The Aran Islands

After one night in Trim, we hit the road in our VW Golf and made a cross-country trip (mind you, cross country trips in Ireland only take a few hours). We drove to the far West Coast, through lots of cute little towns. I couldn't even sleep in the car (which is amazing for me, since I tend to fall asleep while we're still in the driveway on most road trips) because the scenery was so pretty....green hills, cows, sheep, horses, stone walls...just gorgeous! At one point we were driving down this little road and a pack of cows decided to cross in front of the car! It was exactly the change in scenery I needed from densely populated, vertical, grey Tokyo. When we got to Galway, we took a ferry for 30 miles to Inishmore, the biggest island in a pack of 3 islands called the Aran Islands. They're these wonderful, isolted little islands where people speak Irish (aka Galic) and use horse-drawn carriages more than cars. There are only about 800 people on Inishmore, and it's the biggest! The islands are gorgeous, but famous for bad weather. We brought a ton of rain gear just in case...and we ended up getting sunburned! We were so lucky. The entire 3.5 hour drive was rain, but Bobby stayed positive, convinced that the weather would be gorgeous when we got to the Aran Islands and it truly was. We rented bicycles and took an 9 hour bike ride all around the island, and to these ancient ruins called Dún Aengus perched on top of these menacing clifs. They were built something like 1000 years before Christ....just amazing. We stayed in a little B&B and ate oysters right out of Galway Bay. It was one of the best days I can remember...such a magical place...and most importantly, the birthplace of Wee Thomas (our imaginary future dog...long story to explain this one...blog entry for another time)....oh, and the next day, when we were leaving, the clouds came rolling in and heavy rain it the islands. This day was a gift.