Excursion #1

I will have to write about the crazy awesome time that the town of Spiddal provides, but the first post I need to do is about the excursions we have had so far. So this is mostly off of notes I took, a part of it is reading Matt and Thomas' posts to remind myself what exactly happened.

So our first trip is called the Connemara excursion. We ended up venturing into the county due North of Galway. This ended up being in some ways the greatest journey of my life, because we got to ride in a bus driven by a man named Allen Jones. To describe this man, I would have to first quote the first words I ever heard him say. In response to a comment about getting thrown in an Irish jail he said, "Irish jails aren't that bad, and you can trust me, I've been in a jail in every country in Europe." Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this man, along with knowing about every jail in Europe, knew everything. He started a three hour talk once about turf. Turf is compressed biological compost found in bogs that is burned through Ireland as fuel. It came up in conversation, and he talked about it for three hours. This guy was amazing! After that trip he drove our bus on one other excursion. Since then, however, he has retired. Will he remember me, his faithful listener? The kid in the back of the bus that yelled up questions for him to answer, the kid who pointed out the window and eagerly wondered what Allen had to say about the world around him. Will he remember me? I don't know. What I do know is that his words were magic, and his stories were profound epics that I will forever wish were turned into audio-books, so I could listen to them forever.

Back to the excursion. We ended up going first up to this place called Ma Mean. Don' quote me on the spelling, there is alot of controversy with Irish and English spellings, but bottom line is that this was a mountain. Just a few steps up the mountain was Patrick's bed, I don't want to knock Saint Patrick, I am sure he was great, but when I see a mountain, I don't curl up at the base. I need to conquer it. So me and a handful of Minnesota's best decided to take a picture or two at the bottom of the mountain by a little stone alter before booking it halfway up the mountain. We got up into the clouds and decided it was probably enough and we went down. Looking back I realize you cannot beat a mountain until you have reached the summit, I will never make the terrible mistake of quitting halfway again. Upon arriving back to the bus we were entertained by Allen telling us all about his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien's nephew, and how Tolkien claimed his inspiration for Middle Earth was the Connemara region. This is exactly what Connemara looks like. I half expected a group of birds to fly overhead, obviously spies from Isengard, etc. Allen is so wise.

After that we had to stop in some small town nestled in a bay. I am not even going to try to remember it's name, because to be honest it was hardly worth remembering. The reason for the stop has become a recurring theme on this trip, a slightly obnoxious time waster. We ended up taking the worst tour of a wool factory ever. Literally took 20 minutes, was something like 5 euro a head out of our trip funds, and was just an old women talking about sheep fornication and how it works. It sounds like I am kidding, but I guess rams are busy animals. It was horrible.

Finally we reached our final destination though, the great town of Clifden. When I say "great", I probably mean boring and insignificant. The place was about the size of Cold Spring and was considered the thriving metropolis of the Connemara region. We did get to go to a poetry reading by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney. I don't care if you enjoy poetry or not, this was pretty cool. To hear the author of some of the great Irish poems reading them exactly how they are meant to be read is an experience, and probably something I will never forget. Plus, we were listening to him read them in a gorgeous church. After the reading we ended up exploring the town a bit and a few of us ended up listening to a session in on of Clifden's many pubs. It was great music, and I had a fantastic interaction with a man who was convinced I knew his wife because I knew where Spiddal was, it was terribly awkward. After that we went back to our hostel to rest up for some exploring at Connemara National Park the next day. The hostel we stayed at was top notch if anyone was wondering, and we had all the guys from our trip in one room, so of course we giggled like little girls for two hours before we fell asleep.

The last place of note was Connemara National Park, a beautiful park that overlooks the ocean and Ireland's largest mountain range. We hiked up to the top of "The Black Diamond." The hill was a pretty easy climb, but offered a tremendous view of the Irish landscape. I loved every second we spent up there.


Future posts will include, County Mayo/Westport (Not as sucky, but sort of), Portmagee (FML), and Killarney!

Cheers!