20 april 2011

so i'm sitting in room awaiting the arrival of the fam... who are IN IRELAND but driving from dublin. words cannot describe how antsy i am :) can't wait.

yesterday, we had our last hc-paid (and by that i mean we paid...) trip and we went to the middle aran island called inishmaan. most people visit inishmore but the middle island is the least inhabited island, and since our adviser likes to take us off the beaten track, there we went. the island is just 2 x 3 miles (!) so we were able to walk around pretty much the whole thing, including a stop at the only pub on the island for a bulmers :)

we traveled by ferry and thankfully i was so tired that i fell right to sleep and didn't have any seasickness! we arrived on the island and started our walk down the main road (only 4 cars passed us the whole day) which was lined on either side by fields divided up by millions of stone walls. i still can't get over the fact that these incredible walls are just stones stacked up in a certain way. if i set my mind to it, i could easily take one apart!

this island was legitimately the quietest place i have ever been in my life. with a population of just 170 people, the only noises were made by animals. there were also very few cars on the island, so no traffic noise! i was trying to think of a single other time where there was almost a complete lack of sound... no luck! it was incredible. we climbed up to a fort on top of the island's hill, and had lunch in an enclosed stone fort and later walked to the far end of the island where we sat on the edge of the island. fittingly, the next land mass in the ocean we sat by was new york, which is where i will land in a little over a week!

our main companions were cows, like those above, but we also saw lambs, sheep, weird goat things, chickens, dogs and cats. i would imagine that this is what most people think of when they think of ireland. it was definitely what i had pictured! nice to finally live out that stereotype :)

we also saw this guy planting potatoes! talk about stereotypes :) overall it was a relaxing and peaceful day! and a sunny one... pretty sunburned over here! things i wasn't expecting, ireland. nice work!

t-minus 9 days until AMERICA!
xoxo