A Weekend Away

As I write this, my thermometer reads 66 degrees Fahrenheit. I AM FREEZING!! I tend to be cold anyway, but this is ridiculous! My only source of warmth is coming from my recently purchased "frosted pumpkin" candle from a Yankee Candle that I found while in Galway last weekend.

Galway, I must say, was amazing!! This outing was our first big "weekend away" that we have taken since being here. We left Friday after class and took a four hour bus ride directly across the country to the coastal town of Galway. Riding on a bus is definitely not my favorite form of transportation, but it was much cheaper than taking the train, so we opted for that. Upon arrival in Galway, we found our hostel and headed out for dinner. After meeting up with some of the boys, who had taken the train earlier in the day, the rest of our evening consisted of enjoying the night life sights that Galway has to offer. Checkout of the hostel was at 10:00 the next morning, we were up early and ready for a day of shopping; at least the girls were. The boys reluctantly tagged along. The shops are so adorable and it was a lot of fun just to peruse through check out all of the unique and pretty expensive items. Afterwards, we had lunch in Eyre Square and got ready to head to the Aran Islands for the night. The Aran Islands are actually three islands right off the coast of Ireland, not far from Galway. We went, specifically, to Inis Mor by ferry. I love boat rides, so this was especially fun for me! I still don't understand why I don't get sea sick, but yet I'll get car sick after ten minutes.... Arriving at the island was not exactly how we expected it to be. It was already beginning to get dark and not a soul was around. Talk about an eery feeling. It seriously felt like we were walking into a horror movie. Jake's impression of a chainsaw did not help matters. The island was essentially empty with the exception of a few locals, our hostel beds were pretty much given away when we arrived, and none of the restaurants seemed to be open because the chef was in Wicklow on holiday (as explained by one of the locals). Awesome start. Eventually, we were able to work out room arrangements with the tenant of the hostel and we found an open restaurant. It was fun to finally relax and laugh A LOT at the ironic situation in which we found ourselves. I think we all had sore abs from laughing so hard. I know I know, it doesn't seem that funny, but it was one of those times that you just had to be there.....

After dinner, we headed back to the hostel and decided to turn in early, but not before conversing with Joe and Jake's hostel mates, Barbara and Helen, two eighty year old ladies. Believe me, that made the evening just that much more hilarious!! We laughed some more while watching the most recent episode of "The Office" on Jeanine's computer before going to bed. The island and the hostel seemed so much less ominous in the daylight the next morning. We enjoyed a lovely breakfast that the tenant provided and set out on a short hike before we had to catch the ferry back to Galway. The Cliffs of Moher are a popular tourist spot and known for their beauty, but we weren't able to book a tour to go see them. We decided we would have to settle with whatever cliffs were on the island. Our particular island was only about nine miles long and about two miles wide, so we hiked about a mile and a half from our hostel to the the other side. In my entire life, I have never seen anything as incredible as these cliffs. Seeing as we were the only ones around and could do anything we wanted, this was even better than the Cliffs of Moher. Everyone was in complete awe when we got to the top and looked out over the Atlantic. I loved watching the waves crash up against the the rocky beaches a the base of the cliffs. Completely awesome. I think we all could have stayed for a long time just looking, but we headed back down to catch the ferry back to Galway at noon.

Everyone except myself caught the bus or train back into Dublin, but I stayed behind to meet up with my cousin

Emily and her roommate, Amira. They had been doing some traveling around Europe and happened to be stopping in Galway that same weekend! I can't deny, it was GREAT staying in a modern hotel with a whole room to myself! It sure beat the hostels we had been in the previous two nights. Emily and Amira got in that evening and the three of us went out to dinner before going to bed early. We were all so exhausted. We spent Monday shopping in Galway and enjoying the cafe's and restaurants. It was so great to be able to relax and catch up with them a little bit. I caught the bus back to Dublin just in the nick of time. It didn't take but ten minutes, as usual, to start feeling nauseous and this time, it was even worse. Luckily, the lady I was sitting next to gave me the window seat and I was able to rest against it. At one point, I thought I was going to have to tell the bus driver to pull over because I honestly thought I was going to throw up, but I stayed calm, took deep breaths, kept my eyes shut, and made it back to Dublin four hours later all in one piece. Under the circumstances and with my notorious reaction to anything involving vomiting, I think I handled things quite well. Thank goodness for ipods. I don't think I could have gotten back without it.

I've been pretty tired this week, trying to catch up on lost sleep. It was a really fun, but exhausting weekend. This one will be much less eventful, for sure. Oh good, the heat just kicked on, so hopefully I'll be warming up soon. (It only comes on twice a day because it's so expensive). My feet are very cold, but I just painted my toenails and have to wait for them to dry-- horrible planning. I have a feeling this evening will consist of multiple blankets, warm dinner, many many mugs of hot tea, and a movie. Sounds perfect. :)