March 30/06 ctd.
The third guy looked rather like he could have been baby-face's older brother. Either way, they were just as much fun to watch as the 'real' scenery.
5:00 p.m.
I probably could have spent the whole cruise just looking at them. But the fjord is gorgeous - there are famine walls all over the hills to either side, which really gives you a sense of just how poor some of these people were during the famine. There are visible signs of aquaculture all along the fjord - barrels are strung together in a line on the surface, and underneath there are ropes that hang down that mussels cling to. Ther ewere also salmon pens and you could see them breaking the surface as they fed, shining in the sun.
We had another pub lunch, and the afternoon was spent shopping. Oy. I swear if I have to go to another scheduled shop I might cry - but that's what this afternoon was all about. The first shop was a place that specialized in Connemarra marble, mostly green marble. There was some lovely stuff, but since I have no room for knick-knacks and haven't changed my jewelry in six months, I ended up not buying anything.
5:30 p.m.
The next stop was at a place called Celtic Crystal. Which was pretty nifty, but, again, I don't have room for knick-knacks, not to mention that I wouldn't have wanted to take anything crystal home on a plane with me. It's the only place that does particularly Irish designs in the crystal - they cut things like the Claddagh Ring and the Boru Harp into the crystal. Apparently an apprenticeship takes 7 years before you're allowed to go on and do some of the major exhibition pieces (like the one pictured below, which is fricking huge - probably about 1.5 meters tall). Nutty. But
the coolest part was probably seeing the guy just whip off a piece of the stuff in front of us. (See it there, to the right, above?) Took him, like, 3 minutes to get the celtic designwork around the edges done and the Irish rose on the bottom. All freehand. An open space at the top of the bowl became a claddagh in about 2 minutes more. I was thoroughly impressed. Perhaps the most impressive moment of the day, though, was when M1 got off the bus and practically RAN into the bloody shop. For an old and decrepit woman she can certainly move really frickin fast when she wants to. She was off the bus and through the door of the shop before most of us had even stood up.
Our third stop of the day was at yet another bloody tweed/wool/tacky souvenir shop. I don't know how more of this I can take.
Japan is playing Equador in a world cup prelim match right now, so I'm watching that on TV. It's the last dinner with the whole tour group tonight at 7, and I hope I get to see the end of the game!
March 31, 2006
10:55 a.m.
There are only 9 out of 20 people that were originally on the tour left now. The rest needed to be at Shannon airport at god awful hours of the morning this morning, but the 9 of us fly out of Dublin, so we get a few extra stops on the tour. My flight leaves at 9:10 this evening, and, assuming it's on time, I should be back in York around 11:30 p.m.
We stopped in Galway proper this morning for a couple of hours of shopping
- we're about to pull out and head to our next stop. I must admit that it was rather refreshing to go to a shopping mall - they don't really exist on this side of the ocean, except in very rare spots, so it was a slight slice of home. The mall in Galway is interesting, though, because they've enclosed bits of the medieval city within it. There are a couple of 12th century towers that are being used as shops at the moment - one is a cheesy heraldry/family coat-of-arms shop, and the other is a fortune-teller's/tarot reader's place. They've also built up part of the mall to look like a medieval street which was pretty neat.
6:40 p.m.
I ended up making some purchases that were entirely un-Irish of me, but that I know will probably keep me entertained for a while. I bought the book "Keeping Faith" by Jodi Picoult (I'm really enjoying her stuff lately - it's so different from what I study that it's a good breather) and bought some stuff at HMV - Radiohead's "Pablo Honey" (The only RH album I didn't already own), Greenday's "American Idiot" and The Verve's "Urban Hymns". I was super excited and surprised, though, when because I bought something or spent X amount of Euros or whatever, they threw in a free CD of cool up-and-coming Irish music/musicians/artists. I'm lookng forward to getting it home and playing it to see if I can discover the next Damian Rice. Fingers crossed.
We did end up leaving Galway at 11, and drove to Clonmacnoise. On a nice day, I probably would have spent hours wandering through the ruins (Clonmacnoise was a monastery - 6th century origins, most of the ruins dating from the 12th century). It was absolutely pouring rain, though, so most of the visit was confined to the interpretive centre. The centre isn't huge, but has some of the more exotic/elaborate/intricate stonework preserved there. I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to see it, though, and did go out for about 10 minutes. I got soaked. I still don't think my feet are dry.
And that's where my trip journal ended. My flight was a little delayed getting back to Leeds, and I ended up not getting home until about 12:30 a.m., but it's all good. To sum up, though, I present a few of my general observations on Ireland/traveling/tourism:
The third guy looked rather like he could have been baby-face's older brother. Either way, they were just as much fun to watch as the 'real' scenery.
5:00 p.m.
I probably could have spent the whole cruise just looking at them. But the fjord is gorgeous - there are famine walls all over the hills to either side, which really gives you a sense of just how poor some of these people were during the famine. There are visible signs of aquaculture all along the fjord - barrels are strung together in a line on the surface, and underneath there are ropes that hang down that mussels cling to. Ther ewere also salmon pens and you could see them breaking the surface as they fed, shining in the sun.
We had another pub lunch, and the afternoon was spent shopping. Oy. I swear if I have to go to another scheduled shop I might cry - but that's what this afternoon was all about. The first shop was a place that specialized in Connemarra marble, mostly green marble. There was some lovely stuff, but since I have no room for knick-knacks and haven't changed my jewelry in six months, I ended up not buying anything.
5:30 p.m.
The next stop was at a place called Celtic Crystal. Which was pretty nifty, but, again, I don't have room for knick-knacks, not to mention that I wouldn't have wanted to take anything crystal home on a plane with me. It's the only place that does particularly Irish designs in the crystal - they cut things like the Claddagh Ring and the Boru Harp into the crystal. Apparently an apprenticeship takes 7 years before you're allowed to go on and do some of the major exhibition pieces (like the one pictured below, which is fricking huge - probably about 1.5 meters tall). Nutty. But
the coolest part was probably seeing the guy just whip off a piece of the stuff in front of us. (See it there, to the right, above?) Took him, like, 3 minutes to get the celtic designwork around the edges done and the Irish rose on the bottom. All freehand. An open space at the top of the bowl became a claddagh in about 2 minutes more. I was thoroughly impressed. Perhaps the most impressive moment of the day, though, was when M1 got off the bus and practically RAN into the bloody shop. For an old and decrepit woman she can certainly move really frickin fast when she wants to. She was off the bus and through the door of the shop before most of us had even stood up.Our third stop of the day was at yet another bloody tweed/wool/tacky souvenir shop. I don't know how more of this I can take.
Japan is playing Equador in a world cup prelim match right now, so I'm watching that on TV. It's the last dinner with the whole tour group tonight at 7, and I hope I get to see the end of the game!
March 31, 2006
10:55 a.m.
There are only 9 out of 20 people that were originally on the tour left now. The rest needed to be at Shannon airport at god awful hours of the morning this morning, but the 9 of us fly out of Dublin, so we get a few extra stops on the tour. My flight leaves at 9:10 this evening, and, assuming it's on time, I should be back in York around 11:30 p.m.
We stopped in Galway proper this morning for a couple of hours of shopping
- we're about to pull out and head to our next stop. I must admit that it was rather refreshing to go to a shopping mall - they don't really exist on this side of the ocean, except in very rare spots, so it was a slight slice of home. The mall in Galway is interesting, though, because they've enclosed bits of the medieval city within it. There are a couple of 12th century towers that are being used as shops at the moment - one is a cheesy heraldry/family coat-of-arms shop, and the other is a fortune-teller's/tarot reader's place. They've also built up part of the mall to look like a medieval street which was pretty neat.6:40 p.m.
I ended up making some purchases that were entirely un-Irish of me, but that I know will probably keep me entertained for a while. I bought the book "Keeping Faith" by Jodi Picoult (I'm really enjoying her stuff lately - it's so different from what I study that it's a good breather) and bought some stuff at HMV - Radiohead's "Pablo Honey" (The only RH album I didn't already own), Greenday's "American Idiot" and The Verve's "Urban Hymns". I was super excited and surprised, though, when because I bought something or spent X amount of Euros or whatever, they threw in a free CD of cool up-and-coming Irish music/musicians/artists. I'm lookng forward to getting it home and playing it to see if I can discover the next Damian Rice. Fingers crossed.
We did end up leaving Galway at 11, and drove to Clonmacnoise. On a nice day, I probably would have spent hours wandering through the ruins (Clonmacnoise was a monastery - 6th century origins, most of the ruins dating from the 12th century). It was absolutely pouring rain, though, so most of the visit was confined to the interpretive centre. The centre isn't huge, but has some of the more exotic/elaborate/intricate stonework preserved there. I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to see it, though, and did go out for about 10 minutes. I got soaked. I still don't think my feet are dry.
And that's where my trip journal ended. My flight was a little delayed getting back to Leeds, and I ended up not getting home until about 12:30 a.m., but it's all good. To sum up, though, I present a few of my general observations on Ireland/traveling/tourism:
- Lambing season is the cutest season to visit Ireland. It has to be. I mean, not only were there lambs, but there were calves and other baby animals. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was almost so cute it burned.
- Irish coffee rocks.
- Guinness DOES taste better in Ireland.
- Tourist traps suck. That's true everywhere, I know. But this really drove it home.
- There is only so much wool/tweed/cheesy shamrock souvenirs a girl can handle
- Irish Gaelic isn't THAT different from Scots Gaelic. I still want to learn Scots, though.
- There are still more pubs in York than there are in most cities in Ireland of a similar size.
- Dublin airport is not a fun place to have to kill 5 hours while waiting for your flight.
- Something will ALWAYS go wrong on a Ryanair flight (both mine were late, the lovely couple I met in Leeds on the way TO Ireland said they'd manage to lose their bags a few times, etc.).
- I need to go back WITH someone - that way I won't be drinking alone =)
And if you would like to see more pics of my trip, then you can CLICK HERE!!!
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Bwahahaha... Only complaining because they mostly only sell stuff that's already been made into clothing. =)