June 29, 2016

Our walk to the ferry early this morning was very cloudy. It was not looking like a good day for our day trip to the Aran Islands. The boat ride was very rough – both rough waves and rough like not a good time for some people. We were going across a short part of the Atlantic Ocean to get to the island so the waves were huge! The boat was rocking back and forth, making everyone slide around. I couldn’t help but think of my dad and imagine how it would be on the Jet Ski jumping all those waves. After about a 30 minute boat ride, we were welcomed with some blue skies and only a few white, puffy clouds. We got off the pier and picked up our bikes and a map to start our journey. We chose the shipwreck first because that’s awesome and sounds amazing. The bike ride alone was absolutely beautiful with the view being all green fields, stone walls, and the ocean along the horizon. We got to the beach of the shipwreck. Instead of sand, it was made of all rocks. We parked our bikes and started exploring. The ship was completely rusted giving it a nice reddish-brown color. As we got closer, we saw there were big holes on the sides of it, so we let the boys climb in and test it out before we followed. However, I drew the line when the two guys climbed to the top deck, where I could look up and see holes through the floors. As we were climbing through the ship, first of all I was thinking about how cool it was, but I was also trying to be careful where I stepped, and wondered in the back of my mind when I got my tetanus shot and if it was still up-to-date…just in case. I jumped out of the ship and made my way over the rocks and closer to the water. We hung out here for a while longer before jumping back on our bikes and headed down the road to the lighthouse.

We met up with some other kids from our group there, but were slightly disappointed when there was a big wall around the lighthouse and we couldn’t get any closer because someone lived there. So what did we do? Climb on top of the wall to take some pictures. And of course the family pulls up as we are all sitting up there. We jumped down and a couple of us made our way to the rocky beach out in front. Rachel, Ryan, and Stuart ran out through some water and made it to a big rock for a picture. The waves crashed against the rock and completely soaked them. They then had to time it right to get back to the mainland without walking through super deep water as the wave came in to where I was. We walked around this part of the beach a little bit longer before going back to grab our bikes and go to an old concrete pier we could see in the distance. We enjoyed this view for a while and a short break off our feet. Our next stop was the cemetery that sat on top of a hill overlooking the entire island. I don’t go into cemeteries often, but this looked like a nice one. It was very old and had a church ruins in the middle of it. It was a very beautiful, sacred place. We stopped at a very small family-run café, that had no kitchen, for a couple sandwiches before moving on.

We didn’t have a ton of time left before the boat left so we headed towards to town to look at the shops. We had to stop in the sweater shop to look at sweaters because we were at the Aran Islands and all. There was a man making necklaces on the side of the road so we looked to see what it was. He started telling us about all the different Celtic symbols and their alphabet, Ogham. He would carve in the symbols or words into a piece of slate. The slates are from the Cliffs of Mohr and he would stencil in the designs in front of us.
After he was finished he would tie a string of leather around it to make an adjustable necklace. We took a walk on the beach while we waited for Tatum’s to be finished. We then picked up the necklace and hoped to pick up some fudge on our way back to the pier. Unfortunately, we were worried about the ferry leaving because we saw they didn’t lave at the same times as the schedule. We ended up sitting at the dock for 15 minutes, so we easily could’ve made it, but oh well it’s fine I’m not upset.

Our trip back to the mainland was much calmer than the first time. It was also much nicer weather, which could’ve had something to do with it. I’m still shocked with how lucky we got! It was an absolutely beautiful day on the island and it let us enjoy it to the fullest. We got back and walked back to our cottages for a break before going to McGann’s pub for dinner. Doolin is famous for Traditional Irish Music and it is very obvious at the pubs that people come sit to talk to each other and listen to the music. It is a very different atmosphere than most of the places we went in Cork, but I really enjoyed it. Our food there was delicious! I got a soup and salad thinking they would be enough because we were planning on having their famous homemade desserts. The two bowls these dishes came in were huge! My food combined with the four others made it impossible to see our table. But the food was amazing and no one wanted to stop eating until it was all gone. We had decided to hang out there a little longer after we finished so we ordered a couple desserts and settled in to listen to music. The dessert lived up to its fame and was divine. Our professor, Laurie, and her family came in at that time and we told the others to come too. It turned out to be a great night all hanging out together. After a few hours we all decided to go our separate ways and headed off to bed.