For Right NOW....

nicest people ever! and I’m related. I felt weird because I just kept starring at them thinking about how weird that concept is.

They live on a 5-generation farm house on the edge of a mountain over looking the ocean. Mary gave us the biggest room in the house! It was such luxury after staying in the hostels - which I realize I am going to be staying in for sometime still now.

It was a surreal adventure:

we took the bus from Galway to Doolin (it should have been a hint when we got on the bus and they asked for the address of where we were staying) The bus was much like what I know as a Greyhound type- but the ride was more like a shitty roller coaster, for the first time in my life I wore my seatbelt on the bus. The name of the road we took on our 3-hour trip was named “Cork Screw Road”. Yup. The bus stopped at a point where there was a farm and NOTHING else in sight on a single lane road - and told us to get off. We grabbed our bags and it pulled away. Holly and I looked at each other and just prayed that this was the right place. As we walked towards the house a little plump lady by the name of Mary came to greet us with open arms and started talking in such a heavy Irish accent that I caught maybe 1/4 of what she said. I did understand that we were staying in the second bedroom and we were instructed to drop of stuff and come back down stairs. The house smelled of fresh baked cookies, ocean air and farm animals. When we came back down stair she told us that Pat (her husband, my dad’s cousins…) was going to take us to the cliffs because they day was way too gorgeous to waste. So in no time at all we were on our way in his car where he drove 100km/hr up a crazy windy road to the cliffs of Mohr. He gave us directions back, all I got through his accent was “…. cliffs…. follow them back… keep castle on the left………..two story farmhouse…..at cross take a left to pub……..don’t fall off………”

so we walked back, partly because it was a nice day and there was nothing else to do, partly because we had no choice - and it was the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life. The cliffs were 600meters tall with the Ocean directly below. The path was a goat herders path of sorts and at times was inches away from the edge. It was really hard to navigate, with little drops, cracks and slopes. at some parts rocks jetted out from the cliffs and we crawled out to the edge and than laid on our stomachs to look down. You had to be careful of the wind gusts because they might blow you over (is what a local told us as we headed back) For the duration of our 5 hour walk through pastures and past castles we saw 1 person. We kept the castle on our left, came to the ONLY two-story farm house and took a left, we found a pub and bought dinner. Than we walked up the “little hill” to the farm house - cars could take you out as they came flying around the corner if you were not careful - but you could hear them coming miles away as there was no traffic. It took us about an hour to get from the pub in “town” to the farmhouse. We made this walk 3 more times, once for dinner, once to do laundry.

The next day we took a boat out to the Aran Islands. We rented bikes from this lady once we got of the fishing boat and road around the island - it was like stepping back thousands of years. It was a civilization stuck in tradition. Again, once we left the dock - we saw no one but took some awesome photos and hung out with some kick ass animals.

We have been eating a lot of peanut butter and nutella - my tummy isn’t handling the Irish meet very well so i am trying to stay away from it. The sausage, blood pudding and ham is everywhere and in everything.

We took a bus out of Doolin at noon Wednesday and had to sit in the rain with our packs for an hour at a random intersection hoping the bus was coming. It did and it took us three hours to get to limerick where we waited two hours to catch a three hour bus to killarny.

I really like this hostel the town is cute too. We have mapped out some awesome hikes and bike paths and are getting ready to do that tomorrow. Its kind of rainy today and as we move more south my sinus’s are kicking in.

Last night when we got into town we went into this little Irish pub where we listened to traditional Irish music (just a guitar and an accordion) the played louder for tips and drank more the more you talked to them.

Today we walked around the national park and took a mini 2 euro tour of a castle bought a frozen pizza played some cards with peeps in the hostel and walked around town. Just relaxing tonight because we need to catch at 7:20 bus (school bus) into a town about an hour away and than we are hiking back through the mountains which is supposedly 7hours - 9 hour hike but is suppose to be beautiful.