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...
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