Connemara Day Trip

On Friday I went to my first professional rugby match. It was so much fun! I went with my friends Jaye and Jess and their Irish roommate Fergus. They were actually much nicer than I thought the fans would be. They didn't even boo when the other team's players were announced. I didn't take any pictures but my friend Jaye did so when she puts them up I will steal them for my blog. Anyway after that we went to Eddie Rocket's, who we decided is the half brother of Johnny Rocket. It was funny to go in there. Then Fergus almost killed me by pushing me in traffic. So all in all a pretty good night...

Then today we took a bus tour to Connemara and Cong. Connemara is a BEAUTIFUL place, on par with the Grand Canyon in terms of beauty and wilderness, in my opinion. We had great tour guides, Declan and Ray, and they were hilarious. They played us Irish music on the bus, and were very very nice. We started off the day with a trip to the Ross Errily Friary. The friary was home to Franciscan monks, now it is just a ruin, but it still has many in tact grave stones and the altar from the church is also in tact. After that we went to the Ballymagibbon Carin, which was a really tiny mound that I didn't take pictures of. The next we saw the Glebe Stone Circle, which is like Stonehenge in that people don't know what it's there for and there have been archaeological digs done in the area but they still can't discover what time period it was from or what it was for. We weren't able to walk out to it because it was too swampy, but we did see it from the bus, it looked ok. Next we saw Ashford Castle, and walked from there to Cong Village. Ashford Castle was AMAZING. Hands down, best castle I've ever seen...so far. It was huge and beautiful, and it is now a hotel. Unfortunately, all the stairways up to the cool parts of the towers were locked, and I wasn't able to do too much exploring there. Cong Village was a cute village with pretty much only one main road and tons of little houses.

Next we went to Loch Nafooey, which is a pretty lake within Connemara. We stopped for lunch in a little town and had the best food I've had here yet! I had a chicken and onion sandwich with chips and salad. It was great and only 7 Euro at a little pub in this town. I should mention also that Connemara is the Gaeltacht area of Ireland, meaning the language mostly spoken there is Irish. We also saw the Killary Fjord and the Kylemore Abbey. It was great and everything was so beautiful, trust me, the following pictures do not do any of it justice!

This is the Ross Errily Friary from the outside.

The landscape outside of the friary.

More landscape out of the friary.

Very tiny doorways at the friary.

A window.

Inside of the friary.

Sunlight is a strange phenomenon here so I took a picture of it.

More sunlight through a window.

A tiny doorway to tiny stairs.

Some graves in there.

A chimney.

Some pillars.

The land.

The outside again.

Stood on a wall to take this one, more of the outside.

Me out in the scenery.

Climed up to the top of the friary entrance.

Ashford Castle.

A closeup of the castle.

The castle and a sandtrap.

The castle.

The back of the castle.

Me in front of the castle.

A bit closer.

The other side of the castle that didn't fit in the other part of the picture.

Me and Heather in front of the fountain.

Close up of me and Heather.

View of the Castle from the lake.

A window out to the water.

Secret passage way?

The passageway went to this thing.

View of the castle on the walk towards Cong.

The bridge to Cong.

A very cute house in Cong.

Typical Ireland.

The mainstreet.

The direction home.

The biggest lake in Ireland. There is an island for every day of the year on this lake. Obviously this is only part of it.

More of the lake.

Me and the lake.

Another lake.

A river through Connemara.

Me and the river and the wilderness.

Irish traffic jam.

More Connemara beauty.

And again. The most beautiful countryside in the world. Also, my future home.

More sheep coming up behind us, with the farmer in the back. They also had about 4 sheepdog working on these sheep.

My life.

Jack the Lad. A horse that knows when the bus comes up, and comes running. Everyone feeds him carrots. I hate horses.

This is where Jack the Lad lives.

This is my future house.

A waterfall.

Me in front of my future house.

This is what my future house looks out on. No big deal.

The Fjord. Or maybe this isn't the Fjord. You could tell me anything was a Fjord and I'd believe you because I don't know what a Fjord is.

Also the Fjord.

And again.

Kylemore Abbey. So pretty I almost considered becoming a nun. Almost.

A closer view.

Me in front of the abbey.

Me and my roommate Emily in front of the Abbey.

So all in all it was an amazing day. Connemara is by far the most beautiful place I have been in Ireland, and like I said, it is only rivaled by the Grand Canyon in my entire life. And I will hopefully be able to go back! Miss you all!