We (that is me and three other UD students, whom I will leave unnamed for now) flew via Ryanair to Dublin, Ireland on Friday the 12th in the morning. We landed around lunchtime and took the bus from the airport to Dublin’s town centre (<< yes, I am going to spell everything UK style on this particular post.) It was cold in Ireland, but we’d expected as much. It was like autumn weather, in the 50s and 60s in Fahrenheit, and we were able to see all the green of the grass and the hills AND enjoy the changing colors of the leaves on the trees. We walked around for awhile, passing the famed Trinity College, before stopping for a mid-afternoon lunch (I wonder what that would be for a hobbit?) and had traditional fish and chips. Yum! After that, we set about searching for a hostel. Now, I had joined this Ireland-bound group as a kind of “tag-along” so they were making all the decisions. I just wanted to see Ireland before it got too cold and before the semester was over. I had thought that they had previously booked a hostel, but apparently they hadn’t. They’d expected to just pop in on a hostel and be granted a room, based on past experiences. What we didn’t know was that there was this huge soccer game going on between Ireland and Germany, and every single hostel was completely booked and had zero vacancies. After awhile, two of us finally ended up with a room (I was one of them), and the other two of our party decided to rough it and pull an all-nighter wandering the pubs, internet cafes, and streets of Dublin which wouldn’t be too bad considering how safe it felt for the most part. After we were settled on that, we went out for dinner at a pub which, to my surprise and delight, was laid-back and had really great live music and singing for the last half hour we were there. I didn’t order anything because I was still filled from lunch, but I finally decided to try an Irish coffee, which I found out consisted of coffee and whiskey.
Eeeeeps! First time having hard liquor in my drink! Panic!!!
No. I was actually surprised at how delicious it tasted. It didn’t take too long until the whiskey made its presence known in the drink very prominently and boldly. Thankfully that forced me to drink it nice and slow, as I tend to drink a cup of coffee in 5 minutes time. I think I was able to stretch it out over 45 minutes time without completely finishing it. Once it got cold, it wasn’t very pleasant to drink. But I did finish about three-fourths of the drink. Not bad! After hanging out at the pub for about four hours, we went back to our Bed & Breakfast for the night.
Next morning was breakfast and a ride to the Dublin Heuston train station. From there, we headed off to Limerick, and from there transferred to Ennis. The whole time on the train was very delightful and relaxing. It was a great way to view the scenic countryside of Ireland, which was exactly what I’d come to see. We even spotted a rainbow over the greenery, and I could even see where it touched down. The train was a perfect choice of transportation for the best sights!
When we arrived to Ennis, we planned to take the next bus to Doolin, our end destination, but we were disheartened to find that the next bus to Doolin was not going to arrive until much later in the evening, and it was barely 2:40pm. Desperate, we found a couple of taxis next to the Ennis train station and asked for help. One of the guys finally took us to Doolin for about 15 euro per person, which is apparently a really good deal, based on the experience of the other students I had joined. This was my first time ever in a taxi cab, and it was a great first experience. The cab driver was a delightful man who craved conversation. When we didn’t talk, he talked. He asked plenty of questions and answered every last one of ours. The 30 minute drive was almost like a guided tour/history lesson of Ireland. He even drove slightly further than we needed to be in Doolin to show us some really gorgeous cliffs where massive waves would crash up against them, half the time splashing higher than the cliff, which I estimated to be maybe 100 feet tall, maybe more. He told us that this particular set of cliffs was exceptionally dangerous due to the fact that the waves would sometimes splash so high above the cliff that if you were too close, the water would get you and pull you over the edge, dooming you to drowning. As sad as that was to hear, it was just jaw dropping to see the waves exploding that high up against an already tall cliff. Just before dropping us off at our pre-booked hostel (yes, we wised up this time), the cabby connected us with a friend of his (also a cab driver) who also owned a pub there in Doolin, and he said that he could take us back to Ennis the next morning for 12,50 euro, a little less that what he was charging us. He even gave us his friend’s card and number and made sure we were all set to go before dropping us off at our hostel. Doolin, by the way, is a charmingly small town that has about three sections to it, with long stretches of road between the clumps of pubs and shops in each section. It was a very rural area which I started eyeing with great interest. Rural…peaceful…Irish…seaside nearby…hmmm. Don’t worry, I’m coming back!We stayed at the Rainbow Hostel, which I HIGHLY recommend if you’re staying in Doolin. It was my first hostel ever, and I was exceedingly pleased. It was very cozy and warm with great rooms, and very large kitchen and an extremely nice staff. The guy who checked us in was particularly welcoming. He showed us around, made us feel right at home as if we were the only people in the hostel, and even offered us a lift to the Cliffs of Moher, (a 5-8 minute ride up the roads) which was precisely where we’d wanted to go. The only condition would be for us to walk ourselves back into town. It would be about a 2 hour walk. Sounded like a plan to us!
After settling in to our hostel, the guy drove us to the Cliffs of Moher, but not before pointing out a small but really awesome castle (looked like a kind of tower in the distance) on the way up the road (remember this castle-tower as it becomes important later), and a path that ran along the cliffs, which we could take on our way back and possibly save time instead of walking on the main road for 2 hours. The road he pointed out wasn’t complete, but by the way things looked, we would easily make it back into town in less time than the road would have taken us. After making a mental note of the place to get onto that scenic road, we visited the gorgeous Cliffs of Moher. These are unlike any seaside cliffs you’ll ever see. If you liked the ones from Capri, prepare to have your mind blown! The stone on the cliffs was considerably darker and less jagged, but still rugged, and the upper portions were covered with long, flowing, vivid green grass. You mustn’t come too close to the edge, as tempting as it can be sometimes, but when you can get close enough, the views are spectacular. Words can barely describe the cliffs’ majesty and awe-inspiring wonder. Many times, when I was close enough to the edge to see the long drop down toward the sea, I wondered how amazing it would be to sprout wings, leap off the edge of the cliffs in a thrilling nosedive, and just fly like the seagulls were doing. How epic that would be. Keep on dreaming…
After dozens of photos, singing Danny Boy while overlooking the cliffs and checking out the small castle-tower on the cliffs, we headed back to Doolin.
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| Cliffs of Moher |
The walk was very windy and cold. As we proceeded down the long, winding road, we tried hitchhiking. Didn’t work. That’s probably because when you’re hitchhiking in Europe, you’re supposed to ring an invisible bell to indicate you need a ride, not “Gig ’em” because the Irish might not understand that. Anyway, after a good 20 minutes or so, we found the path the guy pointed out to us. Half of us were a little reluctant to take the road, but we finally made the decision to take it rather than go on the longer road we’d taken up. It was what UDers refer to as an “adventure”: going out and doing something exciting and unusual, regardless of the conditions. For the first half of that path, I’ll admit, it was great fun. In fact, I would equate it to a Lord of the Rings-esque kind of adventure, running along the path on the grassy cliffs overlooking the rolling waves. We even hummed a few bars from LOTR. An occasional fine drizzle would pass by, but we didn’t have to worry much about the rain, thankfully. The sights were really incredible! |
| The long road back |
Now things turned rough when we began to loose daylight an hour and a half into the walk. We reached the end of that unfinished path and proceeded on the wider dirt path that continued onward before daylight went completely out, but because we were running out of light, some of the people in our party grew nervous that we wouldn’t be able to see where we were going, especially since we were nearing those dangerous cliffs with the rogue waves. They suggested cutting through one of the fields and climbing up the hill toward the main road. Half of us resisted for awhile, but we finally decided on doing it, especially since we could see the silhouette of the castle-tower from earlier up ahead and up the hill. As long as we could reach it, we would find the road, no matter how dark it became. We jumped the fence, and trust me, my conscience was going mad in crossing into private property, and made our way through the field, which we could barely see in the nearly complete darkness that there were cows in that field, off to our far left. And where there are cows, there might be a bull as we had seen a warning sign for another property a good 2 or 3 kilometers back or so. So far, so good. No bull. Then things went downhill…fast. Turns out the area of the field in which we walked was more akin to a marsh than a field. Within 50 steps into the field, we found ourselves struggling through tons of squishy mud with rainwater and…wait for it…manure! Yes, you read that right. Manure. The classic manure that never fails to yield gorgeous green fields. And we were knee deep in all this stuff! I literally lost my shoes five or six times in the attempts to get through that stuff as the suction of the mud and…that infernal stuff…was pretty strong if you didn’t work it right. I felt bad that people had to follow after me and fish my show out of the muck. At one point, I was so frustrated I almost gave up and decided to just ditch my shoes. But those were the only ones I had brought with me on the trip and it would be foolish to leave them behind in the cold. Stuck in the muck? Falling? Sorry lads, you’re going to have to catch yourself with your hands. YECH!!! Thankfully, after five minutes of horror, we moved out of the marshy area and found a highly unstable stone wall, marking the end of that field, but it was also lined with thorns. We balanced our way across the top of the wall for a few minutes until we could walk on the ground right up against it, away from the thorns, though a couple of us (myself included) became caught in the thorns and sustained a small cut or two. Once that dreadful wall was over, we decided to move back into the field we were in. The ground in this area looked far more promising, and either way, it was the only way we could go to get closer to the castle-tower. Wrong! More infernal muck and manure! At this point, I’d learned how to keep my shoes on and get myself unstuck without help, but it was the worst thing I’d ever done. If you know me and my tactile sensitivity (and it’s terribly strong), you’ll know that I was absolutely dying in that mess. It was all I could do to keep from screaming and scaring the nearby cows, who were probably looking at us like, “What the heck do these kids think they are?” But seriously, we were praying that there was no bull nearby, or we were toast. All of us were literally living out Dante’s inferno, the lowest most horrible place for anyone to be. It was cold, dark, wet and slightly rainy, mud and murk, manure, thorns, and we were all exhausted, hungry (we hadn’t even eaten lunch), dehydrated, and half our group was on minimal sleep from the night before. Dante got it right: the inferno IS cold.
As for me, God must have been having a field day, thinking, “Okay Kathleen, I’m going to save you from some of the horrors of Purgatory and give you some, shall we say, temporal punishment. I think I’ll have you walk through this.” I think I’ve been spared a few billion years from Purgatory after this experience. Out loud, several times, I begged my guardian angel to guide our footing and get us back to the main road. When we lost all daylight and could no longer see each other, I broke out into a Hail Mary. I repeated that prayer until I reached the place where I could hear our group forming back together on more solid ground next to a wall. One of the students said “What’s Europe’s 911 number?” (I don’t think they were kidding) and it rang a bell for another student, who pulled out his small phone, which thankfully provided us with some light to guide our footing. We didn’t call the fire squad or anything, but we were able to find the other part of the wall that stood between us and the faint silhouette of the castle-tower up the steep hill, which we still needed to climb. We started a rosary as we walked along the treacherous wall, almost pressing ourselves up against it to avoid the mud and manure as much as we could, and one of the students had her foot painfully lodged between two rocks a minute into the walk. Just as we were announcing the first joyful mystery, our first joy appeared to us: a break in the wall! We climbed through and started climbing up the steep hill which lacked muck and manure (THANK GOD!!!). The way was somewhat slippery, wet, and horribly tiring. Mount Purgatory from Dante.
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| This was pretty much all I could see when we finally saw the lights of the city...blured with tears! |
It took us another half hour to get down the main road, into town and up to the front door of our hostel, equating to about 3 hours worth of walking. “I will NEVER stray from the main path ever again,” said I. We also couldn’t get in through the front door since we would track all that horror in with us and there were people sitting inside that front lobby, but I remembered from earlier that there was a side door to the hostel, which was next to some big mud carpets and was right beside our room. Asking my guardian angel for assistance and guidance, I went to check to see if it was open, although it seemed highly unlikely. I think my guardian angel unlocked the door for us because it opened. Later it was locked. Maybe a coincidence, maybe divine providence. Whatever the case, I’m just glad we made it in without spreading much “dirt” into the place. We showered right away. By the time we were done almost an hour later, it was about 9:40pm, but we were all very hungry.
We went to check out the local pubs for food, but they’d all stopped serving food at 9:30pm. We finally checked a small, cozy bistro and sat down. They’d already stopped serving food as well and this was the last night of their season (they would be closing down for the season), but the lady there didn’t want to send us away hungry (we probably looked exhausted and frazzled), so she offered some vegetable soup and brown bread with butter which we eagerly accepted. At this point, we didn’t care what we ate, we just needed sustenance. Soup sounded amazing though, especially when we were cold and tired. The bread and butter was fantastic, especially the butter, which is probably the best I’ve ever tasted. Then the generous bowl of vegetable soup was soothing, warming and incredibly delicious. We all ate quietly for awhile, casting knowing glances and grins at each other because we knew that this was EXACTLY what we were thinking about that we could be doing when we were going through the icky inferno of mud and manure. After a delicious dinner at a shockingly good price, we went back to the hostel. Taking turns, we rinsed our shoes and trousers of the filth. It turned out to be a long and arduous process. The tortures of tactile sensitivity continued for me as I cleaned out my impossible shoes. Thankfully, a cozy warm bed awaited me, and we crashed and burned warmly with relief at having such a nice place to stay.
Next morning we called the referred taxi guy and enjoyed some coffee and tea and freshly baked scones made by the staff. After thanking the people at Rainbow Hostel a dozen times over, we rode the 30 minute taxi ride up from Doolin to Ennis train station with yet another great cab driver. We caught an earlier train, thank God, but one of the girls and I had lost our train tickets for the return journey. Fortunately, since we had previously paid for the journey, we were allowed to ride up to Limerick and there we would have to get new tickets, which we did. Thank heavens for student discounts because the price could have been a lot worse. The ride from Limerick to Dublin was mostly studying for our Art & Arch midterm for Monday.
Once in Dublin (and didn’t arrive in time to catch any Mass, unfortunately), we ate lunch (which sufficed as dinner as well for me) at a sandwich place then went to check out Trinity Church and go see the famed Book of Kells. Besides the elated (and hysterical) crying upon reaching the starry road the night before, this was the one time I cried tears of wonder and joy. The glorious pages of the Book of Kells were right there, just on the other side of the glass, only inches away from me. Ever since I’d heard of its existence, I’d been wanting to see it. And now, the time had come. It was fantastic! All the legends and stories about the book--the dyes used, the illumination, the work that went into the details, and even Pangur Ban the cat...they were all real!
We also got to see the old library (which was apparently used in one of the Star Wars films for the Jedi archives). Pretty neat! Even better were the books that were displayed there, like the original Plutarch’s Lives! WOW!! And the bust sculptures lining the library included all the great historians, philosophers and writers, like Shakespeare, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Milton, Newton, and so many others who made me want to high five everyone. What an exhilarating experience in less than an hours time. After the others went souvenir shopping for awhile, we boarded a the bus and headed back to the airport, I the impatient one, despising cutting the time close to departure. I was determined to be on time, even if I was the only one of our group to board the plane. The others said I just blasted through the airport as if with rockets or Mercury’s wings, leaving them far behind in the dust. See? I didn’t earn the nickname Sonic (the Hedgehog) for nothing. We all made it on time and had a safe flight back to Rome. The nighttime views flying over Rome were particularly magnificent. Way far off in the distance (like really far away) was a lightning storm (which arrived on campus almost 6 hours later), and down below were the sparkling lights of Rome. We were close enough so that I could see the Vatican, the Coliseum, and more! |
| Farewell, Ireland! Great Emerald of the sea. |
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