Ireland Day 4: Dublin

 Our last day in Ireland was pretty stuffed full.  We were able to sleep in a little as our wonderful hostess, Betty, had strongly suggested that the breakfast portion of "Bed and Breakfast" be served no earlier than 9.  We dined on a plentiful breakfast of toast, eggs (I admit to giving Daniel mine on the sly, I'm a picky scrambled eggs only eater), fried tomatoes, and a version of pancakes (erm... mine was too hard to cut into, but she was so sweet asking if we liked pancakes!)  She had even more options and asked us as soon as we had our plate of food if we needed more.  Breakfast conversation with Betty and Kate (another guest who had arrive the evening before) was priceless, especially when Kate discovered that Erin is Irish (and promised to send her a letter as to why her last name was significant) and that she was single.  We walked into town to do just a wee bit more shopping, as I still had a few names on my list... most significantly Miss Anni.  I had wanted to wait until Gallway to buy Anni a claddagh ring (for when she's older) as they originated there.  We finally found the perfect, sweet little ring in one of the stores and it is now tucked away and waiting for her when she is old enough to wear it.  

From Gallway, we drove back into Dublin to drop off our car and finish off all of the things we had planned on for the half day we missed out on.  As we pulled into our car rental place, we saw pieces of the big protest going on that day (something about a property tax, I think).  As we started heading towards the Guinness Storehouse for a tour, what seemed like hundreds of garda rode past us, as well as an ambulance or two.  We think they were all headed toward the protest and were grateful to be headed in the opposite direction.   

And then... we realized that the last Trinity College tour was at 3:40, which meant we wouldn't make it there if we went to the Guinness Storehouse first.  We about-faced and booked it back across town in time to buy a ticket and ask where we could grab a quick lunch.  They suggest Voca Cafe, but upon arriving there, we quickly realized that it was beyond our price and time limit.  Therefore, we ended up at Subway next door.  In case you're curious, the veggies look much fresher, they have a few different sandwiches (Erin tried one that tasted a little like the chicken was cooked in taco seasoning) and their cookies are yummy.  Now that we were satisfied, it was on to Trinity College!   

Our tour guide was a doctorate student with a wry sense of humor and great story-telling skills.  I would try to relay some stories, but they would sound boring coming from me... and I would probably get all the details wrong.  Just know that the tour is totally worth it if you have the choice.  See, admission to the Book of Kells is 10 euro, but for just one more euro, you can take the student run tour and hear all kinds of fun stories.

Tree imported from Maine... there were two in the square - really beautiful!

 

And here's where our official tour ended and we headed into the Old Library to see the Book of Kells exhibit.  The Book of Kells (early century hand-illuminated gospels) was amazing, but my favorite was definitely The Long Room.  We weren't allowed to take pictures, so I had to just soak in how amazing it was in the few minutes we had.  If you go to Dublin someday, don't skip it... it's amazing.  

From there, we hopped in a taxi to take us to the Guinness Storehouse.  We read the signs and wandered through the floors (there are... 5 or 6 before you get to the Gravity Bar).    

 

Once in the gravity bar, we picked up our free pints and admired the city views through the windows that surround most of the room.

There are explanations for a lot of the most popular sites over where you see them on the skyline.  Pretty cool... despite the fact that we didn't always do well finding the actual sights.

And here, my dears, is where pictures are a little deceiving.  I drank one little sip of Guinness.  I was nursing a headache and exhaustion and didn't know if I would make it happily through the night if I worked my way through it.  Daniel; however, recognizing the beauty of Guinness straight from the source, drank both of ours :).

Erin managed part of her drink, but left it for another thirsty soul (we're curious as to whether someone would actually pick it up) as we rushed out the door to visit the gift shop and get to evening Mass.

We had seen a church (St. James) only a few blocks away as we drove to the Guinness Storehouse, so we headed straight there afterwards.  The church was absolutely beautiful.  Mass was pretty sparse, and we were the only young people there by ourselves, but being in that Church was so very peaceful at the end of our hectic day.

From there we headed to the oldest pub in Ireland for dinner.

The pub was an intricate maze of rooms connected to other rooms and stairs and open air courtyards.  It was packed to the gills, and we were lucky to get a table (and later move to a table actually appropriate for eating right by a little fireplace) where we devoured our food.  Erin and I got stuffed chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes (YUM!) and Daniel had bangers and mash (which came in it's own bread bowl... so good!)  

 

From there we headed on a very long journey.  I mean a long, exhausting journey in which Erin and I almost gave up and headed into the nearest gelato shop.  We really struggled to find a pub with good music where we could actually sit and enjoy our drinks... which should be really easy in Dublin... but everything was *packed*. 

We finally settled on one where Erin had what she referred to as 'the best Jameson and Coke ever'.  While we had seats (and were able to dig out a dollar to mark our spot on their wall of 'foreign money'), there was no possible way to hear the music.  After hearing that the pub across the street was pretty quiet that night, Daniel ran over to see what the music scene was and that became our final resting spot of the evening.  We all enjoyed some Irish cream while listening to traditional Irish ballads (and, yes, we definitely requested Finnegan's Wake).

Ha' penny bridge

After our pub adventures, we hopped on a train and headed back to Phoebe's.  While settling into bed, Daniel checked his email and discovered that our flight for the next day from London had been cancelled and that they had rescheduled all of our flights for 24 hours later.  My mama heart broke then, as I had been ready and settled on seeing Anni less than 24 hours later.  In addition, Erin was supposed to work on Monday (at which point, by their plan, we would still be in London).  Now, don't get me wrong, normally a day in London would be awesome... but we had all set ourselves up ready to be home and I was most definitely ready to hold my baby again.  Daniel ended up with only half an hour of sleep after spending all night on the phone.  The big issue he ran into was that they had cancelled our bookings on all of our following flights... something that meant there was very little chance we would get home Sunday night.  Our original plan was Dublin -> London -> Chicago -> Wichita.  Unfortunately, because they had cancelled booking on the flight from Chicago and resold the seats, there was no way we could go through Chicago unless we wanted to spend a day there.  My dear, patient, sleepless husband researched and called and patiently worked through every detail.  Finally, he got us from Dublin to Philly to Houston.  In Houston he got us on standby on two flights and actually on a flight 24 hours later if those fell through.  

In the morning, we woke Erin and shared the news with her after he had caught me up on the night's events.  We packed and Josh, Phoebe's wonderful husband, dashed us through part of town so we could grab our bus to the airport.  And there we were.  7ish hours on the international flight in a tiny plane next to a darling little Irish boy and his daddy, another few hours to Houston where we bit our nails and declared over and over that we wouldn't make it standby on this flight and that was okay (it wasn't okay, by the way).  We made contingency plans for if only one or two of us were let on.  We ate expensive airplane food, played speed and prayed some more.  As they boarded the plane, Erin counted carefully, or as carefully as you can count on very little sleep.  There were 50 seats and she saw 47 people board.  We held our breath and finally the gate attendant motioned to us that we were on.  I admit it, I cried.  We would be home in only an hour!  The plane was tiny and I didn't care.  I passed out before we were cruising at altitude and made it home in time for a good night's sleep so I could greet my baby in the morning.

And that, my friends, is the end of the story.  Sure, we had a flight home the next day where Anni managed to cover two seats, the floor, her clothes and daddy's shoes in poop, but that story is for another day.  

We are so very grateful we were able to take the trip and that we had wonderful friends and family that helped us make it happen.  Not only was it amazing to spend time together as adults, but it fulfilled a promise that Daniel had made to me when we were first married - that he would travel the world with me.  Someday, we'll do more, but for now, we're pretty satisfied that we went away to such a beautiful place and made it home again. 

Ireland Day 3: Slea Head Loop & Cliffs of Mohrer

 Every day in Ireland was packed full, but I feel like we packed the most mileage and landscape into this day.  We woke up early in our hostel (The Grapevine Hostel if you're curious), stumbled our way through tricky showers with half freezing half burning water and down to the kitchen to work our ways through toast and jam while we watched the resident family get their son all ready for school (children with Irish accents?  Adorable to an unbelievable degree.)  The trip around the Slea Head loop (Dingle Peninsula) was a study in roads.  They started like the above.  Most of the roads along the coast are like this.  Narrow, but not impassable, and only really terrifying when a tour bus is coming from the opposite direction and very obviously can't fit in their lane.

However; the road narrowed to one lane as we started the loop.  Apparently, it's supposed to be one way.  Most people were going our way; but, there was the occasional breathless moment as a car heading the other way squeezed by.

But don't worry, the road proceeded to narrow even more.


 
I kind of loved this windy part, the ocean beyond the ever present rock wall to the left and craggy rocks to our right.  It just felt, well, right.

The morning was the rainiest we had encountered, so many of our stops were done in piecemeal, taking moments to dry our cameras and selves in the car.  It was so worth the freezing rain and camera damage (don't worry, nothing permanent... we think).  

This was our longest stop.  Dún Chaoin is the Western most point of Ireland, and lives up to having such a prestigious title. 
 

This was coldest, rainiest point in our drive, but we spent the longest here.  It was just too breathtaking to drive away.

 

We stayed long enough that the rain cleared enough so we could make the Blasket Islands out clearly.

We finally hopped into the car and proceeded on.  On our next stop, we climbed down into a muddy field and walked toward the coast.  There really isn't much that can rival the things we saw here... everything just moved me.  With everything shrouded in fog and rain, the whole loop had an air of mystery to it.  It was perfect... mystery makes you dream, makes you think of what came before you.   

   

 Oh, plus, I love him.  It's true.
 

Our last stop on the drive was at these church ruins and cemetery.  See that narrow opening at the back?  The legend goes that if you can fit through that, you'll go to heaven.  No worries, we all made it.  Nice to not have to worry about that anymore.

 

 

 

From there, we wrapped up a little shopping in town (hey, I had 20 people to buy for, we had a lot of work to do in small chunks of time) and found a little restaurant to get our fish n' chips in.  Here's confession time: I used to hate fish... like, a lot.  Recently, I've gotten over that somewhat, but I was still wary of eating for real fish from a legit fishing town (I mean, we watched them carry our fish in from the dock, just about as fresh as can be).  That being said, I picked the most mild fish they had and rocked lunch out.  It was yummy, and warm... which was important, I was still chilled.

 
And here, you can insert a 4 hour nap for Erin and I while Daniel drove the rather treacherous roads.  Okay, we didn't sleep the entire four hours... those treacherous roads meant there were a lot of things to stare at out the window while singing along to Erin's iPod in between charging the garmin.  Our end destination was worth it:

The Cliffs of Mohrer.  We were sure we would only get a few minutes here, but luckily, we found that we were allowed to stay on the cliffs much longer than last admission.  We're grateful for the amount of times this happened on our trip... it meant we had a lot more time when we were sure we were out of it.  And boy, was it worth it.

The wind was so strong it alternated between pushing us over and holding us up.  I've used the word breathtaking too many times already on this entry; but, really, breathtaking. 

There is a wall with a memorial to all those that have died falling from the cliffs before the safety wall had been built(the wind we experienced made it very easy to imagine), and we later learned that most of our friends who had been to the Cliffs had climbed over it.  We were pretty sure we would die, and watched this couple that had climbed over for a few minutes... kind of in that fascination where you aren't quite sure they're going to make it (I think they did; though, we didn't stay long enough to make sure...)

 

My dream for most of the trip was to watch the sun set over the cliffs.  I didn't necessarily see the entire sunset, but the beginning was beautiful enough to fulfill all of the wishes.

Only a few kilometers away from the Cliffs is St. Brigid's Well.  Since my niece is named after St. Brigid, it was a necessary stop.  What we found was fascinating.  Everywhere, people had left pieces of their lives, asking for prayers, asking for someone to remember their babies, their mothers, their petitions.  It was both beautiful and desperately sad.  We wandered quietly for a while, reading notes and taking pictures.

The spring is in the back of this little structure, a sweet little stream, just carrying on it's job as it has for hundreds of years.

We didn't have anything to leave but a prayer for our sweet Brigie, and with that, we continued on our way.  Galway, dinner and rest called to us.  Only a few kilometers away; though, we made one last stop to glory in the sunset.  It still takes my breath away.

I mentioned that I felt like I should do a heel click in the road; but, alas, that skill isn't mine.  Luckily, Erin cheerfully obliged, and we were on our way. 

 

Though the pictures for the day mostly end here, we had a long road ahead of us.  We drove the two hours to Galway, wrapping ourselves through the coast and tiny coastal towns (and filling up our gas tank for the first time on the trip... diesel cars are kind of a wonder that way).  Once there, we debated between finding our beds or our dinner first.  We decided we had better get settled so we could walk into town, as parking was scarce.  Here lay an adventure as the large hostel we had spoken with previously informed us they had no male beds.  As may be obvious, Daniel is a male, so we had to move on.  They recommended a bed and breakfast to us.  That bed and breakfast was one of the best things that happened to us on this trip.  It was run by a little woman named Betty, sweet and fiery and somewhere between middle-aged and elderly, fighting cancer, with enough stories to fill the night.  She walked us into town, directing us to quick dinners (here is where I admit that I ate Papa Johns... it was a Friday in Lent and fish didn't appeal to me for a second meal in a row) and local pubs.  Galway is a college town, and the pubs showed it.  They were packed, stuffy and not what we were hoping for at all.  We finally found one with a table, but the music never started... they mic checked, and mic checked... and after a good many jokes, we headed back to our beds and blissful sleep to prepare for our drive into Dublin the next morning.