Saturday, June 24, 2023

This post is a bit of a novel. Feel free to pour yourself a nice cup of tea or a fizzy water, or heck, even a Guinness, and take your time with it. Settle in. We’ll be here for a while.

I’m groggy when my alarm goes off because I stayed up far too late last night again. Can’t blame the time difference anymore at this point, I’m afraid; I think I’m just trying to soak up every moment of this trip and keep winding up being awake far past my bedtime. No matter. Time to move. We’ve got a tour scheduled at 9, so I have a little over an hour to caffeinate before we have to leave the airbnb to get to the pickup spot.

I think I misunderstood Ronnie yesterday when he asked about coffee. I thought he was going to bring it up to us, but when he drops off the breakfast tray (Salmon on bread! Crackers with brie! Freshly baked croissants and Irish raspberry preserves! Freshly squeezed orange juice!), there is no coffee on it. I realize that he was asking what I took in my coffee so that he could bring milk if I needed it—the coffee maker is in the room. And it’s an espresso machine, which I have no idea how to use.

Look, I’m a boing black drip coffee person, okay? It’s french press or normal filter coffee for me. But I really need this caffeine, so I set about trying to figure out this contraption. Youtube is no help at all because all that comes up is coffee snobs explaining how to select beans or warm up your thousand-dollar barista machine or whatever, so I just wing it. Throw some water in, put the coffee in the little filter thingy and screw it in, press the button, nothing happens, press it again, loud noise, press it again, water starts coming out of the weird little arm on the side AND into the cup, panic, put a teacup under the weird water arm. God. There’s something resembling coffee in the cup when I pull it away, though, and it tastes like coffee, so we’re rolling with it.

After our divine little breakfast and coffee fiasco, we walk to the bus pickup location near Eyre Square. It’s a coach, and there really aren’t too many people on board. We leave Galway as our tour guide and driver, Jerry, begins giving us some amazingly detailed history of the Galway area and the region we’re going to visit today. Everyone is pretty quiet this morning. It seems I’m not the only one who’s not quite awake yet. We leave the city behind and roll into the countryside, dotted with sheep, trees, green fields, and stone fences. I fight hard to stay awake. The motion of the bus just puts me right to sleep.

But when I am awake, I take in the landscape as it changes. Soon we’re in the Burrren, which is characterized by its treeless, limestone-covered hills. There are stone fences everywhere here, too, including ones going all the way up and over the hills. Jerry says that the stone fences we see everywhere in the fields mark grazing areas, but also serve the functional purpose of removing limestone rocks so that people can use the land. They really just built stone fences because it was the most effective way to get the rocks out. However, the fences going up the hills in the Burren, Jerry says, have a sadder history. They’re called Famine Walls. During the great Irish Famine, families who lost everything and were on the brink of starvation often entered work houses, where they were separated and paid only in meager, terrible food. Many times in this area, the men were put to work building these “famine walls” that went up and over the Burren hills. These fences are not functional; they don’t divide land or get rid of rocks for grazing. They were literally just made for the sake of forcing people to work. Many men died in the building of them. Suddenly, these stone fences we can see everywhere look different. Knowing your history changes how you see the world.

Soon we arrive in the village of Doolin, where we catch a ferry across to the Inis Oirr, or Inisheer in English, the smallest of the three Aran Islands. Mom and I stop at the bathroom (despite Jerry telling us we have to get on the ferry as fast as we can and that there are bathrooms on board) because we can simply cannot wait. When we get to the dock, our group is nowhere to be seen. Jerry locates us and then sends us further down the queue, telling us to just jump in. I recognize a woman who had been sitting near us in the back of the bus. “I’m so sorry,” I say, cutting in front of her in the queue, “Jerry told us to hop in ahead of you. He’s mad at us.”

She laughs. “Oh, no worries at all!”

We get talking, and she tells me that she’s nervous about this boat ride. “I took some tablets for seasickness. I have some if you want them.” I don’t take her up on them, but the second the boat starts moving, I can see why she thought they might be a good idea.

The ride is very exciting and akin to a roller coaster; the waves are quite high and some of them send us bouncing so that it feels like the bottom of my stomach is dropping out. It’s actually quite thrilling though. I’m lucky that I’ve never gotten seasick, because if that was something I experienced, this ride would not be enjoyable at all.

The island approaches, then we dock and get off the boat. Back on land, we meet up again with the woman in the pink coat who offered me the seasickness tabs. “Look, I set an alarm,” I tell her, showing her my alarm for 1:15 PM labeled “Get on the ferry or Jerry will be mad.” She laughs, then introduces herself as Laura, originally from Brisbane, Australia, but recently relocated to London.

“What brought you to London?” I ask.

I expect her to reply with a comment about a job or a relationship by way of explanation, but she just shrugs and smiles. “I just always wanted to. I’ve always loved British culture and wanted to live in London. So I moved there.”

Laura, mom, and I, plus three other passengers, get onto a horse-drawn cart for a tour around the island. I quickly realize that Laura is one of those people who has never met a stranger. She is earnest and unabashed, one of those friendly souls who bring out the unafraid extrovert in me. Thank God she’s on our tour, too, because she asks our driver all kinds of questions about himself (he gives his Gaelic name, but says in English it’s Martin; he has a farm with a few cows and two horses that he rotates for tours; he gives four tours a day), his horse (named Jack), and life on Inis Oirr (everyone speaks Irish as their first language, sometimes kids from the mainland come over and take Irish language courses and live with local families; there is one pub and it’s very good). I later learn that Laura is a journalist, which very much tracks.

There are no trees on the Aran Islands; like the Burren, this landscape is characterized by large amounts of limestone in the soil, hence the extreme number of loose stone fences separating tiny grazing fields. It was cloudy as we left Galway this morning, but as we start our tour, the sun comes out, transforming this landscape into a glowing green and gray world against a luminous blue backdrop dotted with clouds.

Martin (and Jack) first stop at the Plassey Shipwreck. It’s the remains of a boat that sank in the 1960s. Everyone on board was rescued, so no lives were lost, but the ship washed up on the shore and is right there in all its rusted, plant-covered glory on the rocks.

Martin takes us on a loop going up a hill, past more of those fields with the loose stone walls, and to a path leading to O’Brien’s castle. Laura and another of the passengers stay on the cart and go to the pub, but Mom and I get off and walk up the very steep hill to the ruins of this castle. The view from up here is astounding; we can see down to the main part of the town and the beach. It is very non-Irish weather. The water at the beach is a deep, turquoise, glowing blue and the clouds are so fluffy white and the sun is so warm and I cannot believe that I am really here.

We grab a quick lunch of paninis at the Seaweed Cafe and then head down to the beach. I can’t resist putting my feet in the clear blue water. It feels divine as it washes over my skin. There are rocks with little pools of water in them next to the crashing waves, and the beach is full of seashells whose type I’ve never seen before: long skinny brittle shells and circular shells with a white dot on in the center and smooth little shells with a whorled shape. Mom and I pick up a few that I think might be the shells of razor clams. (From what corner of my brain did this knowledge of the “razor clam” originate? I google my hunch after this and it turns out that’s what they were.) I want to stand here in this blue blue water forever. If I’d known this is what the Aran Islands looked like and this is how the weather would be today, I’d have planned to stay here, right on this spot, for the whole day. Whole life, maybe? Nah, I’d miss trees. And the winters would be rough. But today would be a good day to sit here and soak it all in.

But as it stands, we are on a time crunch, so when my alarm goes off at 1:15, under the threat of Jerry’s imagined ire, we set off walking. Somehow, though, we’re still the last ones on the ferry. We got there 15 minutes early! What gives? Why are people so early for things? No matter. We’re on, and the boat departs.

This part of the journey is our Cliffs of Moher cruise. The water is even choppier now, and as Mom and I stand on the lower deck, I start to feel like we’re surfing a demented wave. It makes it even more exciting when we get right up next to the cliffs and see them up close. They are towering, amazing things, 700 vertical feet plunging off the land and into the Atlantic. Thousands of birds are flying around the cliffs and diving towards the water and circling the boat. Many types of birds nest here at the cliffs during the spring and summer months, including puffins. I think I spot a puffin in the water, but later Jerry mentions that there are several species of birds that look similar to puffins, so it might have been something else.

We go past the huge cave that was featured in the sixth Harry Potter movie when Dumbledore takes Harry to find the locket horcrux. I nerd out. These are also the cliffs used in The Princess Bride to depict the Cliffs of Insanity. They are iconic and wonderful and I am out of words for the feeling of being there and staring up at their vastness.

But the Cliffs of Moher visit does not end there! No! Back on land, we load up into the bus and Jerry takes us to the visitor center, which is extra cool because it’s built into the side of the hill. Mom and I head right up to O’Brien’s Tower (not to be confused with the castle on Inisheer), where, in addition to an amazing view of the cliffs, we also get to witness a wedding. Literally a wedding. It’s a bride and a groom and their officiant and a few people taking photos.

(Later, Laura recounts that the bride was in line for the bathroom ahead of her and they started talking. Turns out, the couple lives in the States and didn’t want to have a big wedding there and always wanted to get married in Ireland. So they just had a small ceremony at home and then came here for their actual wedding. Then they’re going to Italy for their honeymoon. Can I have Laura follow me around on every trip and get the scoop on everything?)

We walk the other direction for a bit and get another angle on the cliffs, this time down to a sharp tower rising out of the sea. It’s like I want to take it all in but can’t. I look at the birds flying around, hear their calls, smell the salty air, look at the dark gray of the rocks and the green of the grass that clings to them. Who was it that said “This is and interesting world. It deserves all the attention you can give it”? That quote pops in my head as I try to burn the image of these cliffs into my eyeballs. This is just one tiny corner of one tiny country in this huge, huge world. I’ll never be able to see even a fraction of it. And this is only day four of a four-week trip. There is so much ahead. What a privilege to be here. I am so grateful.

We make one more stop on the way back: a viewpoint down a hill coming off the Burren towards stage coast, and Dunguaire Castle. Jerry doesn’t tell us much about this castle, but it appears to be an event space. Laura and I get some photos in front of it, but there’s not a whole lot else to do, so we load back up. Everyone else on the bus is still quiet, but Laura, Mom, and I are silly-tired and laughing hysterically at Jerry’s offhand road rage sprinkled into his tour commentary, as well as his jokes, especially a particularly suggestive one about an American and and Irishman who go golfing. It’s good craic.

When we arrive back in Galway, we say farewell to Jerry, thanking him for an amazing day. Laura and I exchange information so we can stay in touch. Then Mom and I go in search of food and music. We have a delicious dinner of thin-crust pizza at Dough Bros, and then we wander into and out of some shops. Later Laura messages me saying she might go to Darcy’s, but when we go check out said bar, there’s no traditional Irish music, which I really want to see. So we decide to squeeze our way into a very busy Tig Coili, which Laura had recommended earlier and which seems to be one of the busiest pubs in the main area of town.

It’s a literal squeeze to even get in the door, and a very long time goes by before I can physically get to the bar to order a Guinness, but it’s worth it. There is a group of musicians playing traditional Irish music and as I stand there listening, I feel myself transported somewhere, sometime else. It’s mesmerizing, listening to the lilting melodies that are simultaneously impossible to follow and easy and instinctual feeling. It’s amazing to watch them follow each other’s cues, smiling and rocking in time with the music, their fingers flying. It’s such a good time that Mom asks to try a sip of my Guinness. (She doesn’t drink much and doesn’t love the taste of alcohol in general.) She makes a face, but then takes another sip. “It’s not bad, actually,” she says.

We stand there for who knows how long. Time isn’t real. It’s still packed, but people are quite polite as they push past. I talk to a few people, one from London, another from Scotland, and another from Ireland. They all hear my accent and ask what we’re doing here. Man, I wish this was what bar culture was like in the States. If we had pubs, genuinely social and cozy happy pubs, I’d be there every night. Instead, we have bars that are either pretentious or gross, and people just go out with the intention of getting hammered. That’s a blanket statement, I guess. We love live music in the states as much as people do anywhere, and we like to have a good time too. But this just feels so different. Maybe it’s just because I’m a tourist. So what if it is. I love this. I love it, I want to stay here and listen to this music, I want to talk to random strangers from all over the world and become friends with them forever.

The band plays their last song, I finish my Guinness and mom and I head out. I’m wired from the music and, once again, stay up far too late. It’s fine. We have a train ride tomorrow and I can rest in Dublin. I’ll fall asleep with the music of Gallway and bird calls and wind-whipped islands rolling through my brain.