We left Thursday morning bright and early and headed for our first long excursion to Co. Kerry:Dingle/Tralee/Portmagee/Kilarney. Thursday was filled mostly with trying to sleep on the bus as we were on there for about 6 hours, which was very difficult for me as most of you know I CANNOT sit still that long. We did take a ferry over the Shannon river. We got out for a stretch break and lunch at Tralee where a group of us went to get some coffee in a pub. We walked in to be greeted by the cutest old couple that loved to have us! After we got our coffee, my friend's Sam and Shannon stuck around to chat with them, while they gave us cookies and chocolate as most grandparent would! We went back to the bus for some more driving around Slea Head, which was along the coast! We stopped for a photo op and little exploring along the way! Our last stop of the day was at Gallarus Oratory, the best preserved clochan, which is this rock hut thing that has been there for over thousands of years and is still waterproof. It was pretty amazing to see a structure that has been there for so long and still in amazing condition. After that we made our final destination in Portmagee to our hostel. Our hostel was very nice but was also one of the only things in the town. Portmagee is a VERY small fishing town consisting of 2 pubs and a grocery-type store, about the size of Dassel. Since there wasn't a lot to do here on a Thursday night, we watched a movie and got to bed early considering we were all beginning to get sick.
Friday:
The next morning we had to be at the community center for our photo workshop at 9 am. The workshop was lead by our director's Norwegian cousin and her husband. Overall I learned a few tricks on my camera but nothing too exciting, and we were all a little distracted by the hacking and wheezing that was going on around the room. We took a break for lunch, where we had catered fish and chips in a local restaurant! It was amazing! After lunch we had some free time to explore Portmagee and use our new skills to capture some photos. Meanwhile, the night before Thomas had struck up a conversation with some Italians that told him that they were specifically in Portmagee to take a trip to the Skellig Micheal, during our photo taking he and John had been approach by and Italian couple that needed more people in order to take this trip to Skellig Micheal, is a steep rocky island about 15 kilometres west off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. After probably being founded in the 7th century, for 600 years the island was a centre of monastic life for Irish Christian monks. The Celtic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 230-metre-high rock. After getting permission from our director the few that were around got on a small fishing type boat with our captain Micheal and headed for the Islands. The ride out there was a bit rough and wet but definitely worth it! We passed another island on the way, that was literally white because it was covered with so many birds. We were also told that 2 people had died on this Island so to be very careful when climbing up, this made me nervous because I was wearing moccasins and did not have time before we left to change my shoes. When we reached the island it reminded me of Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings. I also felt like I was at the cliffs of insanity in the Princess Bride! The captain dropped us off and went back out in the bay to do a little fishing. The island was covered in steep rock stairs that we had to climb in order to reach the top where the monastery was. The structures that were built so long ago were amazing perfect little beehive huts that overlooked the beautiful blue-green water. After a little while we made the hike back down to the bottom, where I stood on a rock and let the ocean splash up around me.
On the ride back to Portmagee, I told my friend John that the only thing that could make this day better would be if I saw a rainbow. And sure enough about 10 minutes later there was a rainbow overhead for the rest of the way home! Micheal also offered us some of his Sol fish that he had caught as he beheaded them, sliced them and told us just to throw a little butter in a pan and they would be ready to go. When we got back to shore John fell to his knees in praise shouting "Hooray, Hooray", although it was a little dramatic it was quite hilarious and a memorable way to end the trip! Although Micheal told us all we needed was butter, we thought we better get some sort of breading for some more flavor, as I had learned from the many years of watching Grandma cook fish up north. As the boys de-spined the fish, Kyle and myself cooked up the fish! It was very good and a perfect way to end the day. That night there was some tradition dancing going on in one of the local pubs, so the group headed there for the night. Overall, fantastic day!
Saturday
We took of in the morning for Killarney making a few stops on the way to stretch and check out the Killarney Nation Park. While in the park we also went to the Muckross House which is a mansion designed by the Scottish architect, William Burn, that was built in 1843 for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife, the watercolourist Mary Balfour Herbert. With sixty-five rooms, it was built in the Tudor style. Extensive improvements were undertaken in the 1850s in preparation for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. It is said that these improvements for the Queen's visit were a contributory factor in the financial difficulties suffered by the Herbert family which consequenced in the sale of the estate. After our tour we went exploring and I felt like Alice in Wonderland! We saw that there was signs for a waterfall but we only had about an hour to explore and by this time we were not going to be able to make it. But my friend John and I decided that we wanted to see it so we ran to the bottom of it and back to the bus. It would have been better if we would have got to see the whole thing, but was cool anyways. After that we went to our hostel in Killarney. This hostel was in an actually city which was different than what we were used to. It was still fairly nice but felt much more hostel-like than the others. There was also another large group of college kids there that were having a costume party. After dinner we got ready and headed to a pub/club called Grand where we spent the night listening to live music and dancing!
Sunday
On the way back to Spiddal that day we stopped in Tralee again to visit a museum. To my surprise I really enjoyed it, there were lots of activities to keep me entertained, such as finding out how much of a criminal mind I have and solving codes! There was also a walk through of what life was life, with life size figurines and I felt like I was actually there. It reminded me of Disneyland or like a was walking through the Log shoot ride at camp snoopy! The rest of the ride home was spent trying to sleep as I could feel myself getting sicker. We made a brief stop in Galway for supplies and then went back to the cottages.
Tuesday night was a great night of staying up until 3 am to watch the Twins dominate and we are planning on doing that again tonight while JP opens up the Pub for us! Tomorrow morning we leave at 8 am for our weekend trip to Dublin!
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