Una semana en Irlanda (A Week in Ireland)

I have so much I want to tell about Ireland, I'm not sure where to start and I know I won't say everything I meant to. That's probably for the best, though, because with stuff like this pictures often do the best talking anyway.
But that's the first disclaimer I wanted to put out there: in Ireland, for the first time in my life, I gave up taking pictures. It was too beautiful; I couldn't capture it. I have pictures, but none of them do justice what I saw. Often times the most beautiful things I saw were on bus rides or tours or in the rain, so it was even more difficult to take good pictures. Ireland was absolutely breath-taking. In the end, it's just rolling green hills and fields, stone hand-made walls, cute little houses, and animals (lots of animals), but somehow the sum of that equals more than the parts. I can't describe it fully. I can just say that Ireland was easily one of my favorite places I've ever been and I absolutely plan to go back.
When I do go back, I will rent a car and drive around. Ireland is smaller than the state of West Virginia, so it's plausible, and the majority of beautiful things to see happens just driving through the countryside. We experienced a bit of that with day tours (they worked really well), but it still can't compare to having a car and doing everything at your own pace.

Here's the rough schedule of what we did, so you can have a basic outline of the trip:
Saturday: got to Dublin, met up with Rory, a good friend of mine from way back in the day, did some walking around, went to hear some live music in a pub, and then crashed at her place. She is studying at Trinity University for the semester.
Sunday: walked around Dublin some more, saw Trinity, went to lunch with Rory, trained over to Galway. Explored Galway, a cute, picturesque town on the western side of the country.
Monday: Day tour of the Cliffs of Moher, which involved a long guided tour down the coast with plenty of stops at other little attractions, going down to Doolin and ending at the Cliffs. Fantastic. Met up with Caitlin, another old friend, and her mom for dinner. It was great to see them.
Tuesday: Took a boat out to the Aran Islands. Spent the day biking around the Island. Absolutely incredible--the views were unreal--but the weather got very, very bad. Biking in hail/snow is really not fun. Kind of a bummer that we didn't have better weather and couldn't fully explore the island, but that's how it goes. We had a nice cozy evening in as the wind whistled outside. It felt like camp.
Wednesday: Left the island in the early morning (the weather was beautiful. figures) and spent the day in Galway. We explored by ourselves, then met up with Caitlin for the rest of the day. Very enjoyable.
Thursday: trained back to Dublin. Rory was gone, but we did a bus tour and continued our explorations.
Friday: Dublin exploration...
Saturday: left Dublin at 4:30am to catch our flight back to Sevilla.

So that is the general outline.
In other, random detail, I'm going to try a new, more efficient way of organizing this entry because I have too many little, random things to say.
potatoes. I think it's stupid to spend too much time on this, but I will just say that all stereotypes on this matter were firmly upheld. I think the finest example is the sweet potato pizza that Austin and I shared in Galway. (It was delicious.)
the train. I love trains. Love, love, love. Beautiful countryside, good companionship, DIGESTIVES (not saying more; I could write an entire entry on the wonder that are Digestive cookies). What more could a person ask for?
redheads. Ireland is full of Ron Weasleys. Quite endearing.
Spanish, generally. I spoke in Spanish to several people by accident in the first few days of being there. Switching gears in my head was really difficult. There were also Spaniards all over the place. It makes sense, because it was a vacation week, but still. They are *so* loud and obnoxious, especially out of context. Almost as bad as Americans! Plus we just wanted to get away... We were actually mistaken for Spaniards several times, and even pretended to be Spanish in a bar we went to in Galway. It worked! (The guy said "I knew ye were Spanish right away; I saw it in yer complexion; I can just tell wit tese sorts of tings.")
food in Dublin. We went ethnic. It was SPECTACULAR. Japanese, Mexican (Spain has awful Mexican food, ironically enough), and Indian. It was a beautiful thing.
Dublin on Good Friday. This was funny. We happened to be in Dublin on one of two days all year where all 963 pubs are closed (the other day is Easter). We did the guided bus tour, and all the tour guides were complaining about it and about how awful it is to not be able to stop into a pub for a pint. The Guinness factory was closed, too, but we still saw it from the outside and it was ENORMOUS. It takes up a huge chunk of the city--it is the largest brewery in Europe--and produces over 3 million pints a day. Over 3.5 billion pints of Guinness are consumed in a year. It was interesting. I actually didn't like the beer much at all, but I am a big Bulmers fan. This trip confirmed that.
Phoenix Park. We hopped off our tour bus at Phoenix Park, the largest urban park in Europe. It was beautiful -- huge open fields, deer, monuments. Also the zoo, where we passed several hours quite happily.
divorce. Sounds like a strange thing to put, but it's worth mentioning: divorce was not legalized in Ireland until 1997. Yep, I know.

Now on to pictures, and I'll continue a bit of the story telling that way. And like I said, I feel like my pictures are really inadequate for representing what I saw and how I felt.

O'Connell Street, the main street in Dublin. A lot of the Revolution was fought around here.

Day trip to the Cliffs of Moher. One view of the cliffs! This was incredible weather for Ireland.

Me and the cliffs, back lighting like whoa.

A perfect example of beauty barely captured. I took this from the bus. Around every turn was another place to stop, another incredible picture to be had. But no such luck!

Galway.

Austin and me out on the pier in Galway.

Walking along the water, still in Galway. There's a lighthouse way out there in the background.

On to the Aran Islands. This is Inis Mor, the island we went to. This shot is better blown up, but it still doesn't do it justice, partially thanks to the weather. We still enjoyed ourselves, though... and we experienced authentic Irish weather!

Inis Mor again.

Austin on her bike, eating a banana, posing with our favorite house ever. Hard to see, but it's a thatch roofed house complete with cows chilling in the front yard. Yes.

Me at the top of Inis Mor, after we climbed up to an abandoned light house. Hard to see in this size, but if you blow up the picture you can see all the insanely picturesque fenced-off areas down closer to the water. I'm drooling with delight just thinking about how beautiful it was.

When the weather was still a bit clearer on the Island...

Leaving the island the next morning. The weather was *so* perfect -- it's a shame we had to leave! It was very different to the freezing rain we experienced the day before.

Back in Galway, walking around the main pedestrian streets. A very typical front awning.

Pedestrian streets and moi.

My favorite, cliche shot of Galway.

Dinner with Caitlin in her apartment! (WE HAVE THE SAME GLASSES!!!) Our dinner consisted of: mac and cheese, made with Irish Chedder, a fresh salad, and a fruit salad. Delicious. Oh, and milk and beer. Ireland has REAL milk, so we had to have that, plus trying Bulmer's pear was in order. So yes, milk and beer. Us Ann Arbor kids rock out in style. You know how we do. (Also, as a total side note, Ireland's meat is all free range, grass-fed, etc. The eggs are all free range. It's so much better than our system because they have less of a population and the resources to do that. Caitlin was raving about it; it sounded great.)

SUSHI SUSHI SUSHI. ANGIE THIS IS FOR YOU. MY FIRST SUSHI SINCE LAST JUNE. FROTHING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. I. LOVE. SUSHI. (I overpaid for this salmon and avocado roll, but it was sheer bliss and I loved every minute of it.)

Dublin from O'Connell bridge at sunset.

I think that's more or less it. I'm sure there were more little, funny things I wanted to add, but this brief overview covers my week away, in a nutshell. Hope it was enjoyable to read and not painfully long! (Ha, plus, another entry coming soon -- we've got back to back ones! Oh joy!)