Last weekend

So a couple friends arrived last week to visit me and the Emerald Isle. They threw caution to the wind and decided that the left side of the road was a perfectly reasonable place to drive and so, last Friday, rented a car and headed West. On Saturday the boy and I took a train out to Galway to meet them (It took less than 3 hours! We were shocked!). We drove through the Burren in Co. Clare, but, alas, did not have time to stop and look around. In Doolin, we checked into our respective B&Bs and headed out to see the Cliffs of Moher. It is only one of the few times I've seen the Atlantic and, dammit, what a place to see it from.



We had a run of lovely weather, so the sky? Really was that blue.

We had dinner at a pub, where, mercifully, we could not hear the traditional Oirish music being inflicted upon the place. I had mussels (mmmm...mussels...) and we stayed around for a few pints afterwards. Miraculously, we actually managed to find out way back to our B&Bs.

The next morning, we took a ferry from Doolin out to the Aran Islands. The ferry stopped at Inis Oirr, where we walked around for a couple hours, and then continued on to Inis Mor, where we stayed the night.

Inis Mor ("Big Island" in Irish) is only 9 miles long, so, despite my reservations, we rented bicycles to get around the place and see stuff. It really was the best way. Besides, there were barely any cars on the island and the hills were totally manageable. (Yeah, okay, so I walked up a couple of them. So what, huh?) We biked to Dun Aonghasa, a stone fort built in 2000 B.C. and overlooking the Atlantic.


Rather refreshingly, they do not fence off the cliffs around the fort, so you can go right to the edge and look down at a beautiful, but cold and rock-filled death.


Isn't the color of the water awesome? We thought so.

The other good thing about renting bikes was that the B&Bs we stayed at served the traditional Irish breakfast, i.e. Heart Attack on a Plate, so it was good to be able to work off at least some of the food. Also, the B&B on Inis Mor has a stray cat and her kitten hanging around. I tell you, Chloe came this close to having a new "friend."

After seeing some other really cool stuff and eating even more, we and our sore butts left, half of us back to the car in Doolin and the other half to Galway to catch a train back to Dublin (stupid work).

P.S. At least a couple of these pictures were taken with my camera. But not by me. So there.