Inis Mor

Saturday, September 26 was by far the best day I have had here in Ireland. We took the bus an hour to the dock where a ferry then took us out to Inis Mor, one of the Aran Islands. Charity, Brady, Patrick, Toby, Nicky, Laura, and I didn’t last five minutes sitting inside before we were out on the deck of the ferry with the wind blowing in our faces. It was absolutely incredible and my hair was a complete mess by the end, but I loved every second of it. The overhead hanging above us had condensation on it which was dripping onto Patrick and Nicky which caused them to make some pretty hilarious faces in addition to all the sea spray we were enduring. Patrick was all about pretending that he was in the Coast Guard and kept us all amused with his ridiculous antics. Once on the island we were split into four vans that then drove us up to the fort. The terrain on the island is extremely rocky and the island itself is covered with thousands of miles of rock walls. The rocky terrain made it extremely difficult for farming but I don’t know much else about the history of the island. Gaelic or Irish is the first language on the island, English being the second, so quite a bit of culture has been preserved. There were a few sweater shops as well where Aran Island sweaters were sold, they are typically the type of sweater you think about when you think of the Irish, but most of us weren’t willing to part with the €80 that a lot of them cost. I ended up buying myself a scarf which was a bit more affordable at €18.
Back to the fort now…so our group headed to the center to pay our one euro to get up to the fort and as usual with big groups people were reading the history or just dawdling around and I wanted to go up immediately to see the fort and the cliffs. Brady was feeling the same way so we set off up the trail. We made it up far ahead of the rest of the group even with the gravel trail and slowpokes in front of us along with stops for pictures; Brady and Toby are the major photographers of the group. The far end of the fort overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and there are cliffs down below. I went over and laid flat on my stomach to look out over the edge, it was quite a thrilling experience. It was extremely peaceful and beautiful, definitely one of my favorite place on earth, at least the places I’ve visited. We were able to watch the fog descending on us from all sides as well which was breathtaking in both the figurative and literal sense as the wind was blowing it at us. The peacefulness was then interrupted however when the rest of the group came along, but it was good fun pointing out things that we had already admired and basking in the knowledge that we had made it up there first. After a good bit of picture taking I had had my fill (mainly of our cohorts) and decided it was time to head back down to find lunch. I walked away from the group and Brady joined me for the trip back down. We had lunch at a little restaurant that had a thatched roof and the full on Irish feel to it, other than the fact that most of our group was eating there. I had the most delicious tomato & basil soup with a toffee square for dessert.
The vans then took us back to the port where we were left with two hours to explore the island. Everyone headed for the sweater shop where after finding a scarf for my sister, I was ready to walk around the island. I had been with Nicky, Patrick, and Brady so I asked them to wait for me while I paid. Brady was off however, as he usually is, before I could ask them to wait. I must note here that he and Toby not only share the photographer gene but the “wander off on my own and don’t tell anyone where I’m going in addition to the fact that I don’t have a cell phone to get in contact with anyone” gene as well. So Nicky, Patrick, and I set off down a road that was above the ocean only soon to see Brady on the beach in the distance taking pictures, so we all busted out our cameras to take pictures of Brady taking pictures. Patrick, being Patrick, took off running across the beach at Brady who pretended to run away from him, while Nicky and I sauntered down after them. We ended up taking a forty-five minute walk in which Patrick lead a narration of our “Oregon Trail” expedition, complete with Brady getting bit by the only snake in Ireland after which he died because we sucked out the venom and failed to get it all. Apparently we also foraged for berries which we got six pounds of and went hunting to end up with three hundred and twenty pounds of meat. Aside from the narrative we were walking through sand and water with our pants rolled up, all of us except for Nicky. There was tons of seaweed too and the pods within it would make this popping sound when we stepped on them leading us to call it nature’s bubble wrap. The beach was full of rocky terrain as well and we were running and jumping over it which was a ton of fun. The expedition was full of song singing as well and after I mentioned the fact that I loved that it was just the four of us, Patrick burst out singing, “Just the four of us, we can make it if we try, just the four of us!”. I about died from laughter at that point and then he went on to say that four is the perfect number and set about using the example of a car saying that four is comfortable, five is ok, six you are sharing a seatbelt and it’s just not a good situation for anyone. I loved having time with just the three of them. In the bigger group people tend to get lost and in a smaller group we are more intent to focus on each other. With only forty-five minutes left until the ferry was due to be boarded, we decided to head back into town but not before Patrick did his Neil Armstrong impression on the grey sand, as well as one can be done with the presence of gravity. When we got back into town Elizabeth, our program director, told us to go up the street and get some ice cream as we had fifteen minutes to spare. The four of us went up with the intention of getting ice cream but only Patrick did as the rest of us decided on the Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars.
Once back at the hotel I took a quick shower before dinner and went down to eat. After the meal they always serve tea and coffee, so our table sat around and talked in British accents with titles and all. Lord Dewhurst (Toby), Lady Patrick (Charity), Commodore Neves (Nicky), Lady Decant (they left out the h saying Decant sounded more proper), Sir Knight Darity (Brady), and then there was Patrick who we deemed court jester. Once our party broke up we decided to meet in the lobby ten minutes later to go out for drinks. Kyle wanted to go somewhere different from where we had been already but after perusing the town to find a ton of night clubs and overflowing pubs we ended up back at Richardson’s which is where most of us had wanted to go in the first place. I handed my camera over to Toby as I knew I would get it back with a ton of fun pictures that I wouldn’t be able to take, and I was not disappointed, however they are not going on facebook. Just a few entertaining notes, there was a man in at least his 50's if not 60's completely jamming out with the band and dancing amazingly with his wife, also we had an Irish man telling us that Ireland and America are "like that" with the pinky crossing thing and he said something about Coney Island disappearing and replacing it with Ireland. He also told us that if you want to win a war you put the Irish in the front. It was quite a hilarious conversation; he had been talking to Jon and Brady at the bar only moments before he approached all of us. We left the pub at 1:00am as that is when it closed and walked out into the drizzly rain to go back to the hotel. The only thing that was on for today was the journey home in which Charity and I discussed how upsetting it is that we won’t be seeing all of our friends on a regular basis with classes starting tomorrow and the fact that we’ll all be in different ones. Toby said we’ll have to have movie and game nights so we can keep the family together, which would definitely make me feel better. I had an absolutely amazing weekend, I’m just sad it had to end. I have met some amazing people and I have been greatly blessed.

Sidenote: Kayla Baker showed me this site called www.mylifeisaverage.com and I felt the need to throw this in. "The other day I climbed up to the fort on Inis Mor with a friend, we left the rest of the group behind. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful until everyone else arrived at which point my friend turned to me and he said, "I think it's time to go back down, this has become too mainstream". I smiled at the thought of him reading my mind. MLIA"