Book of Kells, which we declined to see. One of the College's most infamous Headmasters, Anna told me, had once said, regarding the admission of women to the school, that he would let women in over his dead body. Three weeks later, he was dead and buried under one of the principal entrances to the school, whereupon all the newly admitted women could fulfill his request to the letter. After seeing the college, the mob decided it was hungry, so we began to migrate towards the nearby shopping district, whose name escapes me and thus must not be important. After looking through a number of places to see if they could seat seven (there are no Denny's in Europe), and if their prices were acceptable (again, no Denny's), we finally settled on a place called Sheehan's. One thing I find particularly lovely about Ireland that you don't so much find in France - for obvious reasons - is that all of the shops, bars and restaurants are usually named after the Irish family that started it: Murray's, Murphy's, O'Connell's, O'Kinnan's, O'Donnell's, Skerrit, Finnegan, O'Leary, Hernandez (yes, it is a traditional Irish name), and so on and so forth. The French are not big on last names on businesses. I think this has to do with their socialist nature, and the fact that if they had their way, everyone would just be named after the town they were born in - or lorded over. Sheehan's was nice, but I was still trying to adhere to a budget, so I got the soup and sandwich, which while tasty, was not exactly traditional Irish cuisine. If we talked about anything, it has since exited from my mind like sand being washed from the beach. After lunch, we decided we needed to get some things, drop some things off, do this, do that, and so we more or less broke cohesion, and planned to meet at the Hugh Lane Contemporary Art Museum at about 4. Before completely splitting up though, we all went into Carroll's, a store whose sole existence is to sell Irish things. If you think it could have a relation to Ireland, and it can be manufactured in bulk in Vietnam, you can find it at Carroll's. It is not uncommon to find two Carroll's on the same block, and there are several throughout the city. I decided against getting anything. Or did I...?
(Figures 12-17: Anna Haugen, my American counterpart, in charge of the conquest of Ireland; an example of the 'modernization' of Dublin; Trinity College courtyard, looking east)Meeting up near the Hugh Lane, a few of the girls traveling with us wanted to go see the Irish writers museu... wait! Now I remember what we did before! Crap! Rewind! We went to the Irish National Archeological Museum before hand. Which was cool! So cool! It's devoted to the archeological history of Ireland (in case you couldn't guess by the confusing and circumlocutory name) and doesn't suck, which I feared it would. Ireland's past is fascinating, improved in no small part because so much of it is preserved - literally. The peat bogs of Ireland have been the sources of some of the most revealing archeological discoveries in the world. The museum begins at the start with the Stone Age history of Ireland, and from display to display it is perfectly visible to see the evolution of humanity - from the use of stones to the production of tools and weapons to the I don't know what to call it materialization of religion beliefs, and then the similar evolution of civilization through the copper, bronze and iron ages. It culminates with the history of Viking Ireland and just up to the end of the 18th century. And my oh my the stuff they have. The ancient Celts were master metalworkers, especially with gold. And, you even get to see their contemporaries - the bogmen. The bogmen are literally men and women who had died in the bogs and as a result of the complete lack of air and light had become mummified within their own skin. Only three were on display, but one of them - of whom remained the torso, arms, and head - still had a full head of rust-colored hair, eyelids, and fingernails. He lived around the 6th century B.C. For over 2,500 years old, he was doing fairly well, in my opinion. The National Geographic did an exposé on them when they were first discovered, I believe in the late-90s or early 00's. All quite cool. (And the museums in Ireland are free! Yeah!)
(Figure 18: The Clonycavan Man - Photo from the National Geographic)Back to the Hugh Lane. Outside the Hugh Lane, we were... attacked? Accosted, by a five-year-old girl who kept trying to push and shove Anna and her friend Kate. Her older sisters looked on, yelling at us to get out of here. Anna explained that they were most likely Travelers, or more stereotypically, Irish Gypsys (Pikeys - such as those seen in the film Snatch). Ireland, like most other countries in Western Europe, has a housing shortage, and unfortunately its economic boom has meant that the housing market is a sellers world. Marginalized groups like Travelers, homeless, or immigrants, have found it increasingly difficult to live in a country with a one-sided relationship with them - they need Ireland, but Ireland doesn't necessarily need them. It is an unfortunate but true state of affairs, and I hope the Irish are doing a better job of combating social inequality than are the French. Back yet again to the Hugh Lane. The Hugh Lane is a contemporary art museum, but unlike most contemporary art museums in the world, it is one of, if not THE oldest. It was opened in 1908 by Mr. Lane, who felt that artists deserved to be appreciated within their lifetimes and furthermore whose works did not need to wait until their producers had died to be enshrined in a museum setting. While we perhaps take for granted the notion of living artists - Damien Hurst or Lucien Freud for example - back then, only a century ago, if you weren't dead, your works were unworthy at best. Lane decided to consecrate the works of contemporary artists in his museum, starting with his own collection of Impressionist paintings by the likes of Monet, Degas and Manet. However, the general public was uproarious when his museum opened, and in a fit, he took his paintings from it and gave them to the National Gallery in London. After things quieted down, it was his intention to give them back to his gallery, but his untimely death in 1915 - he died on the Lusitania no less - and a signed, dated but not witnessed copy of his will decreeing the latter and the official version giving the paintings to the National Gallery left the whole enterprise in doubt. As a result of diplomatic actions between the two museums, they did something equally unprecedented, and decided to share the paintings on a rotating basis between the two - switching every two years. Despite that no doubt fascinating bit of historical trivia, a contemporary art museum that has been open for a hundred years thus has been collecting contemporary art for that time, and much of what we have come to consider as very mainstream was enshrined on their walls under the auspices of artistic radicalism. Like 99% of contemporary art, I found the stuff being produced by artists alive today to be contrived and stupid. Sorry, but I did.
(Figure 19: An installation outside the Hugh Lane - a walking woman. Neat!)
(Figures 20-24: Reuse of the distillery space as condos and restaurants on the ground floor; Anna and her friend Ashley; the Mash; the Stills; five examples of whiskey at different ages - bottom left to upper right, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 12 years, 18 years. Note the different quantities. This is due to evaporation over time from within the barrel, called the "Angel's Share")In my own defense, I would rather be spending time in a museum than touring a distillery, and Dublin has quite a number of museums the likes of which I did not have the time to visit (Montpellier has one museum, and not a good one at that, so I haven't had much of a chance at cultural whatchamacallit here). While waiting for the tour to begin, I looked around the gift shop, which naturally sold a lot of whiskey, whiskey related products, and clothes bearing the company name. They even had a special display of their most expensive items - such as a set of every bottle of their Middleton Special 18-year-old Whiskey from 1976 to today, yours for only 50,000 euro. The tour started off with a video on the life of John Jameson, which made him look like a saint, when in fact I've since learned he was a domineering bastard who treated his employees like crap and of whose 16 children only 9 or so made it to adulthood. At the end of the video, the tour guide asked for volunteers for the whiskey tasting at the end of the tour. Perhaps because I had a giant red and black tube with me, I was selected, along with two of Anna's other friends. We went throughout the distillery - which has not been operational since the 1970s when production demands forced it to be moved to County Cork and thus the facility in Dublin now serves as a museum, restaurant and condo complex - seeing the various stages of how whiskey is made. About as complex as beer, slightly more complex than wine, and far more complex than moonshine, it's basically heating grain, soaking it, mashing it, boiling the alcohol off, distilling it, and then aging it. Jameson's claim to fame is that it is distilled three times, making it 160-proof and blinding for all except residents of Appalachia over the age of 80, perhaps named Ol' Buck or General Sherman. In order to meet legal requirements and, you know, not kill people, they water it down and then set it to age in matured oak barrels, which means the barrels they use have already held some other kind of alcohol - either port, sherry or brandy I think were the three. The earliest whiskey can be taken out is after three years, and it is rarely aged longer than 18. Of course, they tell you this, but then you notice the bottles with the priciest tags were usually made before my birth and then some. After this, the few of us selected for the tasting were to the bar along with everyone else - who got a free drink as part of the tour - and we were set down with a shot of scotch, Jameson and an American whiskey - the other two being Johnny Walker Black at 12 years old, and a similarly aged Jack Daniels. The difference between the three is that American whiskeys are distilled once and aged in new oak barrels but are otherwise the same to Irish whiskey, and the barley of the scotch is smoked and not roasted, and distilled twice, aged in similar barrels to the Irish whiskey. I relay all of this to you for the purposes of information, and nothing more.
We left the Distillery and made our way to a pub for dinner. I decided it was time to try Irish cooking, so I ordered the Irish stew, which is just lamb, potatoes, a few other vegetables, and a thick broth. It tasted good, however I suspect I could've had a better meal at different establishments. As the sun sets bizarrely early, we started eating around 7, and being Americans, finished at 7:30. The next three hours were spent reminding myself why I decided to go to Macalester and not any other school. After dinner, we all walked back to our hostels, and I bid Anna and her friends a good night. I wonder sometimes, in writing these long, long, looooooong posts, if any of you will ever travel again, or if you're just living vicariously through me. In either case, I'm happy to disgorge all this information on to the world. It keeps me from, you know, doing homework. I still get it done, of course! Never fear. I'd take up travel writing, but really all I'm doing is copying and pasting what I've heard and learned from reading signs, listening to guides, listening to friends, inferring for myself, remembering from books, articles or heresay, and occasionally, inventing. This, mashed with my own personal commentary, a dislike for socialism, and an irreverence towards the number of churches on this continent, and voila! Oh, speaking of that, Anna had told me before I came that, since she goes to a Catholic school, is on a program from said Catholic school, but is not herself a Catholic, she has seen just about every church in Ireland on their many, many excursions. She warned me that we would not, under any circumstances, be going to see churches, and if I wanted to, I would be doing so solo. Anna's description of her program made me grateful for everything that I have in Montpellier. She enjoys it, but as she put it, she is with 28 of the same people in a cabin complex that is part of a hotel in a small village about 20 minutes outside of Galway. Their professors come to them, three days a week, and they essentially spend every part of every day together. There is little privacy, and worst of all she shares her room. I think if I had to do that, I'd probably go bonkers after a few days. Living with Joe last year, despite our amicable friendship and us getting along swimmingly, saw moments when, hell, we just needed privacy. So, merci famille de Belair for leaving me in peace as I wish it. And merci my own family for, well, everything, as usual.
My second day in Dublin was just with Anna, since her friends all had to return to Cannes in France where they study abroad. I woke up, took a shower, and when I came back, the only other person in my hostel dorm room, a middle-aged black man from the Caribbean, said to me without opening his eyes, "Your breakfast is there." At first, I had no idea what he had said, and wasn't sure if he was talking in his sleep or not. It was a bit strange. Breakfast was nice - the Irish understand how to make breakfast, unlike the French, who kind of treat it as an afterthought that maybe one is hungry when one wakes up in the morning. After that, I went to meet Anna at her hostel and we set off for the National Museum of Art, which Anna was quite excited to see. The museum however, wouldn't open until noon, so we decided to walk through Saint Stephen's Green, a park to the south of the River Liffey. For all of you Minnesotans dealing with the snowbound Earth, or for Grandma Anne and Judy and just having an absence of the color green, Ireland is shockingly so. Even in late November, everything is still green - minus the most of the trees which've lost their leaves. Still though, all of the grass - and there is lots of it - is still green, and for reasons surpassing my understanding, there are still flowers in bloom. Now, where was I? Ah yes, so after walking through Saint Stephen's Green, we decided to get some coffee - or rather, she would drink coffee and I would get hot chocolate, as I've yet to develop a strong affinity to coffee. We go to a little coffee shop and sit down, and while we're there, a young man comes in, looks at the menu and leaves again. While doing so, he forgot to latch the door behind him, and this woman sitting by the door looks over her shoulder in disgust: "Bastard!" she exclaims loud enough for everyone in the small shop to hear, "What a stupid bastard!" And then goes back to her coffee. Anna and I snickered to ourselves.
(Figures 25-27: Saint Stephen's Green; flowers therein; the Office of the Taoiseach - essentially the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland)The National Museum was neat. I checked my bright green umbrella I'd bought before leaving from the 2 euro store in Montpellier, and the kind Irish coat check man asked me where I was from, etc. and hoped I would have a nice visit. The paintings in the museum that pertain to Ireland are all from periods in time when it wasn't exactly proper to, you know, show that they were an impoverished nation under the heel of British rule, so a lot of the paintings look exactly the same as other European ones of similar eras - the 18th and 19th centuries. There were a few pieces from modern artists about Ireland, mainly portraits of contemporary Irish figures like Mary Robinson and others whose names I completely forget. Anna said that at this point that she'd been studying Irish history for the last three months, she was beginning to recognize the faces and histories of the people in the portraits. After the museum, Anna and I went wandering for a little bit, trying to find a place for lunch. Anna was getting grumpy about walking (Yeah, nice try. I've been walking about at minimum a kilometer a day since coming to France, on top of the several I usually walk when traveling) but wouldn't stop at any of the places we saw, deciding they were too pricey. Anna and I have had practice dealing with one another, so I simply let her vent and in exchange, I just walked quietly. She felt better after that. We ended up getting that traditional Irish meal - kebabs. After that, we went to our hostels and checked out. Anna had originally thought we'd be staying in Dublin for two nights, but changed her mind so that we would return to Galway that evening. Having already paid though for two nights, she did not believe that she could cancel her reservation, especially after this thought was confirmed by the night staff at her hostel who told her so the evening prior. Upon returning to her hostel and asking the desk clerk for the day shift, he informed her that, yes, it was possible to cancel for that evening... had she told them the night before. As it stood, the housekeeping staff had already finished and they were no longer able to refund her. She was quite pissed at this, and asked them if there was anything that could be done. The sympathetic clerk agreed to refund her half, and she thanked him appreciatively for this. We then high-tailed it to our bus to Galway, with moments to spare. If Anna thinks she is lucky, she's got nothing on Martha.
(Figures 28-32: The equivalent of the Irish Supreme Court Building, whose exact name I forget and can't find on Wikipedia; a nice brick building - France doesn't have brick buildings in the South; Christchurch Cathedral; From a different angle; Dublin Castle - not exactly Buckingham)The bus ride to Galway was uneventful - the sun set about fifty minutes into the ride, and that was all I saw until we arrived back in Galway. Anna was still not in the mood to walk much, so after checking in to our hostel, decided we would have kebab again for dinner as well. I, decided that I'd rather not have whatever was left of my vote stripped from me, told her that yes, we could have kebab, but like hell were we going to sit any longer than necessary in a neon-lit dingy upstairs dining room of an Irish kebab shop. She seemed to accept these terms, and we went to a pub instead. Anna and I have had a running dialogue for all the time we have known each other, which primarily revolves around around discussions of each others families, our lives, and various (dys)functions, and so on and so forth. Anna and I also have rather similar personalities - we're self-assured almost to arrogance, are quite bright, interested in any and all things and thus indecisive in what we want to do with our lives, don't appreciate people who are, for lack of a better word, idiots, and have an often scathingly sarcastic reparté between one another. In some ways, it's nice that she and I only manage to see one another every six to eight months. I enjoy her company immensely, but, all good things in moderation. Thus, we spent most of the night talking about what had happened in our lives since we last saw one another - I think it was in the spring or possibly last winter. A fair bit of time. Around midnight, it being a sunday, the pub was closing, and we headed back to our hostel to sleep.
(Figure 33: Dusk over the landscape outside Dublin)The next morning, I awoke, had a bit of breakfast with Anna, ran a quick errand with her, and bid her a fond farewell. It was extremely pleasant to see her, and I enjoyed her showing me around Ireland quite a bit. It wasn't that she was leaving at that moment, but rather that I was - I had booked myself onto a tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, which are two of the most prominent geological features in Western Ireland and in fact, Western Europe. The tour was sparsely peopled at first, but I did meet Ross, an Australian around my own age who'd been working in London for six months until September, and who was now waiting until the beginning of December, touring Europe before flying back to Sydney. He, like ALL the other Australians I've met (it's like six or seven now), works in outdoor activites - namely, instructing teens in stuff like that. Don't ask me to elaborate, I dunno myself. Still, the Australians seem to be a people who cannot survive without being outdoors, doing sports, extreme or otherwise, or traversing the outback, or mining in the outback, or showing people around the outback, and so on. Of all the people I've met, they seem to be the most well travelled. If you'll recall Camilo, the Australian-Colombian couchsurfer my friend Rachel hosted, he had been away from Adelaide for over a year and had started his journey in Thailand, traveling overland the whole length of the Eurasian landmass to France. Go figure.
(Figures 34 & 35: Anna and I on the edge of Eyre Square, Galway; The Skeffington Bar)The Burren is a region just south of Galway about 250 kilometers squared and they are essentially limestone mountains. It is unique because the size of the landscape - all limestone - and the age has cracked the landscape, and into these fissures that have formed has flowed ages and ages worth of water. Imagine a waffle iron, or an ice cube tray. The landscape looks like that, and into their crisscrossing fissures - called grykes - accumulate dirt and sand over the years, and provide the perfect environment for plants to grow. Because the plants grow in spaces that are enclosed by rock - which is easily heated by the sun - they exist in a microclimate that is able to support plant types found nowhere else in Ireland. There are over 700 different types of plants in the Burren, which means nothing to me, but apparently it is a large number for such a small area. Even more interestingly is that the Burren is host to plants from the Mediterranean, the British Isles, and even the Arctic. Cool! I nearly climbed one of the mountains during the free time we had while the rest of the tour went and saw a cave (I've seen plenty of caves at this point) but I didn't have enough time to reach the summit. After touring the area, we went and had lunch at a little pub - it's true that Ireland is exceedingly rural, and thus all the more beautiful - and then went on to the Cliffs of Moher (don't pronounce the 'h' - almost like 'more') The cliffs themselves are the highest sea cliffs in Europe, at 700 feet high. Believe me, that's high. They look out over the ocean, and on a clear day, you can see Russia, especially if you're standing on Sarah Palin's roof. Okay, maybe not. It was extremely windy, and while there is a small section of the cliffs above which is paved and designed for tourists, it's small and sucks, and there is a well-worn path all along the five miles of the coast past which one must pass the sign below. All in all, it was very neat, and beautiful. And, for a change, I can show you what it was like!
(Figures 36-42: Ross, the Australian; a cow atop a Burren mountain; looking up at a Burren mountain; Irish countryside; looking out over Galway Bay; a castle whose name I forget; again looking up at a Burren mountain)
(Figures 43-47: looking down a Burren mountain; looking sideways across a Burren mountain; there are cows in these here hills; looking over the valley between the mountains; yours truly)
(Figures 48-60: along the Atlantic seacost near Fanore; the same; the Cliffs of Moher; YOUR PITIFUL SIGNS CANNOT STOP US, MWAHAHAHA!!!; looking south; looking inland towards Lahinch; another view towards the south; those people looks small for a reason; there was a real danger of me being blown off the cliff while this picture was being taken - 60-100 mph winds are not uncommon; looking north along the length of the cliffs; this is what 700 feet down looks like; and for my next act, when I turn around, these cliffs will disappear!; okay... I am not pleased that my magic trick didn't work)After hopping back on the bus, we drove back inland to a neolithic dolmen burial site, which was a lot smaller than tourist fliers make it look. After that point, the sun had set and there was nothing else we could see. We drove back into Galway, I said goodbye to Ross, and then went to bed. Oh wait, no I didn't, because even though the sun had set, it was still only 5:30. With NOTHING else to do, I got on the internet, checked my e-mail, and tried to find a way to pass the next four hours until it would be appropriate to sleep. I decided to go to the creperie for which the hostel offers a discount, and of course got lost trying to look for it. When I finally did find it, I realized - as I swore to myself - that I had left the coupon for the discount back in my hostel room. Even paying full freight, it wasn't that expensive. Perhaps it was good that this sequence of events passed exactly as it had, because as I was waiting for my crepe, the LARGEST DOG I'VE EVER SEEN, came up to the door. Thus, I met Rover, the Irish Wolfhound. He was extremely gentle and owned by a pair of I don't want to assume anything but probably homeless people who'd let him to wander for a bit. He smelled food, and so I was his new best friend. As he followed me around and I fed him bits of chicken, EVERYONE on the main shopping street was stopping, looking at the dog in awe. I got so many people asking me 'can we pet your dog?', 'your dog is so beautiful!' and so on, and had to explain that he wasn't mine. After I'd finished and given him all I could, he went off, and so did I. As I was walking back up the street, I found him laying down with his owners. I told them he'd been following me, and what a nice and beautiful dog he was. His owner told me he was only seven months old, and already was about three feet high and five feet long. I suspect if he'd gotten on his hind legs, he would've been looking down at me. This little bit over with, it was still not late enough to sleep, so I decide to go write letters. In the bar Anna and I had been to the night before. Believe me, it was sad. Writing letters, by yourself, in a bar. Sometimes traveling solo does have its downs, but it was alright. I managed to get caught up on some correspondence, and it passed the time long enough for me to go to sleep.
(Figures 61-65: a megalith tomb; close-up; grykes; Rover, the Irish wolfhound - note the size in comparison to the chair; by his owners)The next morning, I woke up, had an Irish breakfast - delicious! - , mailed my letter, saw the sea for the last time, and hopped on the bus to the Shannon airport. Ten hours later, I was back in Montpellier, a bit grimy, definitely tired, and quite hungry, but back in France. So, since it is now Thanksgiving, I would like to add that I am thankful for everyone in my family, especially my immediate family - Dad, Mom, Sam, Helen and Martha (and Grandma Anne and Judy, who deserve special mention for being as special and wonderful as they are), all of my friends, Barack Obama, the continent of Europe for being interesting, the United States for being home, and of course to the Frobozz Magic Company.
(Figures 66-69: the River Corrib as it flows into Galway Bay; the River Corrib and the Claddagh Bridge; Eyre Square; the fens near Shannon Airport)P.S. Although now it isn't Thanksgiving anymore (it's the day after), I'm still thankful for all of the above, and while I am thankful for technology, I would be even more thankful to anyone who can speed up the process of putting pictures on this website, since seriously this took me like an hour and a half! Yikes!
