::Ennis, Doolin, Galway and the Aran Islands::

Imagine the sun. Now imagine the heat from the sun. Now imagine the heat from the sun on a bus. Now imagine you're sitting in the bus as hott as the sun, with 53 other people. For about 3 hours. That was our bus ride from Dublin to Ennis. It was too hott to move or talk or do anything. The air conditioning was broken. I can pretty surely say that I've never been that hott for that long before. I thought it was pretty terrible. It was totally NOT DAVE. It was the opposite of Dave. We were in the negative Dave's. And there was a guy on the bus who kept changing his outfit. And then these high school boys got on the bus and Aliya almost killed them. They had a radio and they started playing it, they were drinking, and generally acting like douchebags. Aliya seriously, almost killed them.

But somehow, we made it to Ennis without melting and without any murder charges. Ennis was a super cute little town! Here was our plan, just so you know where we're headed:

- Ennis for one night
then north to
- Doolin for two nights
then more north to
- Galway for two nights
and then back east to
- Dublin for the wedding

Let's go!!


This was our hostel, the Rowan Tree Hostel. they had just renovated it and so everything was super new and clean and still had the renovation smell. It was pretty empty there. The people at the front desk were nice and the beds were comfy.


this was Ennis. it was really pretty.





Old Stone church across the street from the hostel. we admired without paying a euro to go inside.



and then we had a photoshoot outside. this is my fave.



serious one.


we're on a bridge!

the other side of the bridge!!! the hostel desk guy recommend that if we wanted to hear a great trad sesh, we go to a pub down this road. he was right! it WAS a great trad sesh. and we met Hugh! he was one of the musicians playing the concertina. he came over to our table and introduced himself. we had a good conversation with him.


swanky hostel living room.

AND THEN, we took a bus to Doolin. We passed through the town of Lisdoonvarna, which is famous for it's matchmaking festival that happens in September. It kind of seemed like an odd town...

But we made it to the Aillee River Hostel, which was so beautiful.


It was my favorite hostel. It was run by Ann, who was amazing. She was this beautiful Austrailian woman who was so friendly and sooo on top of things. She was so wonderful and welcoming.


Elizabeth and I on the way to dinner in Doolin. We didn't even know the paparazzi was following us!!

We ate at this little pub that was JAM PACKED AND SWEATY on the inside and really buggy on the outside. We chose outside. Delish food. And a great photo sesh.




So, my camera has this thing called 'smile recognition' where it takes the picture once it detects a smile. Creepy, but makes for some great photos. Aliya and Elizabeth tried to trick it many, many times...






i loooove this one. it makes me laugh everytime.


the camera still knows you're smiling...

The next day we went on a great walk down to the ocean. This was the first time when I thought to myself, "wow, this place really is beautiful."








i love it!


(find aliya!!)


and then back in our hostel room, the party continued.


we decided that this would be the cover of our indie rock band cd. duh.

the other half of our room. a super tall guy named Fred had to sleep on the top right bunk the first night we were there.


the stone face man, river and bridge in our hostel's front yard. We met these really nice people at the hostel,

GABE,
his twin sister, EDEN,
and her friend/roommate from Alaska,
ROBIN.

Eden and Gabe were from Philadelphia. And, we just somehow started talking about Jon and Kate Plus Eight and how it was filmed near where they lived, or something, and GABE TOLD US that he had a friend who was hit on by Jon when they were out at a bar one night. SCANDELOUS.


this horse that we passed everytime we walked into town. it was a white horse with grey hair. pretty, but scary, because it was a horse.


this was "town" known as Fisher Street. There was this place called the Magnetic Music Cafe, which advertised itself as the 'last music cafe before america!' then there was O'Connor's Pub, where we went one night. OMG, so much fun. we were looking for a trad sesh, obvi, and ended up here. there was a great trad sesh going on! a little girl was singing! and we ended up sitting with some great people. Also from Philadelphia;

BILLY
billy's mom DEBORAH
who was being hit on by
MICHAEL,
who was probably friends with the guy hitting on
BILLY'S GRANDMA,
and then billy's new friend
EOGHAN (owen), who ended up hitting on us
by telling us there was mosquitos in his sleeping bag.

it was such a fun time. and we ate lollipops! and drank lots of Bulmers. We also reconnected with Hugh, the concertina player from a few night's back. We couldn't believe we were seeing him again!! Billy was encouraging Aliya to go talk to him, but then Hugh turned around and we saw he was wearing a shirt that said, 'hangover' on it. Deborah then said something along the lines of, "Oh, he's not worth it." She was a great Irish mom.

The next day we were up early to take a walk. It was our last day in Doolin and we wanted to explore. So, we headed this way:



it turned out to be a good decision. it was very beautiful.


ya know, a castle.



yeah, we went anyways...



another good decision.



Elizabeth is so photogenic! beautiful!!!



there's a baby cow standing in front.




wow, what a great walk! what a great time in Doolin!!!

Then we took a bus to Galway. This bus ride was like, up cliffs, down cliffs, around narrow little hairpin turns. it was insane.

But we arrived in Galway and were greeted by a familiar face:

Oscar Wilde!!! He was just sitting on this bench waiting for me. Our relationship progressed from hand holding to lap sitting. Dreamy...



Galway was beautiful!! We were there during the Volvo Ocean Race, which is a super dangerous race starting in Spain and ending up in Russia. The boats that we saw had come from Boston, were stopping over in Galway, and then heading up to Sweden.


we were far away.

Our second day in Galway we backtracked a little bit and headed out to the Aran Islands. We went to the biggest island, Inis Mor, where we ran into Rory, who was giving bus tours. We were the only ones in the tour. It turned out to be a good decision because it was such a hott day.

Our first stop was the Seven Churches,



This was the grave of three Saints that were supposedly buried on the island.





it was beautiful there.


we passed this fairy house on our way to the highest point on the island, Dun Aengus, which was an old fort on the top of all these cliffs.


we made it to the top!!!! oh boy, we were sweaty at this point.


it made you dizzy standing up so close to the edge.


we were 300 meters up.




a cave!


it was so crazy being there. like, we were soooo high up. insane!



so beautiful.



this was part of the old fort.


Galway at nighttime!!! The sun didn't set until like, 11pm. It was weird. I didn't realize we were that far north.



love this for two reasons: 1. all the houses are pretty colors, and 2. because of the water safety device right near the water! there were these all over Ireland. it made me very happy because i had just been to water safety training.


Elizabeth and I at The Crane Bar. again, GREAT trad sesh.

AND now we move onto the WEDDING part of the vacation!!!! Wow, what an amazing first week.