Ireland Trip - Day Four

Another fun day. Frankly, they were all awesomely fun days. I'd gladly trade today for any of them. Woke up and didn't have to worry about breakfast - one of the nicest things about staying at a bed & breakfast. We just walked a few yards over to the dining area.





We both had traditional Irish breakfast foods. Max had the "full Irish" breakfast, which always consists of an egg, tomato, toast, bacon (but not real american bacon - this is more like ham), sausage links, white pudding (sausage round), black pudding (white pudding but cooked in pig's blood to give it its color *shudder*).




I had the "vegetarian" dish of eggs, bean, hashbrown and tomato. And then added a side of bacon, rendering it completely "non-vegetarian."

After breakfast we walked down to the pier in Doolin. Our plan was to take a ferry to one of the nearby Aran Islands. Of the three - Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer - Inisheer was the closest and the only one which fit our schedule, so we went there. The whole point is that the islands are one of the few places where things haven't changed - like a Mackinac Island type of thing. The locals speak Gaelic, no one drives, and there are tons of Celtic and Early Christian ruins and historical sites. And horse shit everywhere. (no pics of horse shit - thought that'd be gross...)


Our ferry - "Jack B"


Inisheer





The first thing we did was rent bikes to tour around. The island is small, and the ferry people gave us a map highlighting ten or so places to check out so we figured the best thing to do was to get bikes in order to see everything.



As soon as I got on my bike, I realized that taking a spinning class is quite different than bicycling outdoors. Now of course I know how to ride a bike but it had been awhile. Last time I actually rode on a bike was probably the summer after my freshman year in college. But things were a bit different back then. My first problem was that I was carrying a black purse/bag. Back in the day, I also had a black purse/bag (sadly, I'm a creature of habit) that I would just hang off the right handlebar and pray it wouldn't get caught in the spokes. It was a very cute bag but worst case, I'd just buy another one from Urban Outfitters. However, that day on Inisheer, I happened to be carrying a rather nice leather bag and I had absolutely no intention of ruining it on a bike so after stumbling around quite a bit, I gave up and wore it on my back. Like a backpack.


Yes, I rode around all day on the island with a fucking fin. Probably not what kate spade had in mind.





After I resolved the purse thing, I discovered other problems with biking. Mainly starting and stopping. See, neither are issues in a spinning class. And, when I was younger, I'm pretty sure I just started on the seat, but I guess that's not how you do it. Because what happens is, if you're seated and your feet can touch the ground when you start, your knees will practically hit your chin once you get going. After several minutes of awkward riding, Max adjusted the seat for me so that it was properly fitted but then my feet could barely touch the ground. Ouch - talk about uncomfortable. Turns out, you have to start by sort of standing up on the pedals. Hmm. Next problem - stopping. At first I'd just stop by hitting the brakes, which would make me fall over. Then Max showed me how you're supposed to sort of stand up and drag your toe. Complicated. Anyway, I eventually sort of got the hang of it - usually I'd slow down and then put my feet down and I'd shoot forward off the seat a bit but managed to stay upright. And then there was the horse shit. Turns out that rule of skiing - the more afraid you are of skiing into a tree (1 of 2 on the mountainside), the more likely you'll veer straight toward it - applies to horse shit too. Except there was a lot more than just 1 or 2 piles on the island. Max found me biking so hysterical that he took more pictures of me making an ass of myself, than the landscape.









Anyway, Inisheer was fun to bike around. As usual, we got lost, and at one point had to just walk the bikes for about 20 minutes over all these bumpy rocks along the coast before finally finding a path to bike, but it was really fun overall. The sites were somewhat interesting - some were hard to find, and others were completely not worth the effort. But we had a fun time nonetheless.


Gaelic
























This horse somehow reminded me of Pig...



With an hour left, we stopped for lunch at one of the two places open. Lunch was something like a lunch I would have made at home, except of course much pricier. Ham sandwich and three Pringles potato chips - $5!






After lunch we decided to bike over to a sacred well. But once I saw how rocky the path was, I gave up and told Max I'd meet him by the ferry. And I went to the beach instead.

On the way to the well...



As it turns out, I didn't miss much. This is the "well". It's got about an inch of water.

I'm glad I headed to the beach instead.






I was getting worried that Max, who didn't have a watch on, wouldn't make it back to the ferry in time and we'd be stuck on the island for the night, but finally, he made it!


Our ferry ride back took about 30 minutes and we slept the entire way back. Biking is exhausting! Once we got back to Doolin, we hopped back into the car for our longest leg of the roadtrip - 4 hour drive back to Dublin. The drive was fairly uneventful, and we finally made it back to Dublin by around 8 p.m. We chose to stay at a different part of town - the Temple bar area, and stayed in fact in the Temple Bar hotel, which had a great location.


I took this the next morning, but you can KINDA see our hotel. It's where the third circle sign is from the left - sort of in the center.


Temple Bar area at night.

We decided to forego traditional Irish food and opted for an Italian restaurant called Botticelli that got a pretty good review in one of our travel books.



I have to say - it was the best meal of the trip! I had the fettucini bolognese and Max had a pizza. And they had homemade gelato which was awesome. I was so excited about the gelato that I forgot to take a pic of it. Oh well.

When we first planned our itinerary, we had thought that we'd spend some time partying in the Temple Bar district, but after a day of biking in the sun (Max got a sunburn that day), and a four hour drive, we were ready to crash as soon as we were done eating.

That was Day 4 folks!