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DAY TWELVE: GALWAY -- TRADITIONAL CULTURE OF IRELAND
Trip to Aran Islands (9:00 am-5:00 pm)
Study Time (evening)
Dinner at Hotel (7 pm)
Meeting an old friend
at breakfast...Cindy and I had met in 6th grade and after graduation,
neither of us knew where the other had gone. She was with Elon College,
in Ireland for a month to study Irish literature. It was quite an amusing
situation, as we haven't seen each other in several years and we were
both like, "I KNOW THAT GIRL!"
The Spanish Arch, located
right outside of our hotel. We were told by our Galway guide that the
western side of Ireland held out longer against attackers.
An Irish fishing boat
Going from one island to another...a last
look at the mainland
A 45 minute ferry ride in
the cold air could be boring but I hung out with my camera buddy
and some others on top, taking pictures of awesome scenes. It was a
lot better on top than below, although I doubt Chris thought so as he
tried to carry a cup of coffee around!
This is a direct look into the
sun, bet you couldn't tell that! (lol)
Finally, we're near the
Aran coastline
The Ghaeltacht (Gale-talk)
area...here the first language is not English but is Irish.
A typical Irish cottage
although they are rapidly disappearing.
A more modern Irish cottage
A narrow road with stone walls
surrounding it. Although Inishmore measures 9 miles long and 3 miles
wide at the largest point, it has over 3000 miles of stone walls. What's
that tell you about the soil?
A rocky river
Some more walls of rocks
The rocky shore
I forgot the name of this
church but I think it had 7 in the name. That's Amy and Ryan walking
in the picture.
A view of some crosses
facing the ocean
Another view of the crosses
Inside the ruins
A framed shot of the entranceway
to the ruins
Sebastian leads the way in
climbing up to Dun Aengus, a very old fortress. The Irish have a
weird sense of humor when it comes to time; they always tell us that
something is much closer than it really is. They said it would take
us 15 minutes to climb up there...more like 15 minutes to come down!
Climbing up was hard to do.
A look out west
The outside perimeter of
the fortress was the cliffs.
A view of the real walls
of the fortress
The cliff at Dun Aegnus
with my roomate, Laurel, providing a scale
Looking out from the last
piece of land until you hit North America.
A better view of the cliff
Here's the entire group
of us, minus Kelly and Sebatian. From the back left, Laurel, Kellie,
Leah, me. Front row left to right is Amy, Ryan, Nicole, Josh, Chris,
Cindy, and Sharleen.
Kelly and Sebastian
A framed shot of Dun Aegnus
Waves breaking on the cliff
by Dun Aegnus
Another shot of the waves breaking
And yet again, another shot
of the waves. What can I say? We all liked taking photos of the
waves breaking...they were so pretty.
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