Missed a week...
Day 3
Up-an-attem, bright and early, for to catch a fairy...er, ferry. We caught the ferry in Rossaviel after hanging about for a couple of hours. Apparently, things don't really get going until after 9 in the morning or so. Me and Tara did get a chance (while we waited for Ireland to wake...) to munch on some unique UK goodies. Being processed by the Cadbury company, their chocolates are more rich than our home grown Hershey's and Nestle's, but at a similar cost. We are so missing out on the good stuff...
Anyways, the ferry and the island. Nothing much to say about the boat. It was full, but not crowded. I napped. I'm finding it difficult to properly stay awake yet, but I imagine it will come to me, given time. Right off the boat, we were dumped into probably the busiest area on the island and were immediately scooped up for a bus tour. This was handy, since biking the island would have been SUPER tiring and we would have never really known what we were looking at...
So, Aran Island (best known as the home of Samus...in the future...on another planet...) is an island of around 800 people, part of which is transient tourists. More than half of the cars there are mini-tour buses, since there really is no place to go. Plenty of pubs, though, much like the rest of Ireland. The island contains over 7,000 miles of hand built, loose stone walls (not like pebbles or small rocks, but good sized stones, uncemented and properly stacked...). Apparently, this wall building trade has nearly died off and has become a near art form. Specialists are hired by other countries (like Norway...) to build these walls for a considerable cost...
Anyways, back to the island. Pretty indeed, but on the whole, not much to say about it. The hostel was decent (very...hostely?), but nothing else. The pub, Joe Wattie's, was real good though. Good decor, layout, everything. Well, almost. The two entree's Tara wanted most were out (seriously, how can an Irish pub run out of Traditional Irish STEW!?), but mine was there (a burger, I believe...). We picked Joe Wattie's due to its reputation (among locals...) as having the better pub music on the island. I wasn't disappointed. The duo played a bunch of songs I'd never heard before (not saying much, really...), but the biggest treat was that they played The Mermaid Song. That's right; the old Camp Ware, meal time stand-by (I think we even did it at Lexie's wedding in lieu of TCCB...). Few not in-the-know wouldn't appreciate hearing it (or any camp song for that matter...) out here in the wild, as it were.
That's all from Aran Island. Tune in next time for The Road to Connemara. Back to you, Tom...
June 15, 2009
Nicholas C. Witte
Guinness Count: 3
As a treat, have a couple extra pictures...
2 comments:
I love the pics. The "serious" ones look like post cards. The "funny" ones are HIGHlarious!
Tara and I took some very, very good photos on our trip. I think she has better composition but my camera captured a lot of the colors better. We're going to make a scrap book of our trip (like a legit, physical one...) so that we all don't have to crowd around a compy to see them. Much more visceral...
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