I left Mum and Dad on their own after the first weekend of May and crossed my fingers they'd make it to destination #1 (by driving on the right ((meaning left)) side of the road) which was Waterford, south of Dublin. They did in fact make their way all along the south coast of Ireland down to the southwest towards Cork and Kerry where they did the scenic tour of the Ring of Kerry around the dangly Dingle Peninsula. Eventually I met up with them in Galway which is north of that and less than more west of Dublin. We all met up with Uncle Mark and Aunt Shashi as well who took a generous bit of time off to hang out with us. It was great seeing them again, after only seeing them five months ago. Mum and Dad had a really nice B&B booked along the coast which we checked in to, coincidentally just near where Nico, Morgan, Renee, J and I had wandered off to, back in December.Our first trip together was out to the Aran Islands. We took the ferry from just outside Galway. Once seated onboard, we gave Mum and Dad their needed seesick radii - but without incident we arrived at the remote island. When we arrived, I was quite shocked by how stark the villages and countryside looked. By 'villages', i mean what they classify as being roughly 5-10 houses in an area. At the same time, the hills are dotted with the odd house, blockaded with row upon row of stone walls.
The Aran Islands seem to contain a lot of the hard-to-find traditional Ireland. Like many cultures famed for their identity, there often comes a kitchy, immitative version of their own culture to score a quick buck off the sucker of a tourist. While Aran is fairly touristic, it's one of the few concentrated areas in Ireland where they speak Irish (Gaelic) as their first language. That's a fair suggestion that the culture is still contained within their tradition. We were lucky to have a jolly tour guide who was hilarious (possibly insane) and nice to listen to because the Irish language is unlike anything I've heard before. He brought us to a number of points of interest, like the Iron Age Dun Aonghus (dun angus) ringfort and a number of other ruinous sites. We spent most of our time at the Dun Aonghus Fort. The fort has to have about 3-4m thick walls at the base. It's presumed to have been built by King Aonghus, to protect a small settlement. Peering over the edge made my knees clench up. I foolishly thought sitting over the edge would be a great idea. After speaking to James about it in Dublin, I found out that about 19 people/year get sucked off the edge from random gusts of wind. Luckily I didn't kick the bucket and round the number off at 20. Got the blood moving, at least.
We spent the entire day at Aran Islands, which was well worth it. The following day, we made another day trip, this time to the Cliffs of Moher, north of Galway. There's an interesting Visitor's Centre there that's built into the side of a hill. Inside isn't very special, but we ate a hearty meal here. The Cliffs were fairly busy during the day, but incredible scenery nonetheless. Not much to say about it, other than check out my photo album (or newly discovered built-in slideshow -gasp!!!-).We sped off to the airport the same evening and said a reluctant goodbye to Uncle Mark and Aunt Shashi. Would have hoped to spend more time together, but we've made plans for a late July visit, before I head home. Eughhh, that sounds weird...(I miss home) k, that's all for now. I'm going to try and lash out an Update v.2.0!!!!
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