Hey Everyone!
It's been a while since I've updated. I'm a little behind due to school. I have 4 papers coming up next week so I've been a little distracted. We went to Galway the weekend of the 23.
Anyway I'm ready to tell you all about my amazing trip to Galway . Galway is probably the
farthest we've traveled since we've been here. I
t was a four hour bus ride and not very fun. The city of Galway is very lively and exciting with a really pretty city center and alot of activity. Friday night after we got settled and ate at the local Supermacs(fast food) we met up with some friends from school. We had a really fun night.
On Saturday we headed to the information office in the city. They have a bunch of tours and information and maps. We jumped onto a bus that was doing the Connemara tours. We wanted to see Kylemore Abbey and some of the scenery. The tour lasted from 11am-5pm and it was stunning the whole time. We saw alot of mountains and there was even snow on top.
Down
below you can see some mountains and a lake. It was cloudy on Saturday and only very light rain but overall it was a very good day concerning weather.
Halfway on our trip we reached Kylemore Abbey which was the highlight of the day. It was originally a castle but was later bought by Nuns and turned into a private girls boarding school. We only got to see a little of the inside but I got some great outside pictures. The abbey was on this beautiful lake and behind it were some mountains. There was also a small Gothic style church near the school.
The tour guide was very informative and I learned alot of local stories and history. One town we stopped in had this statue in the center and the tour guide told us that the statue served no purpose other then to attract people. He said "When people see a statue they think it's important. So they stop take pictures and maybe stay to grab a drink or a sandwich." I think that's a smart idea when you're in the middle of nowhere. After we got back to the city we ate at subway (we are so cheap when we travel) and headed back to our hotel. We had to get up early the next day to take the ferry to the Aran Islands.
Now the Aran Islands only have one ferry that goes out in the morning and one ferry back at night and the ferry is about 45 mins away from the city so you have to take a bus. We got up around 8 am (very early for us young people) to get to the bus. The ferry ride to the Island was amazing. The water was so beautiful and there were virtually no clouds out that day. We couldn't had planned it better ourselves. We decided to rent bikes and ride around the island ourselves.
It was so beautiful out we wanted to go at our own pace. We stopped at a few beaches and collected some more rocks.
One of the beaches had weird rock formations it's hard to describe. It was just so amazing! The Aran Islands is my favorite place so far. The combination of good weather, bike riding, and breath taking scenery just made it a perfect day. We stopped at a few small historic sites. One was a old church and the another was called the seven churches. We didn't get to make it up to one of the forts because of our bikes but we were still satisfied.
We made it back to the ferry with time to spar so we walked around till 5pm when the ferry departs. Then we waited for the bus to come pick us up a little after 6pm. Now we believed that the last bus to Cork was 8:05pm so we thought we were going to be fine. But when we got to the station we learned that the last bus to Cork was actually 6:05pm. We were not very happy about this...we had to go back to our hotel and stay another night...ugh! We got up Monday morning at 6:30am for the first bus back to Cork. We all slept the whole bus ride and luckily I did not have class till 4pm and Allison doesn't have class at all on Mondays. Erik however missed his morning class...but we all decided it was worth it to see the Aran Islands. It wasn't possible to get back from the Islands and catch the last bus.
The weekend was still a great success...we had great weather and saw alot of Galway sights.We went to Limerick for the day just this past Saturday and I'll update my blog from that trip later this week. We won't be going anywhere this coming weekend because of our papers coming up. We are planning on going to see a musical at the Cork Opera house this weekend and maybe explore Cork more.
I have gotten alot of requests for school pictures and I'll be sure to take some soon. I keep forgetting about the school and that I have classes. Erik, Allison and I also recently bought tickets to Edinburgh and London so we're very excited for those trips.
On a side note school is going really well and I'm really enjoying my classes. My favorite class has to be my Vikings....or maybe my Pagans to Christians....or Hitler and Nazism (the teacher is hilarious and really entertaining). I'm also taking a yoga class twice a week which I love. Anyway I'm having an amazing time here. I really like my flatmates and my new friends!
Should update again soon!
Thank you all!
Cheers!
Erica
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