Detour: Ireland

Last week I was so fortunate to be able to take a vacation with my dear friend and college mod-mate Kate Larson, who is living in Germany for a year as an au pair. After meeting up in Bordesholm, Germany, to celebrate Kate's birthday, we did some "final" planning (that is, the only thing we had planned before was to buy our plane tickets) and flew off to Ireland.

Day 1 & 2: Dublin
It seems that the main things to do in Dublin are eat and drink, and oh yeah, spend money. Kate and I wandered the city, getting lost a couple of times, taking pictures of lots of pretty buildings, and chatting up art gallery owners, but mostly counting down the time until we got our rental car.

Day 3: Giddy first day with the car
Kate turned 23 two days before we came to Ireland, which allowed us to rent a car! At the time we planned to do this, it seemed like a good idea, since public transportation in Ireland is not very widespread and, being the uppity tourist we are, we wanted to get off the beaten path. But by the morning we were to pick up the car we were a little nervous about it, especially Kate because she was the one who got to drive her first rental car for the first time on the left side of the road. The first challenge was getting out of Dublin, which we survived through 5 wrong turns, a little hyperventilating, and maybe some cursing as well.
Once we got out on the open road, though, we were super excited. We were instantly seeing beautiful countryside, and I, on the left side of the car, had a map. I love maps. I'll be citing lots of names in this summary because for some reason I think that other people love maps just as much as me and might want to follow along.



Soon Kate settled into driving, and did a beautiful job of it the whole trip. I directed Kate towards Belfast via the green stripes of "scenic drives" marked on the map. We stopped for the first of many roadside picnics in Greenore. It became clear that scenic drives were what we had come to Ireland for. We made our way up the coast, stopping where and when we pleased, oohing and aahing at cute bounding baby sheep and incredibly picturesque roadside views. We made it to Giant's Causeway for a beautiful sunset, and to a couch-surfer's house in Limavady to stay overnight.





Day 4: Mind the Sheep
Natalie, our couch-surfing host, suggested that we explore Donegal before we left the north. We decided that we could get an early start and take the first part of our day to do so. We obviously hadn't learned about the roads yet. The Irish translation of "really tiny road with pot-holes and hairpin curves and lots of beautiful distracting scenery, which by the way you have to share with semis and sheep" is "scenic drive." We decided to take those roads reeeeal slow, and we spent all day driving through the mountains of Donegal. Along the way we made stops in Letterkenny (to check out a restaurant recommended by our guide book), Garton Lough (for a museum on St. Columcille and illuminated manuscripts, which was closed but a nice lady let us in for free), Meenaneery (to refill the air in our tire in the middle of nowhere) and Glencolumbcille (to slog through a rain-soaked field to look for St. Columcille's well). Need I say... gorgeous.



As we didn't have any music to listen to (and our choices on the radio were American pop music or Gaelic talk radio) singing became a very important part of our trip. Along the way we taught each other songs and did some sweet harmonizing as we took in the lovely Irish landscapes. Kate complied a list of the songs that we sang at some point in our trip.

We stayed in Sligo overnight at a hostel where we managed to arrange for the last two beds. One of our roommates was Nadia, a girl from Switzerland. The three of us stumbled upon a pub with live music, and it ended up being just a bunch of people sitting around playing, which was exactly what we were hoping for. Nadia ended up joining us the next day.

Day 5: Connemara to Doolin
Nadia joined us and we drove south out of Sligo and skipped part of the West coast in favor of spending the day a little further south. We met up with our favorite scenic roads in Westport. From there we followed the coast, did some hiking in Connemara National Park, collected seashells at Coral Beach in Carraroe, mildly panicked when our car pooped out on us for a few minutes in Spiddle. Just some battery issues, we got it worked out... or at least figured out how to work with it.



We left Nadia in Galway and headed further south to the tiny tourist village of Doolin. To save money, we had decided to camp in our car that night. "This," as Kate put it the next morning (after a miserable and sleepless and COLD night), "was maybe not the best idea we've ever had."

Day 6: Cliffs of Insanity!!!
We were obviously the first ones awake in the region. Apparently tourists like to sleep in or something. But we had noticed signs for a craft fair in a neighboring town, so we headed that direction, had an amazing breakfast when restaurants finally opened up at 9:30, and checked into our hostel for the night as soon as we possibly could.

I have to say that the Ailee River Hostel in Doolin is the best hostel I've ever stayed at. The owner gave us a personal tour of the facilities, which included free laundry, free internet access, super clean sunny rooms, and a really nice kitchen. He also drew us a map of a special not-so-heavily-travelled hiking path along the Cliffs of Moher. We embarked on a 5-hour adventure with perfect weather. We absolutely loved it, and felt a little smug when we got to the other end and found that the other tourists were not even seeing a fraction of the sights that we had just taken in... and clambered over.




Day 7: Happy Easter!
Our rental car was due back in Dublin at noon, so we headed back East to Dublin, where we stayed with a couch surfing host Conor, who by now we considered a friend (he also hosted us while we were in Dublin the first time). Since we didn't have any other way to celebrate Easter that day, we sang classic Easter hymns to each other along the way, and ate the Cadbury eggs provided by Karl the friendly hostel owner. After dropping off the car, we invaded the deserted University College Dublin campus where we napped and had a patchwork picnic of the odds and ends left in our backpacks.

After so much wonderful weather, our last day was rainy and dreary, but Conor showed us some beautiful spots in the Wicklow Mountains anyway.


Before we left Germany, Kate's hostparents scoffed at our plans to make a road trip of the entire country. "That is such an American thing to do. Ireland in 8 days. Boh..." Well, what can we say, we're American. In the end we didn't make it around the entire coastline and we heard that the parts we missed were the best parts, but I think I can speak for both of us when I say we couldn't have cared less. I have to say that this trip to Ireland was one of the most memorable weeks and amazing times of my life.