What can one even say to attempt to describe the Cliffs of Moher?! It is one of those things in nature that there are just not adequate words for. We got there around 3 PM or so, walked up to the trail that runs along the cliffs and started to hike South. With the way the sun was hitting, when we looked back towards where we came from everything was illuminated and lovely. There were tons of other tourists right at the start, but the further we got away from where the main trail left the visitor centre and car park, the thinner the crowds became. We hiked along to one of the higher vantage points, stopping every so often to turn around and admire the view and snap a few photos. The jagged rocks, the waves crashing waaaaay down at the bottom and the lush green all around us was amazing.
As we got to the top of the area we planned to hike to we stopped to take in the view and savor the moment. We were taking more photos and I caught something out of the corner of my camera lens a little ways down from us. A young couple was having a tender moment, but what made me do a double take was that I noticed the guy take his right arm of his lady and move it to his back pocket. He only had it there a second, but then he kept his arm bent back around behind him while continuing to love on his girlfriend. Was he going to propose?! Indeed he was, and even though I felt like a creep, I zoomed in on them and continued to take photos as he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. Before everything that has happened in the past year I would have thought "Oh, that's cute" and moved on. Now that I've been through an engagement/proposal, I know how precious those moments are and I wondered if they had anybody taking photos for them. The photos my mom took immediately after Ryan proposed to me are so full of emotions and memories, and we love to look at them. We started to hike back down the trail and as we got near the couple, I asked if they would like me to send them any of the photos I took. It turns out they are from Poland but have been living in Belfast for a few years now. I showed them the snapshots I got on my camera and the girl gave me her email address so that when we get home I can send them the shots. They seemed quite happy that someone was able to capture the moment, so I felt like slightly less of a creep =)
After we finished our hike and made it back to Bandit we were starving. We were pretty over the visitors' center cafeteria scene, so we decided to make the 15 minute drive to Doolin, where we were staying the night, to find food. Something I didn't mention earlier; when we use Google maps and I'm driving, it seems to take us down the most narrow, winding, sometimes unpaved back roads it can find. On our way to the Cliffs of Moher our regular route was closed, so after some U-turns and map-searching, Ryan found an alternate route that literally seemed like it was a narrow path through someone's backyard. There was grass growing up in the middle of the lane and everything, and every time some local in a minivan or truck came barrelling through I did my best to get out of the way but those people don't fuck around. They'll just keep on plowing towards you, and somehow it always works out. One guy did back up and pull over for me, which must mean that road was REALLY narrow and even he knew there was no getting around each other. Anyway, point is, as we were leaving the Cliffs the same thing happened. Google maps routed us down this super steep, super windy back road into town, finishing up over a one-lane bridge on a blind hairpin turn. Sheesh.
We found our B&B up a small hill behind the main row of (about 5) businesses. The guy who runs the place told us he had to take an emergency trip to Cork and wouldn't be back to check us in until about 6 PM. We wandered back down the hill after parking and grabbed a bite to eat at a place called Gus O'Connor's pub, which used to be owned by the B&B owner's dad. Ryan had fish n chips and I had banger & mash...I scarfed that food down in record time! We finished our pints of Guinness that we had with our meal and then made it back up the hill to check in.
Of course, there is a story here as well. The front of the B&B was a glassed-in area with several tables that seemed to be the "breakfast" part of a bed and breakfast. The door to this part, which was previously closed when we initially arrived, was now open as was the sliding glass door behind it. The sliding glass door had several Tripadvisor stickers and Failte (Ireland's tourism board) stickers on it, as you might see on the entryway to any hotel or B&B you were staying in. Being as both were open and did, in fact, appear to be leading into a business, we went on in. A man was sitting on the couch chatting on the phone, and though he semi-glanced in our direction as we walked in he didn't really acknowledge us or seem to want to wrap up the conversation. At this point I was genuinely confused. Was he a guest? Was he the owner? Was this the check-in area or just the sitting room? Ah well, there was a dog laying there so I just went to pet it until I could talk to the man and see if he knew where to check in.
Couch man finally wraps up his conversation, and greet us with "Do I know you?" Uhhh...no? I ask if he is Sean (the B&B owner who I have been exchanging emails with) and he replies "Didn't you hear the man on the phone, everyone calls me Sean." Okkkk, no, I wasn't listening in on your conversation, but fine, I'm Lisa. You've been expecting us, no? At this point he stands up and a look of recognition crosses his face, but he still proceeds to "give us a hard time" about how it's not proper Irish manners to just walk into someone's house. Wellll I see your point, but your house is a fucking B&B that I'm paying €85 to stay in, and every place we've been to so far has a main door, usually with the name of the place and business/review site stickers on it indicating that it is, in fact, accomodation, and we've never been expected to just stand outside an open door and knock so...piss off. He showed us up to our room, but not before INSISTING on helping with our bags and giving me a hard time for how big mine was. Listen, you bastard, I already said I could get it myself (AKA give it to Ryan...love you babe!) so if it's too much for you to handle just let it be. No, I'm not going to "just pack an overnight bag" out of my main suitecase for every different place we stay. That's absurd.
Needless to say we were both less than impressed with our new host and pretty much couldn't wait to get back out of there. Once up in our room he continued to be a blowhard for another good 10-15 minutes (listen, the Irish gift of gab is generally charming, but when you are telling us story after story about your best friends who are all doctors or lawyers, your son's full academic scholarship to whatthefuckever University and stories about the area that are just blantantly not believable, we're over it). We finallllly got away from him and walked back down to the town. The initial 5 or so shops we saw were all we thought there was at first, but turns out if you go over the 1 lane bridge and down the narrow, unlit road with no shoulder you can find another 2 pubs. Also should mention it was the coldest, windiest night we'd been out yet. If you couldn't tell yet, Doolin was not our favorite stop on this trip.
The first place we went was called Fitzpatrick's pub, where we each had a pint of Guinness to start. After those we decided to try the local offerings. I had a pint of the Dooliner, an Irish ale on nitro. Ryan asked how it tasted, and I said "Like dirt." He thought maybe I meant it was earthy, but then he tasted it and said, "Oh yeah...like gravel." Ryan decided to take a Falling Apple cider, which was billed as a local cider, but tasted about as good as my beer. Ugh. We decided to go look for the other place that lovely Sean recommended, but per the maps seemed a good ways down the narrow, dark road. Being as we were both freezing and didn't really want to get hit by a car (and that it took us a good 15 minutes to reach Fitzpatrick's, which was billed as a 5 minue walk by old Seany boy) we decided to turn back and return to O'Connor's. This was a good call. After walking back by the light of my iPhone flashlight (OMG first world problems allll around in this post--maybe we were just tired and cranky?) we got a spot at the bar at O'Connor's. We each got more food (bacon and cabbage with mash for me, BLT for Ryan) and pints, and settled in for the session that was on that night. Honestly, for all the other perceived shortcomings of Doolin, the session was the best we've seen so far. It was a wooden flute, an accordion, a guitar and a bodhrán (round traditional Irish drum). They were very good and the Irish couple next to us was pleasant to chat to.
Despite wishing we could stay all night and listen to the session, we knew we had an early morning and another drive ahead of us. We called it a night and went back to the room, deciding to skip breakfast so we wouldn't have to deal with Sean anymore. Unfortnately, he still came to knock on our door and ask us if we were coming to breakfast the next morning. Not so easy to dodge him! We re-packed our stuff and got it all down to the car, then went to pay our bill and GTFO. While paying Sean wanted to chat again, of course, and started mapping us out a nice, long drive through the Burren. Honestly, at this point he wasn't so bad. He was genuinely trying to be helpful and make sure we knew how to get the most out of our drive to Galway, seeing all the sights of the Burren and some lesser known spots for great view. He was still being kind of a blowhard (some story about his great doctor friend removing his appendix, and how he still left the hospital that night to go have dinner and drink wine-yeah, you're not the kind of patient we're thrilled to have) but he was at least trying to be a good host.
Since we didn't want to spend our whole day driving to Galway, we decided to to a modified route of the lengthy, winding course Sean plotted out for us. We saw some of the Burren and pulled off at one particularly scenic vista. It was really a pretty fun drive while we were out in the Burren, lots of winding roads but a bit wider than some of the local roads we'd been on and not a lot of traffic.
We made our way into Galway, found our hotel, and got some lunch and some pints of Guinness. We just went to the little hotel restaurant since we were hungry and didn't want to spend a lot of time searching for and deciding on food. We each got the prime rib and mash, which was decent enough. After our meal we decided to just take a leisurely walk around Galway. We popped into a music store Ryan found, went through Eyre Square park, walked around a bit of the shopping district, and checked out a local cheese monger. After a little while we were getting thirsty (naturally) so we decided to stop in for a pint at a place called Garavan's.
The Ireland vs. Italy rugby world cup game was due to start at 4:30 and we knew we wanted to find a good spot to watch it. We got here 2 weeks ago never having watched a rugby game, but having been here during the world cup, when it is always on and everyone is super into it, has started to make us fans. Still don't understand everything, but we're getting better. Anyway, Garaven's only had 1 tiny TV, so we relocated up the street a bit to a place called Garvey's. This place had several TVs on, but it was straight up elderly in there. A bar called An Pucan, just 2 doors down from Garvey's and directly across from our hotel, was recommended to us, so I went down to check it out. It was madness in there! Pure gameday atmosphere in there. We quickly decided to move to that bar just in time to catch the opening minutes of the match. We ended up staying there the whole game and had a fun time. Ireland won, so it was a good day!
After the match we went back to the hotel and had dinner. Ryan was starting to feel a little worn out, so we decided to call it an early night. The next morning we woke up early, got the hotel breakfast included with our room and were out the door to catch our bus to start our trip out to Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands. The bus ride lasted an hour, then we got on a ferry at Ros a Mhíl for another 45 minutes till we reached the island. Once on the island I noticed my stomach was a little upset. We scarfed down our breakfasts, plus I had a coffee on the ferry, so I figured maybe it just needed a little time to settle. And no, I wasn't hungover-we're professionals, and I know the difference between a few too many pints and something more. As we started hiking around the island the queasy feeling went away, and I didn't think any more of it. We walked along a beach, found a doggy friend who walked a ways with us, got to pet a few friendly horses along the road, then hiked up a hill and walked back along a main road. We also stopped in at a sweater shop (the Aran Islands are known for their wool products) and found some nice things to take home with us. On our way back we stopped at Tí Joe Watty's, one of the pubs on the island, for some lunch.
This is when things took a turn for the worse for me. I ordered the Irish stew, and as soon as I took a bite I knew I was done. I had to have Ryan move it to the other side of him so I couldn't see it, and I don't rememer what he ate because I was trying not to look at any food. Despite the intense nausea we still had to make it back to Galway, and the only way to do that was back on the 45 minute ferry, and then the longest hour on a bus I've ever experienced. So bad. As soon as we got back to the room it was into bed for me, buried under 2 blankets but still shiverng, and Ryan was off to go try to find me some ginger ale.
The night went by slowly for me but I finally got some sleep, and although I didn't feel 100% the next morning I did feel better. Thankfully it was Ryan's turn to drive. The drive was to be just under 3 hours from Galway to Donegal, but Ryan was able to make pretty good time. I think we already explained the road types in another post-the roads we took from Galway to Donegal were all N roads, which are the national roads that are similar to 2-lane highways at home. It can still vary somewhat though-you could get an N road that is still super narrow, windy and bumpy. These roads were AMAZING. Most of the way was super wide, well-paved, relatively straight, overall just easy driving for Ryan and easy navigating for me. Like I said, we made pretty good time. It was one of the few times we've been able to consistently go at the posted speed limit here. We joke about it because we'll be on a road that seems reasonable and the speed limit will be lower, like 60 km/h or so, and then as soon as it goes up to 100 km/h there will be a sharp, blind turn that would be impossible for us inexperienced American drivers (or anyone, it would seem) to go that fast around.
Once in Donegal we pulled into our B&B (Donegal Manor) and got ourselves checked in and situated. I was feeling a bit hungry for the first time since The Illness so we decided to go into town for a stroll and some lunch. The B&B in Donegal was the only place so far where we've been outside of the main city centre area, so we had to drive down and find a pay-to-park spot, which thankfully wasn't too difficult. We grabbed lunch at a place called the Castle Bar, where I had chicken curry (oddly it was really the only thing that sounded appealing, though I still ended up not having much of an appetite) and Ryan finally got bangers & mash. After we were done eating we decided to go to the Donegal Castle, which was really the only attraction we knew of in the town. Aaaaand it was closed. There was a printed out sign stuck on the main display board that said "closed Tuesday and Wednesday" and of course it was Tuesday. Damn, just our luck. With no other apparent options we decided to kill some time walking around town. When we were done with that after about 5 minutes we stopped at a place called Doc's Bar. There was one other local in there talking with the lady running the bar, and they were speaking in Irish mostly, so we just kind of kept to ourselves and sipped our pints. After the local left the bartender got more interested in us and we chatted with her for a bit. She told us that she has 3 children, aged 29, 30 and 31, and they are each getting married next year. Jesus. What an undertaking!
From Doc's we walked back to a tiny music shop Ryan spotted on our walk earlier to browse around. Ryan loves to go and look at the traditional Irish instruments and lust after bodhráns, and I like to look at the books of traditional Irish music they usually have. When we were done in there we walked back around the diamond (really more of a triangle, the main little loop in the center of town) and decided to check out a place called the Reveller. They had rugby on TV (Canada vs Romania, Romania won at the last second after Canada was up most of the game) so we decided to stick around a while. As evening fell another rugby match was on, Uruguay vs Fiji this time, but watching that game was short lived as a session was beginning and the TV was switched off. No complaints here-I'm learning to like rugby but I'll still take music any day! It was two guys playing, one on accordion and one on guitar, with the guitar player singing. The only complaints I have about music so far in Ireland: 1) American songs, especially American classic country songs, seem very common (at least in the tourist areas we have been to) and 2) Whiskey in the Jar. Every. Single. Time. Listen, I know...it's a classic that even your most sheltered, hopeless tourists probably know, but JESUS we probably can't even count on our fingers anymore the number of times we have heard it. So anyway, after a round of Whiskey in the Jar and a few Johnny Cash songs we decided to call it a night and rest up for our day today.
This morning we woke up on the early side and went downstairs for breakfast. We both had full Irish, though neither of us really had an appetite at this point. We loaded up Bandit and it was my turn for the long drive today. Our first stop was Glenveagh Castle and national park, just under an hour and a half from Donegal. We decided not to tour the castle itself as there were only guided tours, and we've learned from experience that being trapped on a guided tour when you're not feeling well is misery (see bus ride from Aran Islands). Ryan started feeling like he was getting The Illness on the drive, so we didn't want to risk it. We instead settled on a 2 km hike by Lough Beagh and over a hill. It was an absolutely beautiful hike, but unfortunately Ryan only started feeling worse and worse as we went along. By the time we got back to Bandit it was all he could do to try to keep his eyes open to navigate for me; I totally understood how miserable he was having just been through it myself, but I also really couldn't run the map and drive on my own, so thankfully he was able to hold it together...he was a trooper.
The drive from Glenveagh to our current location, Portrush, took us from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland, which is still part of the UK. The border crossing was wholly unceremonious; no passport check, no line on the road, honestly not even a sign stating that we were entering another country. However, once over the border, several things change. Road signs and distances are all in miles and miles per hour (El Bandito's spedometer is only in km/h, so some on the fly converting was done), the currency switches from Euros to pounds, accents become thicker and expressions I've never heard before are thrown around, then translated to "American" when they see the blank look (I wish I had an example to give, but at the moment I'm tired and can't seem to recall any of them).
Ryan guided us successfully into town and to our hotel (a Ramada right on the water) and promptly ran himself a hot bath to try to break his fever in while I went out in search of food for myself and a Gatorade equivalent (Nitro+ sport? Best I could find.) I found a great little pub called the Harbour Bar right by the pier where the barman Willie welcomed me in for a pint while I waited for the bistro to open (it was only 4:30 but we hadn't had lunch and I hadn't had much of an appetite still at breakfast so I was ready for some dinner!) I sipped a pint of Guinness and chatted with Willie, a few locals and a few other tourists (who were all more local than me). Everyone was very warm and easy to talk to. Once the bistro opened I took a seat at the bar there and ordered the seafood thermidore and the baked tomato and mozzarella salad. So good! The place smelled amazing, there was a big open wood grill in the kitchen, and the menu looked yummy from start to finish. Hopefully Ryan gets to feeling better so I can take him back there tomorrow!
So now we're just back in the room, trying to get some rest and sleep off whatever bug has worked its way into our honeymoon. I only started feeling fully recovered this afternoon, but I'm hoping Ryan will at least be feeling functional by tomorrow as we have a full day of exploring the Antrim coast ahead of us. Time for bed!
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