"Everyone is so nice..." Catherine in Ireland

Thursday March 25

After a later night of chatting, the alarm rang too early to wake up Catherine and I for her first day in Dublin. I was quickly reminded of Pittsburgh as we tried to ready ourselves in the tiny room without waking up Tara, my roommate. The morning was successful and we left on time after a nice breakfast and a cup of tea. We took the bus to the city center and I dropped Cat off with a map, wished her luck and headed to the DART to go to work.

The work day was another refreshing one. I was busy throughout the day, yet was constantly wondering what Catherine was up to. When 4:00 came, a coworker asked why I was still working when I had my friend to meet. I left with a smile, a combination of a great work day and the anticipation of meeting Catherine. Because our cell phones do not connect, we had decided to meet by the spire in the city center. We went to Madigans where Catherine filled me in on her incredibly busy day over a delicious dinner of Beef and Guinness Pie. After one day in Dublin, she believed that everyone in Ireland is friendly, literally everyone. That night we headed out to Temple Bar where I was able to introduce Catherine to some traditional Irish music and fun. Our cab ride home proved to me that she was correct in her previous assumption, for the cab driver was by far the nicest I have ever met. He was very personable, and the three of us chatted the entire way back to DCU.


Friday March 26

Another early morning and we quickly packed up our things and headed down to the city center to the Guinness Storehouse. We were fortunate to be able to check our bags for the weekend before entering the exhibit, then took our time as we walked around the seven floors to the gravity bar at the top. I had already been there once before, but the exhibit itself is very interesting and I was glad to be able to see it again with Catherine.

An old advertisement for Guinness. I couldn't help but laugh when I read it.

While enjoying the Guinness, I was able to point out some of the landmarks around Dublin which could be seen from the top. I realized that as many weeks had passed since my previous visit, the city had quickly transformed into a much more familiar place. After the tour, we took a quick cab down to the city center to hop on the GO bus, a direct bus from Dublin to Galway. The two and a half hour ride passed quickly and we checked into our hostel and set off to see what we could before sunset. Our first stop was the Thomas Dillon Claddagh store and museum.

I bought a Claddagh ring, my souvenir for my time in Ireland, and Catherine and I could not help but smile as we immediately adored the cute older woman who worked there. We found out her name was Catherine as well, and she appeared to have all the time in the world for us, even though we arived only 15 minutes before the store was to close. When we told her we were off to the Aran Islands in the morning, she told us a little secret story of the time when she had trouble riding her bike up some of the larger hills on the island. She warned us with a slight giggle not to exert ourselves too quickly and it was then I realized we had met another Irish charm.

We were both smiling as we said goodbye to Catherine and headed to the Galway Bay. Although the weather forecast had predicted rain for the weekend, we were blessed with sunshine and took a very leisurely walk along the bay.

We ate a dinner of Fish and Chips at Monroes and headed back to the hostel to warm up a bit. We were in a room of four, and when we returned we met our two roommates for the night. They were very friendly and we chatted about respective plans for the time in Galway. That night, Catherine and I were fortunate enough to find some fun music, a little more traditional than in Dublin. I actually saw my first Bodhran in a session!




Saturday, March 27

We boarded a bus at 9:30 which took us to the ferry in Ros a' Mhíl. After a 40 minute ferry ride we arrived in Inis Mór, the largest of the three Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland.


Home to only 800 people, this 9 mile long island is only 2 miles wide and was quite the experience. We "hired" bikes for the afternoon and set off to see the beautiful island. It is hard to accurately describe how different and picturesque the location was from anything I have experienced.

My bike for the day!

We stopped for a break and I called over some of the horses on the side of the road. This one was so fond of Catherine's bike that he actually tried to eat the handle!

These stone walls covered the entire island.

My favorite part of the afternoon by far was Dún Aonghasa, the largest of all the prehistoric forts located on the Aran Islands. It was quite the hike to the top, and we were told to abandon our bikes and take the journey by foot.



The view from this site was spectacular, and we took a nice long break and enjoyed the beauty that was before us.






As Dún Aonghasa was the farthest location from our starting point, we turned back toward the ferry and took another path home, this time on the other side of the island.

A wrinkled cow!

Houses like this were few and far between.

We stopped again to hike up to the Dun Arann Lighthouse. Another pretty steep path, we actually attempted to walk backwards at times to give our legs a break.

Roads like this lead us back to the ferry station, and we boarded the 5:00 pm ferry back to Galway. Very hungry after the long day, we stopped in Galwayfor dinner at a place which advertised "Traditional Irish Food." I had a bowl of clam chowder with my favorite brown bread and Catherine had the Irish stew. Both meals were delicious and we were quickly revived. Because of the time of year, the hostels were incredibly busy and we were lucky enough to be able to stay in the Kinlay House for a second night, yet had to change to an eight bed room. We walked in after a long day and there were four Irish boys in the room, making quite the commotion with our entrance. We soon found out they were from Dublin and were quite nice and had a fun time getting to know some new people.

Sunday March 28

We woke up this morning in time for the free breakfast and went to the 10:00 mass at St. Nicholas, the Galway Cathedral. The church was beautiful and we walked around afterwards for a bit before splitting a delicious crepe on our way out of town.

We gathered our luggage, jumped on the 11:45 bus and said goodbye to Galway. I took the bus back to the city center and Catherine stayed on to ride to the airport to catch her flight back to Rome. Overall it was an incredibly successful weekend. It was refreshing to catch up with Catherine and I believe she left with a new appreciation of Ireland, including the incredibly friendly people.