The Aran Islands and Volcanic Ash

On Saturday the 17th, I went on a day trip to the Aran Islands through the International Society. They had a weekend trip too, but they had a 50 person limit and we didn't make it at the sign up. I'm kind of glad I just did the day trip. The Islands, well there are 3 and we only went to the biggest one, were cool and I had really wanted to visit them while I was here, but they weren't like as amazing as I had thought they'd be and it looked pretty much like other parts of Ireland. Not to sound jaded or anything haha.

We left at 7 am on Saturday morning...ouch! I passed out on the bus pretty much right away. I woke up a few times here and there but my head just kept falling down and I fell asleep like 3 times! We got dropped off at the ferry port. The ticket lady yelled at our group to get out of the office because there were too many of us. She gave our group ticket to Colleen. None of the officers from the International Society were with us because most of them were on the weekend trip. We boarded the ferry (it was my first time on one!) I always assumed taking a ferry meant just meant standing on a boat, but this one had an upstairs and a downstairs with really nice seats. It was about a half hour ride there. It took us a little while to get off because the people in front of us had a couple of dalmatians with them and one was scared to go up the stairs to get off!

After getting off the ferry, we boarded a tour van. The guy drove us for like 15 minutes and told us some history and information about the island, and then he dropped us off at a beach and said he would pick us up in like 2 hours. We hung out at the beach for a little while, then walked over to Dun Aonghasa, an ancient Celtic stone fort that was up on a cliff. When we reached the top, I went over and sat on the very edge of the cliff. It was weird, like part of me was obviously a little scared I'd fall over but it just didn't seem like that big of a deal when I went to the edge. Maybe I have faced my fear of heights in someways! We also had fun laying on our stomachs and looking straight over the edge.

After we got picked up by our bus driver, we stopped at some ruins of some old churches. We also stopped to look at some sea lions that I would have never noticed if the driver hadn't pointed them out because they looked just like the rocks!

We drove back in to the village, had lunch at a coffee shop, and then walked around a little bit. We went to the sweater shop. Then we took the ferry back and got back on the bus. I passed out AGAIN. I don't remember the last time I slept so much on a journey before :)

One of my favorite things in Ireland are the stone walls.

MOO.

With Katie and Amanda on the beach

The wall of the fort

Being a BAMF

The view straight down

2 of the 7 churches left.

We didn't eat here, but still thought it was funny.

We are supposed to be going to Rome this weekend but it's looking a little iffy because of that volcano erupting in Iceland. Flights through Ryanair are delayed out of Ireland up until Wednesday at 1 PM so far. My roommate Kathleen and some other girls from UWEC were supposed to have gone to London this past weekend, but that got canceled. I really hope flights go out on Friday because I want to go to Rome sooooooo bad. I haven't done a lot of travel outside of Ireland. I shouldn't whine because either way this one semester has been way more traveling to cool places than I've ever done in my entire life but still! Some news stories make it sound like it's getting better, but some make it sound like there's no end in sight.

My Irish dance recital is this Wednesday. Im a little nervous. The audience is only going to be people that we invite but I am not very good! This is the last week of classes which is crazy! I'm excited for no more classes but it's sad because it just means I'm getting closer and closer to being done here! Next week we have a Reading Week and then 2 weeks of finals. I'm leaving 1 month from today. Soooo crazy!