Aran Islands

I'm about two days behind in blogging, but I'm sure that I will catch up soon because I just have classes the next couple of days, so I'll have more time to catch up, and won't be doing anything as exciting.  So on Saturday our group headed out to see the Aran Islands.  It was about a half an hour bus ride followed by about a 45-60 minute ferry ride out to the Islands.  We went to the big island which is called Inishmore.  When we got there our director let us loose and just told us to be back to take the ferry at 4.  So we had about 4ish hours to wander around this island that is supposedly 9 miles wide.  You could either walk, bike, get a buggy with horse, or get in a tour van.  The girls that I went with decided to walk.  I hate biking uphills so that was the main reason for me.  Anyway, so we started out on our journey.  We decided to go to the old lighthouse on the island.  We walked there in about an hour or so and it was a really pretty walk.  The road was right along the coast so we saw a bunch of fields, cliffs, beaches, and houses.  There are actually a lot more people that live on the island than I would have thought.  There were some Bed & Breakfasts there too that were the cutest houses ever.  By the way, like every other house in the Galway house seems like its a B&B.  So we finally made it to the lighthouse and we immediately bust out our cameras to capture it.  You can actually go up in it and get a great view of the entire island and ocean.  After we thoroughly explored the lighthouse and its surroundings we started the walk back to the port.  One thing that I love about Ireland is that when you are going to a certain destination, there are probably several things on the way that are really cool and that you'll want to go explore and take pictures of.  Hence I took like 130 pictures in 4 days.  When we got back to the port we had an hour or so to relax before we had to get on the ferry.  The Aran Islands are famous for their wool sweaters, so we went into the sweater store.  I ended up getting a really cute knit side purse.  So yeah, then we just hung out until the ferry came.  On the way back to the mainland, just about all 28 of us fell asleep on the boat...and there are pictures.

When we got back to the cottages we all showered and got ready because it was one of my cottage-mates birthdays so we needed to celebrate.  We went into Spiddal for a little bit, but the pubs were crowded with a bachelorette party and some live music.  So we hung out on the beach there for a while, just hanging out looking at the stars.  The stars are absolutely gorgeous out here, and I'm going to miss them at home.  So then a couple of us made the walk back to the cottages and made some friends with some kids who were playing "Pokemon" in the parking lot.  (It consisted of them throwing a ball tied to a string and trying to get it stuck in the powerlines...I don't know).  There was a wedding reception going on in the hotel and that's why the boys were out there.  They were really funny to talk to.  We talked about Dunkin Donuts (they were like obsessed with that for some reason), Obama (apparently he's Irish), "the Mexican problem" in the US, and Family Guy.  It was really interesting to hear what they thought about America.  Anyway, then they invited the three of us that were talking to them to go into the wedding reception.  How often do you get invited to do that?  So we went to the hotel and crashed the reception.  It was definitely the most fun wedding reception that I've ever been to!  First of all the music that they played was about half American and half Irish.  Those of us who were in my program pretty much dominated the dance floor.  We danced to songs ranging from Poker Face and Thriller to Galway Girl and other Irish songs.  The wedding party was out on the dance floor with us and we all just intermingled.  A couple of the girls taught some of the older Irish men how to dance to Thriller...haha.  It was just a great time that is hard to explain unless you experienced something like it.  Towards the end, the bride and groom did like a traditional Irish dance in the middle of the dance floor while everyone was around them cheering them on and chanting.  It was just really cool to see them tie in their heritage and culture into this celebration.  This was a great day and night in Ireland.

Side note:  I've noticed for the most part that the people from Northern Ireland have thicker accents than those I've met in the Galway area so far.  The people at the wedding were from Donegal and were severely hard to understand...they were also pretty drunk though so that might have played a factor.