So we arrived in the small town of Cashel around...a bit past 9 pm. We had called a hostel from the bus station in Dublin before parting with Cynthia and Danielle and Danielle's guidebook. It's a good thing we called, because otherwise I don't think anyone would have been around to let us in. Oh wait, no one was around anyway. Gio had talked to an effusively friendly Indian lady on the phone, who said Come On Down! We'll be waiting for you! But when we actually arrived we rang the doorbell and waited a few minutes before a blonde lady came from the B&B next door, looked at us suspiciously and asked if we had reservations. Gio told her he had called earlier, but she apparently didn't have our names written down. I don't know why this was a problem, because after staying there I'm pretty sure there were only about 3 or 4 other people (MAX) staying there, and TONS of free beds/rooms. The lady did eventually warm up...so maybe she had dozed off next door and was grumpy to be woken up, I don't know.
Anyway, we got our keys and settled in (trying not to disturb the one other person in our room, who was already sleeping), then went down to the kitchen and had some tea and bread and cheese, following our first course of apples, crackers and cheese which took place on the bus (with us cutting our white cheddar using an edge of the box it came in--now that's resourcefulness). In the hostel kitchen we regaled ourselves of the absolutely delicious brown soda bread someone had so generously left in the "free" box, as well as the surprisingly good supermarket brand tea, also marked "free." Obviously my birthday dinner was quite extravagant.
Afterwards, although we were exhausted and it was FREEZING cold outside (but amazingly clear), we couldn't really face ending the day having basically done nothing but sit on a bus, so we decided to go for a wander around Cashel. We had decided really last minute to go there, and basically didn't know anything about it except that there was something there called the Rock of Cashel, which was apparently impressive. So we wandered the streets for a bit, passing lots of cozy-looking pubs (which were surprisingly packed for a Monday night), appreciating all the Halloween decorations in the store fronts, and generally enjoying the unrivaled adorableness of the town. It was like a town straight out of Disneyland, only if Main Street USA was actually Irish, and had more pubs. And was colder. It didn't seem overly touristy though, which was also amazing. A place of extreme cuteness and picturesqueness without the feeling that everything in it is made for/aimed at tourists (and separating them from their money) is something pretty special. All the time we could see a huge stone fortress/castle looming over the town, lit from below, with the crescent moon hanging right above its turrets. We assumed that was the rock of Cashel, but since there were all these brochures about how to get there by bus, we assumed it was farther than it looked. Nevertheless, we decided to walk towards it, and before we knew it, we were at the base of the immense, ancient, awesome thing. As we were gaping at it, the lights turned off, turning it from a majestic fortress to a massive dark and incredibly spooky presence. This is what we had come for. The crisp and very chilly air, the twinkling stars and beautiful moon, the colored leaves blowing around the abandoned streets, the dark castle on our right and a couple scary gates leading to an even darker path on our left--we could only imagine what lay beyond it. WOooOoO--getting in the Halloween mood!! As I stood in awe looking at the castle and how much it had transformed with the turning off of the lights (I swear, it never wore off--The Rock of Cashel took my breath away anew in every change of light, at different every angle, as if I was just then seeing it for the first time)--Gio unlatched one of the gates leading through the stone wall, and it opened slowly, with a long drawn out creak straight from a horror movie. The leaves rustled in the path beyond, a small square of it illuminated by the moonlight, the rest absolutely pitch black. We couldn't resist that, being the couple of spooky kids that we are, so we started tentatively down the path. But, being the couple of scaredy cats (with overactive imaginations) that we also are, we didn't get very far. Gio dared me to do something that had to do with going farther beyond the point where I couldn't see a thing, and while I was hesitating something spooked us (or maybe we just freaked ourselves out) and we started running back to the gate and slammed it shut. Whew. We made it out of there alive ;o). We walked around the base of the dark castle (plus graveyard) for quite a while longer, before heading on back towards the town, where we ran into the ruins of an old monastery, right in the middle of some apartments and a small strip mall. This place was amazing, though for some reason even spookier--it seemed to emanate a malevolent presence rather than the majesty of "the rock." And there were graves inside, and strange shadows. Or maybe we were just getting ourselves worked up. When we eventually made it back to the main street of Cashel, we made another tour looking in the windows of a few of the unbearably cute pubs, most of which promptly turned off their front lights/open signs/etc--apparently pub time had passed. So we headed back to the hostel and tried to go to bed without waking the now two people who were in our room (both snoring males, much to my dismay).
The next morning we walked around looking for a place to have breakfast, and eventually ended up at The Bake House, which I had spotted when we got off the bus the night before, where we had some delicious cappuccinos and scones, but although the place was packed with what seemed like locals, I think we chose wrong. I had been tempted to go out for breakfast rather than buying something to eat at the hostel because the Cashel food brochure was making my mouth water with visions of hot scones with jam and clotted cream. Apparently the place that served that was the one across the street, which we didn't go into because we couldn't see inside the steamed up windows. Our mistake. Although our scones were good, they were neither hot nor served with clotted cream. And, tragic story, I never ended up getting that particular delicacy the entire time we spent in Ireland, although I never gave up hope!
After breakfast we packed up our stuff and stopped at the tourist office to figure out the bus times, which basically gave us the option of leaving in 5 minutes or several hours later. Since we still wanted to explore Cashel a bit, we decided to take the 2 something bus, so we had a leisurely few hours to pass. We walked back to the rock, which of course looked completely different in the daylight. We walked down the path that had so scared us the night before. We were disappointed to see that there was nothing to be scared of besides some really deep mud (so it's actually good we were too scared to go any further when we couldn't see), but there was an unbelievably beautiful path leading around the grounds of the Rock and down to a valley where some more ancient abbey ruins stood amongst that grass so green that it practically glows, the kind that really can only be seen in Ireland. We explored the ruins (and graveyard), all the while I was cursing my camera's dead battery, as each turn of the corner revealed something too awesome for words, and the light continued to change and render the Rock of Cashel newly awe-inspiring. Not to mention the views of the castle *through* the windows and arches of the ruined abbey. We were eventually joined by a family who seemed to be locals--or at least somehow connected to the place, because the dad was explaining to his kids whose family members were buried here, and whose there. I wondered if they were from the Ryan clan, whose name seemed to dominate the majority of the store fronts and businesses in town. Or maybe the Morellis, who seemed to be the other heavy-hitters in Cashel. But they didn't strike me as Morellis. We pretended they were Ryans. (I found it really interesting how we could identify 2 or 3 family names in each Irish town that were EVERYWHERE). We spent a few hours walking around seeing everything we had seen the night before, most of which looked disappointingly un-spooky in the day, but had the advantage of being open.
We stopped at the church, signed the guest book. As we were looking around another family came in and their son started reading the guest book. I heard him say "AUSTRALIA?!?? That's soooo farrr awaaay!!!" Then, "that's from TODAY!" So I guess Gio's presence provided the kid with a thrill--he seemed to be extremely excited about the thought of someone from Australia visiting the same church in the same day as he did...lol, if only I could be so exciting.
When we couldn't take the cold any longer, we went grocery shopping and headed back to the hostel for a pasta lunch (and lots more tea), punctuated by advice sessions with the Indian lady Gio had talked to the night before--we learned all about Indian folk remedies and recipes (i.e. suck on a clove to help a toothache), and also learned that she often cooks for the guests and he owner's ungrateful kids who complain about garlic and cover their noses when she's cooking with it. Of course all the garlic and spices she said they complain about sounded like heaven to me--why did we have to miss it!? In the meantime we had been swayed by the brochures showing the cozy Sugan hostel in Killarney--it looked like a little hobbit hole with an open fire, colorful walls, etc. Although Killarney was not on our itinerary, we decided that it would give us the time to take a look at a few more things on our way to the Dingle peninsula, such as Cahir Castle, so we decided to make a stop there that night.
Cahir was beautiful, but Cashel was a hard act to follow, and the Cahir Castle paled in comparison to the Rock of Cashel. Killarney was also a bit of a disappointment. It was "cute," but this time in a way that felt very fake. It was filled with glitzy hotels and expensive restaurants and bars that all served the exact same tourist menu, which was posted outside in 10 languages. Every pub advertised "traditional music," but I tend to bristle a little when I come to a tourist trap--I get so paranoid about falling for it that I have a hard time deciding on any place to go, because I want to search out the "diamond of authenticity" in the rough of made-for-tourists establishments. Because of this, we spent a long time walking around in indecision, before finally choosing a cozy pub with an open fire that was very coolly decorated for Halloween, with orange lighting, cobwebs covering the walls and chandeliers, skeletons and ghosts everywhere, etc. We ordered Irish coffees, since we had been wanting to for awhile and figured what the heck, we were in a touristy town so why not order a touristy drink? They cost a whopping 6 euros, but they were also huge, and wore capes. And they were INTENSE. There was a TON of THICK THICK cream--I could feel my arteries clogging, literally, as I sipped it. Once I got through the first layer of cream, the whiskey started to burn my throat out. There was no way I was finishing that thing (which was also huge), as hard as I tried, I don't know if I even made it halfway. The pub itself seemed to be a good choice, though, since it was filled with people of all ages who seemed to be Irish and maybe even local (a lot of them seemed to know each other), and they were all singing along with the traditional music being played in the corner, and actually dancing actual jig-like dances (and yes, these were young people doing this). We were very happy about this development. Unfortunately, after a rousing round of "Fell in Love With a Galway Girl" (or whatever the actual title of that song is), the trad music group packed up and was replaced by a band on the stage at the other end of the pub. They were also quite good, but we didn't really come to Ireland to listen to a cover band sing Blink 182 and Linkin Park songs. Plus it was too loud to talk at that point, even when we finally managed to snatch a spot by the fire on the other end of the pub. So after about half an hour of that we decided to pack it up and head back to the hostel. Easier said than done, and we wandered lost for a bit, but eventually made it back.
It was a comfortable hostel, but I can't say I got much sleep since one of the (already sleeping) girls in our room sounded alarmingly tubercular...or--I don't even know, she was snoring very loud, but it was very...wet_snoring. She basically sounded like she was drowning, all night. Besides the noise, I was also a little bit worried about what lovely diseases we were going to catch from her...
The next morning we went to the rip off little mini mart down the street and bought some peanut butter and honey and bread (mmmm peanut butter--even the horrible British stuff tasted so good to me, I haven't had it for so long! Plus I was a little low on protein). Armed with our newly purchased umbrellas from the 2 euro store, we walked to the national park on the edge of town. We were determined to make the most of our time in Killarney. As the rain started pounding harder (and horizontally), our umbrellas continually turning inside out as we walked through some fields full of cows who looked at us like we were crazy. We headed in the direction of some castle (Roth I think?) And walk 2k or so before reaching some "road flooded" signs--pshaw! we said, and continued. However, a few hundred meters down the road we realized that they weren't joking, and there was no way of getting around it--the road and the woods around was somewhat reminiscent of a very cold Florida everglades. We tried to see if there were some shallower places we might be able to step to continue on, but no dice. We would've needed a canoe to visit Roth Castle that day... Defeated, and soaking wet, we headed back to the hostel, by way of the huge cathedral and a short stop at Dunne's department store, which attracted us with their display of pumpkins. What we discovered inside was the best grocery store in Ireland, with prices that were actually affordable and things that actually looked good (including lots of gorgeous fruits and vegetables, which we were also lacking in our diet of pretty much bread, cheese and pasta). Although we didn't want to load ourselves down too much, we couldn't resist the giant 99 cent cabbages, big bags of carrots, beautiful "capsicums," etc. We stocked up on fruits and veggies and some other provisions and headed back to the hostel for a surprisingly delicious and healthy and satisfying lunch, before heading to the bus station to finally go to Dingle (via Tralee). There is a story to tell about the buses, our tickets, etc, but if you want to know you'll have to ask me in person...
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Ireland, part two: Galway and mon anniversaire
When the Aran Islands Ferries shuttle bus deposited us back in Galway, it was still raining cats and dogs, and we still didn't have a place to stay, and it was still the cursed Bank Holiday Weekend, and everything was still booked up.
We tried the Kinlay House Hostel once again, just because it was there. The guy told us they were booked up and he had just called around "all the other hostels" for people a few hours earlier and everyone else was booked up too. He told us the Galway Backpackers might have a couple beds if we hurry, but I had heard some bad things about that place, so I wasn't in a hurry to pay 25 euros a night to stay there. We went searching for few places whose addresses I had written down. One didn't exist (or we weren't able to find it anyway), and the others were booked. As we were walking back to Eyre Square, thinking of either breaking down and paying for that bad hostel or maybe taking a bus somewhere else, Gio spotted a small sign in the window of a house. Or actually two small signs, that said "B&B" and "Guests." Besides those signs, there was no indication that this house was a place to stay--it was all dark, nothing that would really indicate it was a business or anything besides a (not particularly welcoming) private residence. However, we were getting a bit desperate at this point, so we decided to ask. We passed through the gate (and the sacks of garbage put out in the yard), hesitated for a moment, then Gio rang the doorbell. A few minutes later a lady came to the door and we asked if she had room for 4 people, what the prices were, etc. "We're very poor." Gio said, to which she responded "I'm not too rich myself." But she offered us two rooms with two beds each room for 25 euros each, which we figured was probably the best we would get in Galway that weekend. Or at least the few extra euros would be worth it for the time we saved not walking all around Galway with our luggage looking for hostels. She also made sure we knew that it was "Just a B--there's no breakfast included." Which was really okay by us because breakfast was the least of our worries at that point.
So we settled in--the place was a pretty typical looking budget european B&B with too many clashing patterns--on the bedspreads, on the carpet, on the wallpaper, and pretty lumpy but still acceptably comfortable beds. The whole thing seemed a little bit strange, and the random and somewhat scary Christmas trinkets and dolls all around the house were a little bit creepy, I'm not gonna lie. But we tried not to think about it (except Gio, who was enjoying making up stories and creeping us and himself out--getting ready for Halloween I guess), and instead headed to Monroe's Pizza Cabin/Pub for the Pizza we had all been waiting for. Monroe's, along with all the other pubs in Galway, was packed to the brim, and it was pretty impossible to find a place to sit or even stand. But we managed to snag some seats eventually and holed up for a long time as we ate our delicious pizza and Gio ordered Coors Light of all things for those who were drinking beer (which was everyone except me--really must learn to like beer some day. I don't think it's gonna happen though).
Afterwards we walked around Galway, which doesn't take long. It had stopped raining but was still freezing cold, and we sort of wanted to go to a place with live traditional Irish music, but the places we tried were so packed that we didn't stay there long (one of them I think we made some friends, but who knows what they said to us or if our replies had anything to do with what they actually asked--or if they could even hear what we said--it was funny though, very friendly people). Eventually we just gave up and went back to the B&B to sleep. But first I had to have a very stressful shower with this shower temperature box thing that I've only seen in Ireland--basically it was the most annoying thing in the world because it's not just that the temperature was cold, but it fluctuated from freezing cold to scalding hot every two seconds the entire time. However I was already committed (already wet with shampoo in my hair), so I had to endure the torture until I emerged freezing cold yet with burnt skin...not exactly relaxing, but oh well, at least I had a bed to sleep in.
The next morning we got up and walked around a bit looking for a good place to have breakfast, and settled on a Bagel Cafe at the request of our New Yorker. Since it was my birthday we went big and all got bagel sandwiches, cappuccinos or mochas, and a big chocolate and I think custard muffin that we all shared as my "Birthday Muffin." Happy Birthday to me. It was very good though. At a little street market I bought a wool hat with ear flaps and dingly bobbers because I wanted to get through the trip and still have ears. Since I had yet to get my first paycheck I was cringing at every euro spent, but I figured, it's your birthday, live a little, keep your ears. Plus it was only 10 euros and I've wanted a dingly bobber hat for a long time. Best purchase I made all...well In any case I don't know if I would have survived the crazy weather without it.
We walked around Galway a little bit more, then headed to the bus station, where we found out that it was already too late to make it to the Dingle Peninsula that day (even though it was only just past 11 am). We didn't really know what else to do, although I had a lot of other ideas, but we decided to get on the bus to Dublin and decide our next stop on the way. 5 hours later we decided to part ways, since the girls were leaving on the 30th and wanted to spend a lot of time in Dublin before then, but Gio and I were there until the 5th and already had many Dublin days scheduled for later on, since we were both flying out of Dublin. Gio and I had decided to put our bus pass day to use and move on to somewhere else--in this case, Cashel, a town in the South on the way to Cork. So we walked the girls to the first hostel we could find, then we all went to a Spar grocery store to get some supplies, walked back to the bus station, said our goodbyes, and Gio and I boarded yet another bus for another 3 hour bus ride. Wooohooo. We could have just gone straight down from Galway in the first place for a 4 hour rather than 8 hour trip, mais bon...we were "making good use of our bus passes" by crisscrossing the country several times. Yeah that's it, getting our money's worth.
We tried the Kinlay House Hostel once again, just because it was there. The guy told us they were booked up and he had just called around "all the other hostels" for people a few hours earlier and everyone else was booked up too. He told us the Galway Backpackers might have a couple beds if we hurry, but I had heard some bad things about that place, so I wasn't in a hurry to pay 25 euros a night to stay there. We went searching for few places whose addresses I had written down. One didn't exist (or we weren't able to find it anyway), and the others were booked. As we were walking back to Eyre Square, thinking of either breaking down and paying for that bad hostel or maybe taking a bus somewhere else, Gio spotted a small sign in the window of a house. Or actually two small signs, that said "B&B" and "Guests." Besides those signs, there was no indication that this house was a place to stay--it was all dark, nothing that would really indicate it was a business or anything besides a (not particularly welcoming) private residence. However, we were getting a bit desperate at this point, so we decided to ask. We passed through the gate (and the sacks of garbage put out in the yard), hesitated for a moment, then Gio rang the doorbell. A few minutes later a lady came to the door and we asked if she had room for 4 people, what the prices were, etc. "We're very poor." Gio said, to which she responded "I'm not too rich myself." But she offered us two rooms with two beds each room for 25 euros each, which we figured was probably the best we would get in Galway that weekend. Or at least the few extra euros would be worth it for the time we saved not walking all around Galway with our luggage looking for hostels. She also made sure we knew that it was "Just a B--there's no breakfast included." Which was really okay by us because breakfast was the least of our worries at that point.
So we settled in--the place was a pretty typical looking budget european B&B with too many clashing patterns--on the bedspreads, on the carpet, on the wallpaper, and pretty lumpy but still acceptably comfortable beds. The whole thing seemed a little bit strange, and the random and somewhat scary Christmas trinkets and dolls all around the house were a little bit creepy, I'm not gonna lie. But we tried not to think about it (except Gio, who was enjoying making up stories and creeping us and himself out--getting ready for Halloween I guess), and instead headed to Monroe's Pizza Cabin/Pub for the Pizza we had all been waiting for. Monroe's, along with all the other pubs in Galway, was packed to the brim, and it was pretty impossible to find a place to sit or even stand. But we managed to snag some seats eventually and holed up for a long time as we ate our delicious pizza and Gio ordered Coors Light of all things for those who were drinking beer (which was everyone except me--really must learn to like beer some day. I don't think it's gonna happen though).
Afterwards we walked around Galway, which doesn't take long. It had stopped raining but was still freezing cold, and we sort of wanted to go to a place with live traditional Irish music, but the places we tried were so packed that we didn't stay there long (one of them I think we made some friends, but who knows what they said to us or if our replies had anything to do with what they actually asked--or if they could even hear what we said--it was funny though, very friendly people). Eventually we just gave up and went back to the B&B to sleep. But first I had to have a very stressful shower with this shower temperature box thing that I've only seen in Ireland--basically it was the most annoying thing in the world because it's not just that the temperature was cold, but it fluctuated from freezing cold to scalding hot every two seconds the entire time. However I was already committed (already wet with shampoo in my hair), so I had to endure the torture until I emerged freezing cold yet with burnt skin...not exactly relaxing, but oh well, at least I had a bed to sleep in.
The next morning we got up and walked around a bit looking for a good place to have breakfast, and settled on a Bagel Cafe at the request of our New Yorker. Since it was my birthday we went big and all got bagel sandwiches, cappuccinos or mochas, and a big chocolate and I think custard muffin that we all shared as my "Birthday Muffin." Happy Birthday to me. It was very good though. At a little street market I bought a wool hat with ear flaps and dingly bobbers because I wanted to get through the trip and still have ears. Since I had yet to get my first paycheck I was cringing at every euro spent, but I figured, it's your birthday, live a little, keep your ears. Plus it was only 10 euros and I've wanted a dingly bobber hat for a long time. Best purchase I made all...well In any case I don't know if I would have survived the crazy weather without it.
We walked around Galway a little bit more, then headed to the bus station, where we found out that it was already too late to make it to the Dingle Peninsula that day (even though it was only just past 11 am). We didn't really know what else to do, although I had a lot of other ideas, but we decided to get on the bus to Dublin and decide our next stop on the way. 5 hours later we decided to part ways, since the girls were leaving on the 30th and wanted to spend a lot of time in Dublin before then, but Gio and I were there until the 5th and already had many Dublin days scheduled for later on, since we were both flying out of Dublin. Gio and I had decided to put our bus pass day to use and move on to somewhere else--in this case, Cashel, a town in the South on the way to Cork. So we walked the girls to the first hostel we could find, then we all went to a Spar grocery store to get some supplies, walked back to the bus station, said our goodbyes, and Gio and I boarded yet another bus for another 3 hour bus ride. Wooohooo. We could have just gone straight down from Galway in the first place for a 4 hour rather than 8 hour trip, mais bon...we were "making good use of our bus passes" by crisscrossing the country several times. Yeah that's it, getting our money's worth.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Ireland, part one
Day One (Saturday October 25th):
I got up way too early after not nearly enough sleep and finished packing (I discovered the night before that it's hard to pack ahead of time when you only own the bare minimum and thus need to use things right up until the moment you leave). I gave myself about 40 minutes to get to the bus stop outside the Bayonne Mairie--I knew that was too much time, but didn't want to take any chances since it was the only bus that would get me to the airport on time and I would die if I had to pay for a taxi. I passed the elusive fruit and vegetable market on my walk to the bus stop and resolved to not be a lazybones and to actually get up early enough to go shopping there when I get back. When I reached the bus stop, the Adour river was completely enveloped in sunlit mist--gorgeous.
I was about 20 minutes early, so I had time to go buy a phone refill since my credit was expiring that day (note: Orange Mobicarte, not a good deal). I'm afraid I was a little mean to the tabac man when he told me my credit card wouldn't work because it doesn't have the stupid little chip that French cards do. "Il n'y a pas de touristes ici?" I said, since I was really quite surprised and annoyed that in the most touristy square of this town in a touristy area (and right next to Spain, where they *don't* have to have a chip in their cards) he was unable to process my card and acted like it was such an anomaly. I was mostly annoyed because I ended up having to pay for it with my dwindling cash supply, which had also taken a hit the day before when I had to pay rent in cash, again because my card wouldn't work without a chip (though at the school it was a little less of a surprise). I had actually intended to buy a refill online or by phone, but when I had tried chez moi it didn't give me that option. However, suddenly when I called to activate my newly (cash) purchased refill, I was given the option to buy refills by credit card on the phone! Argh.
I got on the bus, met my fellow English language assistants/travel partners Cynthia and Danielle about halfway, and marveled at the fact that we could get from centre ville to the airport on a regular city bus for only about 1 euro, when usually getting to the airport (especially in Europe) is quite the expensive ordeal. We checked in, everything went okay (I was getting a little nervous though when the customs woman was reading my passport in such great detail), and we were on our way.
We arrived at the Shannon Airport on the West coast of Ireland a little before noon. We were greeted by pouring down rain (the kind that feels especially "wet," and a freezing wind to blow it horizontally into our faces). I didn't have an umbrella, but that was probably just as well, since everyone who was prepared was rewarded by having their umbrellas turned inside out several times on the walk from the plane to the terminal.
I had realized after leaving that I hadn't really finalized plans for how and where to meet up with Gio, who had flown into Ireland from the UK the day before. I had given him our flight details long before and we had sort of offhandedly said he could meet us at the airport, but we hadn't really discussed it again, and certainly not within the last few days. I was really thankful, then, that Gio did come to the airport and was able to figure out which flight it was and found us shortly after we got in.
From there we went to the Bus Eireann counter and bought our Open Road passes, good for 3 travel days out of 6 on the buses, which are apparently the best (though far from ideal) way to get around Ireland sans car. We made our way back out into the rain and looked for the bus to Galway. Since it was more than 20 minutes late, by the time it actually arrived there were waaaaay too many people trying to get on the bus. Danielle, Cynthia and I all managed to get seats, but about 5 people got on the bus and were told they would have to stand at least until Ennis unless they wanted to get on the next bus. I noticed that Gio, being perhaps too nice and un-pushy for his own good, wasn't even on the bus, so I started to get off. When the driver realized we were traveling together, he gave us the same spiel about standing, and so Gio and I (Ihaving now lost my seat) got to stand for a looong time. Which wasn't actually that bad, since it was the beginning of the trip and my feet weren't excessively sore yet--though we both fell into people/the aisle a few times.
When we arrived in Galway, it was raining even harder. This made it fairly unpleasant to wander around, which we pretty much had to do quite a bit of since we didn't have a place to stay. Due to it being "bank holiday weekend" (curses on that bank holiday!!) and the fact that a beer festival and the Galway races were both going on in town, there was absolutely no place to stay. I discovered this before leaving France, but figured that hostels sometimes give different answers as to their availability when you're actually standing there in front of them, so we might as well try to find a place in person, and move on (using our bus passes) if we couldn't. Well we weren't very encouraged by the couple of places we tried, which, besides being completely booked up themselves, had called other places who were saying the same thing. We figured (since Galway was pretty miserable anyway) we might as well head to the Aran Islands a day early, so we went to the office for the ferry, where we were told the sailing had a chance of being canceled due to rough seas, and that we should come back at 4:15 to find out whether it would sail or not.
In the mean time we holed up in an internet cafe, drinking coffee, eating Crunchy bars (I forgot how good they are!) and not using the internet. Not wanting to surrender our posts if indeed the sailing was canceled (leaving us out in the rain with no plan), when the time came Gio went back to the ferry office to check the status, and reported that indeed the boat to Inishmore would be going, come hell or high water! We all made our way back to the office, which was now packed, and from my eavesdropping I discerned that there were more than a few people headed to the islands for the night because of a lack of lodging in Galway. That didn't bode well for us, especially since once on the islands there would be no turning back until the morning, whether we found a place to stay or not. It all worked out exceedingly well, though. There was a sign in the ferry office advertising a Winter Special--roundtrip ferry plus one night in a hostel for 30 euros per person. Since the ferry itself cost 25 euros I figured that would be the way to go. However, the guy at the desk called "the hostel"--he didn't say which one--and reported that they didn't have any room. I asked if there were any other hostels on the island, hoping we would be able to call them to find out if they had room, but not thinking they had the deal going with them also. But at this prompting he called another hostel (the most central and well-reviewed one where I had wanted to stay anyway) and told us everything was good, they had room and we got the deal. Sure am glad I asked!
The ride over was thrilling. Despite the freezing cold and off and on rain, most the passengers spent the ride above deck, leaning our heads over the railings and feeling the salty water mist our faces. As we left the harbour and picked up speed, everyone was cheering as we hit our first big waves. However as the ride went on (and on and on), the sky got darker, the wind colder and the waves bigger, and some of the people became less thrilled with the huge waves we were navigating. The snazzy little ferries were apparently equipped with "state of the art electronic stabilisers,"--can't imagine what the ride would be like without them though! For instance, in a curragh... We couldn't decide whether it was scarier *not* to be able to see the waves as we went over them, or if it would be worse to see them. The ride back (for me) confirmed that it's probably worse to see them.
Once we landed at the docks at Kilronan on Inishmore, we found our hostel fairly quickly (it was the second building after leaving the dock), settled in, and asked the guy at the hostel (who I think was Italian?) for a suggestion of a place to eat. He sent us down the road to a restaurant where I think he also works--couldn't really understand him very well though. The restaurant was very posh looking and gave me another pang of wanting to see Inishmaan, because as remote and relatively pristine as it is, the marks of the tourist industry are nonetheless everywhere on Inishmore, and I don't think Kilronan, in its current state, really gives an idea of what "real life" on the islands is like/was like until very recently. But then again, I am a tourist, and I have to sleep somewhere and eat somewhere, so I decided to appreciate the modern conveniences on Inishmore rather than mourn them.
We had an excellent dinner (though we were imagining the staff cursing us for ordering the cheapest things and not getting wine--after all, the prices were pretty posh too)! I had a seafood chowder (made with fish caught about 100 meters away) that was AMAZING, and the others had similarly delicious looking food. Though at 7 euros I think I definitely got the most bang for my buck--I was very happy with my choice, and it's a great feeling to sit down to a big bowl of hearty, satisfying and delicious hot chowder after a long day of traveling and being rained on and windblown and frozen. Yum. After dinner we retired to the cozy common room of the hostel, where we met an American, German, and Estonian girl, all travelers who were currently working at the hostel. They told us about their plans to go see some live music at a pub down the street then move on to the sleazy stupid disco at "American Bar," but we were too exhausted to go out and so just sat around chatting/reading/halfway watching "100 Best Scary Moments" which somebody had turned the tv to before going to bed fairly early.
The next morning we got up around 8:30, and made our way over to the kitchen for the breakfast that was supposedly included from 8-10 am. Since by that time it was 9:30, we were surprised to not find any food or people over there, though the place was absolutely trashed, with beer bottles and other alcohol remnants, cigarettes, glasses, spills, etc everywhere, so we got a clue as to why the hostel "staff" might not be so early to rise that morning. We bided our time for a while, searching for signs of life and not finding any, except for a girl who came in, looked at us blinkingly, didn't respond to either my or Gio's separate hellos, looked in the cabinets for a few minutes, turned on a classical music radio station and left.
Eventually as it neared 10 o'clock (checkout time), we were getting antsy and wanted to get going, but didn't want to face biking the island on an empty stomach. Danielle snooped in the cupboards and found several huge containers of cornflakes, jams and bread in on of the "staff only" cupboards, which looked exactly like what the American girl had told us was for breakfast. We decided to help ourselves, but halfway through the strange artist girl from earlier (who had since been digging out paints in the office) came in and said "SORRY, but that's for STAFF?" We told her we thought breakfast was included from 8-10 and this is what it was supposed to be and she told us we had to "ask the guy." When we said we couldn't find anyone anywhere and asked if she worked there, she replied "I paint." and walked off. After we had finished and "covered our tracks," the hostel staff all came in bleary eyed and started cleaning up the disgusting mess that had been made of the place. We went to pack up our stuff and turn in our key. By that time they had finished cleaning and were eating breakfast themselves, though there was still nothing set out. The American girl, after a bit, said "if you guys want some breakfast there's stuff in the staff cupboard, just help yourselves." At which point we admitted that we had already done...lol. We turned in our key and were off, shortly after "10"--but a short tour of the town during which we were turned away from the supermarket ("we open at 10"), and realized that, oh yeah, the clocks had changed last night! Oops. So the staff weren't slacking *quite* as much as we thought, but still...
We made a short stop at the Aran Island Sweater Market and Museum (the only place open at that point), where Danielle and Cynthia bought hats and gloves/mittens, then returned there after about 2 seconds on our rented bikes for Gio to buy some mittens. Then we were off, headed for the coastal road, though stopping very frequently for the endless photo ops (for instance this crowd at the Lucky Star Bar, before we even left town).
I think the ride was only about 8k to Dun Aengus, the ancient stone fort, but it felt like much more since we were being blown backwards the majority of the way. In the little village outside the fort, we followed the signs to "Nan Phaddy's House of Good Food/Toilets," where we were overjoyed to find a roaring fire, hot soups and homemade soda bread, and the most exquisitely spiced carrot cake I have ever tasted. It was really hard to pull ourselves away from the fireplace, but as the minibus tour crowds begin to flood into the retaurant, we thought we'd better get a move on and see the fort before it was inundated with all the day-trippers arrived on the morning ferries. The fort was situated on some very scary and beautiful cliffs, and the sun came out just in time to show us the sparkling blue water and the amazingly green grass shining along with the grey stone of the cliffs and the fort. It was truly breathtaking, if a little harrowing--I was actually worried about my camera flying away as I got it out a few times and imagining myself flying off a cliff while diving to catch it, but the battery died soon anyway, so I didn't have to worry anymore.
The ride back was so easy it was unbelievable--even with a stop to climb up to the lighthouse we were back in maybe a fifth of the time it took us to get there--we hardly realized where we were when we came back into town because we weren't expecting to be there so soon. It really illustrated why that Irish blessing wishes "the wind always at your back."
We also had exceptional timing--the rain started to fall just as we got back into town, and we reached the hostel just as it turned into another (windy) downpour. We sympathized with the sorry saps who had arrived on the noon ferry and were just setting out on their ride. After a short trip to the supermarket we lunched on crackers and cheese, sardines, tea biscuits, halloween candy and tea in the freezing cold kitchen. Shortly after retiring to the much warmer lounge room, I noticed a lot of people heading for the docks and mentioned we might want to do so too--even though I thought I was giving us plenty of time to get there since the boat wasn't scheduled to leave for another half hour or so. Despite moaning and groaning, everyone grabbed their stuff and we left the warmth to head for the ferry, which left about 2 seconds after we got on it, more than 15 minutes before the scheduled time! I don't know if they knew how many people were scheduled to ride and left as soon as they counted that many, or (and this seems more likely) they just don't really have much regard for scheduled times in Ireland and thought 5pm was more of a guideline. In any case it was a little disconcerting that we seemed so close to missing the last ferry off the island despite arriving at a time that we thought was fairly early...
I got up way too early after not nearly enough sleep and finished packing (I discovered the night before that it's hard to pack ahead of time when you only own the bare minimum and thus need to use things right up until the moment you leave). I gave myself about 40 minutes to get to the bus stop outside the Bayonne Mairie--I knew that was too much time, but didn't want to take any chances since it was the only bus that would get me to the airport on time and I would die if I had to pay for a taxi. I passed the elusive fruit and vegetable market on my walk to the bus stop and resolved to not be a lazybones and to actually get up early enough to go shopping there when I get back. When I reached the bus stop, the Adour river was completely enveloped in sunlit mist--gorgeous.
I was about 20 minutes early, so I had time to go buy a phone refill since my credit was expiring that day (note: Orange Mobicarte, not a good deal). I'm afraid I was a little mean to the tabac man when he told me my credit card wouldn't work because it doesn't have the stupid little chip that French cards do. "Il n'y a pas de touristes ici?" I said, since I was really quite surprised and annoyed that in the most touristy square of this town in a touristy area (and right next to Spain, where they *don't* have to have a chip in their cards) he was unable to process my card and acted like it was such an anomaly. I was mostly annoyed because I ended up having to pay for it with my dwindling cash supply, which had also taken a hit the day before when I had to pay rent in cash, again because my card wouldn't work without a chip (though at the school it was a little less of a surprise). I had actually intended to buy a refill online or by phone, but when I had tried chez moi it didn't give me that option. However, suddenly when I called to activate my newly (cash) purchased refill, I was given the option to buy refills by credit card on the phone! Argh.
I got on the bus, met my fellow English language assistants/travel partners Cynthia and Danielle about halfway, and marveled at the fact that we could get from centre ville to the airport on a regular city bus for only about 1 euro, when usually getting to the airport (especially in Europe) is quite the expensive ordeal. We checked in, everything went okay (I was getting a little nervous though when the customs woman was reading my passport in such great detail), and we were on our way.
We arrived at the Shannon Airport on the West coast of Ireland a little before noon. We were greeted by pouring down rain (the kind that feels especially "wet," and a freezing wind to blow it horizontally into our faces). I didn't have an umbrella, but that was probably just as well, since everyone who was prepared was rewarded by having their umbrellas turned inside out several times on the walk from the plane to the terminal.
I had realized after leaving that I hadn't really finalized plans for how and where to meet up with Gio, who had flown into Ireland from the UK the day before. I had given him our flight details long before and we had sort of offhandedly said he could meet us at the airport, but we hadn't really discussed it again, and certainly not within the last few days. I was really thankful, then, that Gio did come to the airport and was able to figure out which flight it was and found us shortly after we got in.
From there we went to the Bus Eireann counter and bought our Open Road passes, good for 3 travel days out of 6 on the buses, which are apparently the best (though far from ideal) way to get around Ireland sans car. We made our way back out into the rain and looked for the bus to Galway. Since it was more than 20 minutes late, by the time it actually arrived there were waaaaay too many people trying to get on the bus. Danielle, Cynthia and I all managed to get seats, but about 5 people got on the bus and were told they would have to stand at least until Ennis unless they wanted to get on the next bus. I noticed that Gio, being perhaps too nice and un-pushy for his own good, wasn't even on the bus, so I started to get off. When the driver realized we were traveling together, he gave us the same spiel about standing, and so Gio and I (Ihaving now lost my seat) got to stand for a looong time. Which wasn't actually that bad, since it was the beginning of the trip and my feet weren't excessively sore yet--though we both fell into people/the aisle a few times.
When we arrived in Galway, it was raining even harder. This made it fairly unpleasant to wander around, which we pretty much had to do quite a bit of since we didn't have a place to stay. Due to it being "bank holiday weekend" (curses on that bank holiday!!) and the fact that a beer festival and the Galway races were both going on in town, there was absolutely no place to stay. I discovered this before leaving France, but figured that hostels sometimes give different answers as to their availability when you're actually standing there in front of them, so we might as well try to find a place in person, and move on (using our bus passes) if we couldn't. Well we weren't very encouraged by the couple of places we tried, which, besides being completely booked up themselves, had called other places who were saying the same thing. We figured (since Galway was pretty miserable anyway) we might as well head to the Aran Islands a day early, so we went to the office for the ferry, where we were told the sailing had a chance of being canceled due to rough seas, and that we should come back at 4:15 to find out whether it would sail or not.
In the mean time we holed up in an internet cafe, drinking coffee, eating Crunchy bars (I forgot how good they are!) and not using the internet. Not wanting to surrender our posts if indeed the sailing was canceled (leaving us out in the rain with no plan), when the time came Gio went back to the ferry office to check the status, and reported that indeed the boat to Inishmore would be going, come hell or high water! We all made our way back to the office, which was now packed, and from my eavesdropping I discerned that there were more than a few people headed to the islands for the night because of a lack of lodging in Galway. That didn't bode well for us, especially since once on the islands there would be no turning back until the morning, whether we found a place to stay or not. It all worked out exceedingly well, though. There was a sign in the ferry office advertising a Winter Special--roundtrip ferry plus one night in a hostel for 30 euros per person. Since the ferry itself cost 25 euros I figured that would be the way to go. However, the guy at the desk called "the hostel"--he didn't say which one--and reported that they didn't have any room. I asked if there were any other hostels on the island, hoping we would be able to call them to find out if they had room, but not thinking they had the deal going with them also. But at this prompting he called another hostel (the most central and well-reviewed one where I had wanted to stay anyway) and told us everything was good, they had room and we got the deal. Sure am glad I asked!
The ride over was thrilling. Despite the freezing cold and off and on rain, most the passengers spent the ride above deck, leaning our heads over the railings and feeling the salty water mist our faces. As we left the harbour and picked up speed, everyone was cheering as we hit our first big waves. However as the ride went on (and on and on), the sky got darker, the wind colder and the waves bigger, and some of the people became less thrilled with the huge waves we were navigating. The snazzy little ferries were apparently equipped with "state of the art electronic stabilisers,"--can't imagine what the ride would be like without them though! For instance, in a curragh... We couldn't decide whether it was scarier *not* to be able to see the waves as we went over them, or if it would be worse to see them. The ride back (for me) confirmed that it's probably worse to see them.
Once we landed at the docks at Kilronan on Inishmore, we found our hostel fairly quickly (it was the second building after leaving the dock), settled in, and asked the guy at the hostel (who I think was Italian?) for a suggestion of a place to eat. He sent us down the road to a restaurant where I think he also works--couldn't really understand him very well though. The restaurant was very posh looking and gave me another pang of wanting to see Inishmaan, because as remote and relatively pristine as it is, the marks of the tourist industry are nonetheless everywhere on Inishmore, and I don't think Kilronan, in its current state, really gives an idea of what "real life" on the islands is like/was like until very recently. But then again, I am a tourist, and I have to sleep somewhere and eat somewhere, so I decided to appreciate the modern conveniences on Inishmore rather than mourn them.
We had an excellent dinner (though we were imagining the staff cursing us for ordering the cheapest things and not getting wine--after all, the prices were pretty posh too)! I had a seafood chowder (made with fish caught about 100 meters away) that was AMAZING, and the others had similarly delicious looking food. Though at 7 euros I think I definitely got the most bang for my buck--I was very happy with my choice, and it's a great feeling to sit down to a big bowl of hearty, satisfying and delicious hot chowder after a long day of traveling and being rained on and windblown and frozen. Yum. After dinner we retired to the cozy common room of the hostel, where we met an American, German, and Estonian girl, all travelers who were currently working at the hostel. They told us about their plans to go see some live music at a pub down the street then move on to the sleazy stupid disco at "American Bar," but we were too exhausted to go out and so just sat around chatting/reading/halfway watching "100 Best Scary Moments" which somebody had turned the tv to before going to bed fairly early.
The next morning we got up around 8:30, and made our way over to the kitchen for the breakfast that was supposedly included from 8-10 am. Since by that time it was 9:30, we were surprised to not find any food or people over there, though the place was absolutely trashed, with beer bottles and other alcohol remnants, cigarettes, glasses, spills, etc everywhere, so we got a clue as to why the hostel "staff" might not be so early to rise that morning. We bided our time for a while, searching for signs of life and not finding any, except for a girl who came in, looked at us blinkingly, didn't respond to either my or Gio's separate hellos, looked in the cabinets for a few minutes, turned on a classical music radio station and left.
Eventually as it neared 10 o'clock (checkout time), we were getting antsy and wanted to get going, but didn't want to face biking the island on an empty stomach. Danielle snooped in the cupboards and found several huge containers of cornflakes, jams and bread in on of the "staff only" cupboards, which looked exactly like what the American girl had told us was for breakfast. We decided to help ourselves, but halfway through the strange artist girl from earlier (who had since been digging out paints in the office) came in and said "SORRY, but that's for STAFF?" We told her we thought breakfast was included from 8-10 and this is what it was supposed to be and she told us we had to "ask the guy." When we said we couldn't find anyone anywhere and asked if she worked there, she replied "I paint." and walked off. After we had finished and "covered our tracks," the hostel staff all came in bleary eyed and started cleaning up the disgusting mess that had been made of the place. We went to pack up our stuff and turn in our key. By that time they had finished cleaning and were eating breakfast themselves, though there was still nothing set out. The American girl, after a bit, said "if you guys want some breakfast there's stuff in the staff cupboard, just help yourselves." At which point we admitted that we had already done...lol. We turned in our key and were off, shortly after "10"--but a short tour of the town during which we were turned away from the supermarket ("we open at 10"), and realized that, oh yeah, the clocks had changed last night! Oops. So the staff weren't slacking *quite* as much as we thought, but still...
We made a short stop at the Aran Island Sweater Market and Museum (the only place open at that point), where Danielle and Cynthia bought hats and gloves/mittens, then returned there after about 2 seconds on our rented bikes for Gio to buy some mittens. Then we were off, headed for the coastal road, though stopping very frequently for the endless photo ops (for instance this crowd at the Lucky Star Bar, before we even left town).
I think the ride was only about 8k to Dun Aengus, the ancient stone fort, but it felt like much more since we were being blown backwards the majority of the way. In the little village outside the fort, we followed the signs to "Nan Phaddy's House of Good Food/Toilets," where we were overjoyed to find a roaring fire, hot soups and homemade soda bread, and the most exquisitely spiced carrot cake I have ever tasted. It was really hard to pull ourselves away from the fireplace, but as the minibus tour crowds begin to flood into the retaurant, we thought we'd better get a move on and see the fort before it was inundated with all the day-trippers arrived on the morning ferries. The fort was situated on some very scary and beautiful cliffs, and the sun came out just in time to show us the sparkling blue water and the amazingly green grass shining along with the grey stone of the cliffs and the fort. It was truly breathtaking, if a little harrowing--I was actually worried about my camera flying away as I got it out a few times and imagining myself flying off a cliff while diving to catch it, but the battery died soon anyway, so I didn't have to worry anymore.
The ride back was so easy it was unbelievable--even with a stop to climb up to the lighthouse we were back in maybe a fifth of the time it took us to get there--we hardly realized where we were when we came back into town because we weren't expecting to be there so soon. It really illustrated why that Irish blessing wishes "the wind always at your back."
We also had exceptional timing--the rain started to fall just as we got back into town, and we reached the hostel just as it turned into another (windy) downpour. We sympathized with the sorry saps who had arrived on the noon ferry and were just setting out on their ride. After a short trip to the supermarket we lunched on crackers and cheese, sardines, tea biscuits, halloween candy and tea in the freezing cold kitchen. Shortly after retiring to the much warmer lounge room, I noticed a lot of people heading for the docks and mentioned we might want to do so too--even though I thought I was giving us plenty of time to get there since the boat wasn't scheduled to leave for another half hour or so. Despite moaning and groaning, everyone grabbed their stuff and we left the warmth to head for the ferry, which left about 2 seconds after we got on it, more than 15 minutes before the scheduled time! I don't know if they knew how many people were scheduled to ride and left as soon as they counted that many, or (and this seems more likely) they just don't really have much regard for scheduled times in Ireland and thought 5pm was more of a guideline. In any case it was a little disconcerting that we seemed so close to missing the last ferry off the island despite arriving at a time that we thought was fairly early...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)