Ireland Trip - Part 2

Day 4

Before I continue on with the trip activities, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss the wonders of an Irish breakfast. We ate breakfast every morning in our various hotels. And it was amazing! I am not ashamed to admit that Irish bacon is way better than what we eat here. I miss it. Plus, there was always abundant eggs, potatoes, pastries, and oddly enough mushrooms. Did you know that Ireland's number on export is mushrooms? They do have an excellent climate for mushrooms. Mmmm, tasty mushrooms! Every breakfast I took advantage of my mom not being a coffee drinker to have the waitress serve her coffee, and then drink it myself.

Here is another shot of the scenery. Ireland is covered all over with these meandering stacked rock walls. The ground in Ireland is so rocky that the Irish have to clear the rocks from the ground to make use of the soil. So, as they cleared the land, they just built walls with the rocks.

Day 4 started early for our trip to the Aran islands. We had to make the ferry to make it to the island. So of course this was the day that a couple of older ladies overslept, and our tour guide Jonathan was very worried about leaving on time, and behaved very British about it.

The ferry ride was a lot of fun. My mom stayed in the seating area below. I preferred to sit on top, outside, so I could watch the ocean. I took many pictures while riding the ferry. The funny thing about taking pictures of the ocean, it doesn't look like much - a strip of water, a strip of sky. So I will spare you any of those. Perhaps someone with photography skills could make a good shot, but I alas could not. We did see some dolphins while riding over, but they were being camera shy. Or maybe I wasn't willing to risk dropping my mom's new camera in the ocean to get a good shot.

We went to the largest of the Aran islands, Inis Mor. Here are some pictures I took from the ferry as we got closer to shore.

This is an old church on the island. Someone from the island made a joke about how this was the old Protestant church. #CatholicJokes

An interesting thing I learned is that many women from the island go to the mainland to teach Irish. There are many places around Ireland that speak predominantly Irish. And many schools teach Irish.

Our first stop on the island was at Ti Joe Watty pub. I was very glad to see the pub, as we had to walk, uphill, in the cold wind. A nice lunch was nice. I also had an Irish coffee. I can tell that I'm more of a coffee drinker than a whiskey drinker because I think it needed more coffee. We had a nice gentleman, I believe he was the bar owner's son, sing us some songs while we ate lunch.

After lunch we took a little buses with local tour guides around the island. Our guide told us the make the land farmable, they would clear the land of rocks, then cover it in sand and seaweed. The seaweed would decompose to make usable soil.






Our main adventure for the day was a visit to Dun Aengus, an ancient Irish fort from the B.C. era. The fort sits on top of a hill, and required some hiking. My mom and I started walking, unsure how far we would actually make it.

Below is a picture of the first part of the path. You can kind of see people along the path as it winds around. The starting place was I believe the white building in the background, almost center.

Eventually the path became steeper and rockier. About here was where I lost Nancy because of her poor knees. But I decided to continue on, because hey, I came all this way already. It doesn't look THAT bad, right?


Once I got higher, I took a picture to show what I climbed.


Once making it to the top, the view was spectacular! Here is a picture from inside the fort. The fort is in a little disrepair, after a couple thousand years.

Here is a picture of the wall of the fort.


Here I am standing inside the fort. One side of the inside of the fort is a sheer drop into the ocean. I only got close enough to if I say tripped, or the wind became overly strong, and I fell over I would still be on the ground, and not over into the ocean. But I made it to the top! It's a victory photo.


The pictures off the side of the cliff don't really do justice at just how far over the ocean I am.


Once I had a good look around, it was time to return. I can't leave Nancy alone too long, or she may get up to shenanigans.


Here's a picture as I left. It gives the full view of the path. It wasn't too easy going down the rocky parts either, but it got better as I went. When I was climbing to the top, people coming back down told me that it was worth it once I made it to the top. So, I made sure to say the same to others I passed on my way down.

Once I returned, mom and I went to the Aran Sweaters store. The Aran islands are famous for their sweaters and the fun patterns knitted into the sweaters. Fun fact - back in the day they knitted the intricate patterns into the sweaters because people would end up in the ocean and when they washed ashore they could be identified by the patterns on their sweater.

Mom bought herself a nice Irish sweater. I find wool too itchy, and as a highly sensitive person, being super itchy drives me crazy! So I got this nice blanket instead. :)

We then made our way back to the pier to wait for the ferry. We had to wait a little while, and we all sat shivering in the waiting area. But finally we ferried and then bused back to the hotel. We were going to go into Galway, but it involved a lot of walking, and we were tired. So we had a nice meal in the hotel and then went to bed. What a long day!

Day 5

The next morning I woke up with a surprise - a SUNBURN! It may have been part windburn too. I would be the person who got a sunburn, in Ireland (the  Northern land of a large percent of my ancestors), in October.  It must be because of that 12% of my genes that are Scandinavian. Or maybe climbing that large hill put me close enough to the sun to get burnt, in Ireland, in October.

Here's a nice picture some more scenery. They call Ireland the Emerald Isle for a reason - because everything is green. Gold may have been the new Green in California, but Green is always Green in Ireland.

All over Ireland there are a bunch of small castles - lit ALL OVER. We saw dozens. Some were still inhabited, while others were wore down. Our tour guide told us it's because a bunch of lords were given 10 pounds to build castles. Back in that time, 10 pounds could build you a small castle. It was definitely a LONG time ago.


Our first stop of Day 5 was to Rathbaun Farm. We made fresh scones. I even bought the recipe, so let me know if you want some tasty scones. In Ireland all of the scones had raisins. I don't hate raisins, but they are not my preferred scone flavor. I made my scones with Blueberries. Hmmm, now I really want to make scones!


Nancy and I were in different groups. Here she is adding raisins to the scones. She LOVES raisins, so she was in baked good heaven.


Here are my team's finished product. The old ladies on my team thought they knew better on how to make scones, so they rushed ahead of the lady giving instructions. Of course, they made the recipe wrong, and got scolded by the lady giving instructions. I tried to keep them in line, but being too nice and looking like a high schooler, they of course didn't listen.


While the scones cooked, we went out to the farm to see the sheep!! The farm raises multiple types of sheep.

WTF is this sheep?!?! Evidently whether sheep have horns depends on the breed, and not the gender. Sheep with horns have horns on the females too. 

More sheep!! The farmer told us that Ireland actually imports most if its wool from other countries. Wool from Irish sheep is too coarse for making the sweaters and other clothes. What?! Mind shattered! Instead, Irish sheep are raised for meat.


The farmer gave us a demonstration of his sheep dog's skills. The dog would get the sheep together, and then herd them into the pin. The farmer let them out again and the dog went back to work.


The dog would sneak behind this barrier, and the sheep would be all "Oh, where did he go?" And then he would bound after the sheep and chase them into the pin.


We then returned inside to eat our scones. Although my team didn't follow the recipe, they still tasted delicious. We also had some tea, and some yummy Irish cream with our scones. Ooooh, artsy photograph!


We then took a lot into the old farm house.


The roof on the farm house is made of thatch. We learned a lot about thatch and say many thatched roofs during our trip. Authentic thatch is very thick, to keep the water out. Thatch is straw like. Some buildings make faux thatch, which you can tell because it's super thin. They still thatch new roofs, and they now have a impermeable layer. Thatch roofs last I want to say 15-20 years. I don't quite remember now.


Here is a shot from inside the farm house. Some nice peat is burning. Burning peat smells great. Unfortunately, we learned that peat lets off a ridiculous amount of carbon into the air, much more per unit than any other fuel. 

Our next stop was at the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are gorgeous. The wind was crazy strong though. Here are some of my photos of the cliffs.








Up on the cliff is this little castle. I want to live in a castle!

Here I am in front of the castle. I think that's my "the wind is blowing off me face" face.

This was Nancy's way of blocking out the wind.


For the evening, we went to the Bunratty Folk Park. We had yummy dinner (more nice fresh salmon). There were potatoes and carrots too. We had a lot of carrots. As part of dessert, we had this bread. Traditionally, a ring is baked in the bread. Whomever finds the ring is said to going to be married by Christmas. If already, married, the rings brings happy times to the finder. There just happened to be a ring at each table, nicely wrapped super obviously sitting on one of the pieces. As the last person to eat bread, and the only as yet to be married person, I received the honor of "finding the ring." Maybe it didn't work because it was technically rigger. Or maybe the bread doesn't work. Or maybe my spinster powers are even too much for Irish magic. Needless to say, I was not married by Christmas.

I am really bummed I only got a couple pictures of the action on stage. But I'd like to think it's because I was enjoying the moment too much to take pictures. The performers played music and sang, and a lot of Irish dancing! The show was spectacular! Unfortunately I just have this one picture of the host chatting while the dancers and musicians wait, and not shots of the action.

One of the male dancers was named Gary, and he kind of looked like a 30 years younger version of my coworker Gary. Only I doubt my coworker can do traditional Irish dancing.

Day 6

We started our day with a trip to King John's Castle. That's King John, like from Robin Hood.

This interesting piece of artwork was on the side of a nearby building. I don't know if the same person added the Hello Kitty neck tat, but it really makes the art.

This is a model of the castle from back in its heyday.

Some cool old timey clothes.

The castle museum has all sorts of information about the time the castle was under siege. A siege is terrible for the people inside, and thousands of people died from starvation and other issues.

He is a picture of how they would try to mine under the gates. And then the people inside would try to countermine and get the people trying to mine into the castle.

And that means learning some new vocab.


Nancy and I rode the horse! I am sure this is more for children, but I am a child at heart. My mom is a much more elegant rider than I am.


Here are some photos of the underground part of the castle.




Here I am outside, inside the castle grounds.

Nancy working as the blacksmith.


My first thought on seeing the colored barrels was "why does Gryffindor get a cool chest, and the other houses only get barrels?" #Potterhead

Here are some shots inside the head mason's room.

Here is the church in the castle courtyard, both outside and inside.


Here is a shot of the tight passageway I climbed through to get to the top. I would seriously be a giant to the people of this time.

Here is my pic from the top of the castle.

And another.


And of course pics from the fun part of the castle!




I think this was the money duds room. I like the flags.

And a photo of the castle was we left.


I found this in the gift shop. Hehehehe.

Next, we went to Foynes to the Flying Boat Museum. Back before WWII, people were trying to make airplanes that could fly over the Atlantic Ocean on one trip that could carry a bunch of people (I think that's right). Foynes was in a good location on the ocean. Back then, they were building floating boats and used the ocean as the runway.

This picture shows a diagram of how the water runway worked for landing boats at night. Two rows of boats lined up on the water with lights on the boats. The flying boats would land between the rows.

One of the flying boat designs had a smaller plane attached to the larger passenger plane. And then the smaller plane would detached. Another thing they tried was refueling a plane mid-air. That didn't look very safe.


This was funny - during the war they were concerned about soldiers getting drunk and telling secrets. So this was the memo given to everyone.


This is the only actual piece of one of the flying boats that was pulled from some wreck. After WWII, there were a lot more land runways, so we moved toward the type of planes we have now.

The museum has the only replica of one of these boats. Here is the outside.

Here are some seats. The costs to fly as a passenger on one of these was about the prize of the mortgage on a house. Needless to say, the average person wasn't traveling by flying boat.

Here is the tiny closet sized kitchen used to cook for everyone on the plane.


Here is some of the gear in the plane.


Here is the cockpit. Look at that rectangle in the bottom middle of the picture.

This is what is through that rectangle. The pilots would climb through that hole and into this tube where they sleep.

When it was sleeping time, the seats folded out into beds.

The Irish Coffee was invented there. We had a live demonstration of making a real Irish coffee. You put the coffee, the whiskey, and a spoon of brown sugar into the glass. You then mix it. Last, you put the Irish cream on top. DON'T stir once the cream is on top - you have to drink the whiskey-coffee through the cream. That's very important.

Back on the bus, Nancy enjoys some reading. I joked I would make a whole photo series of things Nancy did on the bus that weren't enjoying the beautiful Irish countryside.

Our last activity of the day involved a jaunting car ride through the national forest in Killarney. Here was our car driver. If leprechaun were real, I think he would be one.

Here's the jaunting cars.


Here are some others from the tour about to enjoy the trip.

Here is the horse giving us our ride. His name is Barney.


Once down, we checked into our hotel. We walked several blocks from hotel back into town. We went to this little fish shop. The place was pretty small, long with only tables one each side of one aisle. The place was packed. They even asked us if we didn't mind sharing a table with other people. We didn't mind, but didn't end up sharing. The fish and chips were amazing!! We passed by another fish restaurant elsewhere and it was dead. I am guessing not good enough food.

Fun fact - Ireland imports potatoes to make chips (fries to Americans), because evidently Irish potatoes are  not the correct consistency to make into chips.

Here is a cute shot of Killarney.