I woke up this morning not feeling very happy. I should have been ecstatic since I was in Ireland but after crying last night and worrying about the roommate situation I just couldn’t bring myself to be very peppy. The most I could do was force myself not to cry. I got ready pretty quickly and went down for breakfast. It was uneventful, although this hotel definitely had a better breakfast buffet than the one in Dublin. I didn’t enjoy it since I just wasn’t in the mood to eat.
Melissa, Teresse and I and about half of the other people on our tour were doing an excursion especially arranged by our tour guide Che. This day was just supposed to be another one in Galway according to the itinerary but being that Che is awesome he arranged for us to take a bus, and then a ferry to the Aran Islands and got us a group rate on it. We had to take the coach back to Eyre Square and spend a few hours looking around and shopping before we met up at the bus stop at 12pm.
Before we went on the coach though, I walked outside and smoked a cigarette and found a small moment of peace. The sun had just risen, the weather was crisp but not uncomfortably so, and church bells were ringing in the distance. There must have been a school nearby because young boys in uniforms passed by, along with parents walking with their younger children with school bags. Everything felt better for a little while.
Then I went back inside and sat in the lobby and started talking to Melissa and explained what happened with the roommate switch. Teresse had been roomed with Brook who she liked so she didn’t want to offend her by switching back with me. Melissa however was roomed with Gennie and although she had no problems with her and liked her as a person, she didn’t feel they had much in common. Melissa’s night was worse than mine. She had almost taken a car service back to Dublin so she could fly home. The wheels turned in our brains and we got the idea to ask our roommates if they wouldn’t mind switching so that we could be roomed together. Aha, there was a solution! It was as if a big strain was lifted off of my shoulders although it never completely went away until that evening after we returned from the island and we both were able to ask our respective roommates if they minded switching. Neither of them was opposed but we wouldn’t switch until the following night when we got to our hotel in Killarney.
Now that that seemed to be somewhat resolved we were free to have a good time during our day. The three of us walked around Galway some more, although we had to double back and head to a shoe store so I could buy some sneakers since I did NOT choose appropriate shoes for this outing and the sneakers I brought weren’t comfortable. I also bought myself a green pashmina as a souvenir for myself. We even stopped in a little bakery that sold only tarts and sat and ate ours on a bench outside. Mine was just chocolate fudge but it was very very good.
After that we went into a mall and realized there was a castle in the middle of it so we took some pictures with each other there. We weren’t interested in any of the other stores so we decided to go to where our bus stop was even though we had about 45 minutes left until we were supposed to be there. The good thing was that there was an internet café right there so I was able to go online for a few minutes to email Yoda and update him about the roommate thing so he’d know I wasn’t still freaking out and I was having a good time.
Finally it was time to meet at the bus stop and when the bus came we all got on it and got comfortable but then.. we didn’t move. We were sitting there for a while when suddenly the driver told us to all get off the bus and we had to get on a different older bus that had more seats since there was too many of us. Apparently a bunch of other people wanted to tour the Aran Islands that day too.
The bus ride lasted about an hour and dropped us off at the pier where we took about a 45 minute ferry ride to the island. The weather changed considerably and now it was kind of chilly and clouds were looming.
When we got there we split into two groups. Some people, including Che had decided to rent bikes to ride around the islands and to our ultimate destination which was Dun Aengus. Dun Aengus was supposed to be comparable to the Cliffs of Moher. You had to hike to the top and when you got there you could stay up there, have a picnic lunch and have the cliffs as your view. These were the only cliffs we would visit that you could actually get right up to the edge. The other group including Melissa, Tereese and I had elected to take a mini-bus tour of the island instead.
The first stop was Dun Aengus and originally I had thought that I would just sit this one out because I didn’t think my bad leg would be able to handle the hike. Something pushed me to try so I did, but I only was able to complete part of it and when we came into an opening and I saw how far and how high the hike would be I told everyone I would just return and wait for them at the entrance.
This day was the 18th anniversary of the day my dad had passed away and in preparing for this day I had brought a picture of my dad and I to leave somewhere in Ireland. I thought that I was going to bury it in the sand on a beach but I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to find one and there were several long, short walls of rock formations around me so I climbed up to one and put the picture in a space between the rocks. I also took a picture so I could remember where I left it.
I returned to the entrance to wait for everyone else to finish and while I was waiting it seemed like the temperate had dropped some more and now it began to drizzle a little bit. It didn’t really bother me, I was most concerned with the fact that I was hungry and we had a limited amount of time to eat lunch before we had to meet back up with the mini-bus.
Thankfully they arrived with enough time to spare so we could grab a quick lunch so we went to this tiny restaurant that was near where we’d meet up with the bus. It was adorable inside! Oak walls with yellow tables and chairs, even a fireplace although there were flowers in it instead of a fire. It was small enough that you actually felt like you were in someone’s kitchen rather than a restaurant. And the food I had that day was one of the best during my time there. It was just some tomato bisque soup and a piece of carrot cake that I shared with the rest of the girls but it was delicious! As we ate I watched one of the workers in the restaurant drying dishes by hand and singing along to a Celtic song that was playing on the radio. This was the first time I truly felt like I was in Ireland, and that I really had traveled far enough to experience something completely different than I ever could have at home.
After lunch it was back to the mini-bus and a drive about the island. We learned that the island is only home to about 800 residents. There is no school on the island, or any traffic lights. They have a hospital although it’s not set up to handle traumas, anyone that is severely injured would have to be air lifted to Galway. Their main source of income is either from the tourists or from cattle.
The only other stop we made was at Seven Churches, it’s a small cemetery and it had been a church at one time although only the walls remained. When we got off the bus to take some pictures I saw a horse in a pasture right near us so I quickly walked further into the cemetery portion so I could take some pictures. I kept saying “It’s a horse! Look, a horse!”, as you can tell I’m easily excited by animals. I think everyone had started to pay attention to me and wanted to take a picture of the horse themselves but when I climbed up on a rock and got a better view I realized “Oh, it’s a cow.” And everyone started laughing. I guess they all knew it was a cow from the beginning. Oops! They don’t have cows in Queens! I actually thought all cows were black and white, and this one was beige.
Anyway, we finished our tour and took the return ferry back to where we needed to catch the bus to Galway but it took almost 45 minutes for the bus to get there. At this point my leg had started to ache very badly. I had walked around for a few hours at morning, I had tried to hike part of Dun Aengus and then I had to stand for that long while and I just couldn’t push it much further. When we got back to Galway, the others were going to wait for a public bus back to near where our hotel was but I couldn’t handle standing anymore so I limped across Eyre Square to find a taxi that would take me back to the hotel.
My moods always become turbulent when I’m in pain, I’m not one of those people that can just act happy and cheery because I get so angry that I can’t do things that other people can. So when I returned to the hotel and people who hadn’t done the tour were beginning to eat dinner I decided to just forget it and go upstairs and lay down. When I got the room Tammy was there and I asked her about switching rooms, she was okay with it. But now I felt awkward so I took my cigarettes and went down to smoke and when I got down to the lobby I realized Melissa and Teresse had returned and were eating dinner with Brook and Gennie. I said hello, but I felt like the odd man out for some reason and even though I was starving I just went outside, smoked my cigarette and went back upstairs to mope.
Not too long after I changed into my pajamas there was a knock on the door and it was Melissa to tell me she had asked Gennie about switching, and she had agreed to switch as well but only when we got to the next hotel. This made my mood significantly better. Melissa stayed for a while to chat, and shortly after she left there was another knock at the door and it was Teresse. We talked for a while and when she left to go to bed my bad mood had lifted and I felt like I had met some genuinely nice people on this tour and I was extremely thankful of that.
I went to bed feeling not so alone, and not so far from home as I had felt the night before. I went to bed happy.
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