At first, I was
pretty nervous about traveling by myself for spring break. It was the first
time I had ever been completely on my own before. What if I got lost? What if I
got mugged? What if I needed to contact someone and I had no phone service? To
be fair, I did forget my AIB phone charger over the break, so with the
exception of the first few days, I was kind of accidentally off the grid when
not within range of wifi. Which was just about all the time. And this is, of
course, where the adventure starts.
I got into Dublin
around 10 at night. I was exhausted from traveling and quite hungry. I'd heard
good things about Ireland's gluten free food selection and I was about to put
that to the test. I was absolutely not disappointed. I went to an Italian place
I'd looked up and to my excitement, the gluten free menu the host handed me was
positively huge! I honestly thought he was mistaken, that he handed me the
wrong menu, until I saw the words at the top: "Gluten-Free." So I
filled up on delicious pasta and headed back to my hostel. I woke up some 5
hours later and before I knew it, I was on a tour bus heading toward Galway.
I could immediately
tell that the bus driver was a nice person. I knew because right after we
embarked, we turned a corner and there were some pigeons in the road. I
expected her to just keep driving, not acknowledging them. Pigeons are, after
all, typically seen as pest animals (much to my dismay; they're actually pretty
smart animals). But instead, the bus driver said in her wonderful Irish accent,
"Ohh, look out pigeons, I don' wan' to flatten ya!" as she veered a
little to the side to avoid them. I know it's such a small, strange thing to
remember, but this little act of kindness set the mood for the rest of the
entire trip.
The drive to Galway
was mostly uneventful and, in fact, the first half of it could be summed up
with just one word: bogs. I had no idea Ireland had so many bogs. Everyone
thinks of rolling green hills and sheep out at pasture, and there are plenty of
both to be sure. But the bogs are something else. The result of ancient forests
that once stood in their place thousands of years ago. Such history they've
seen. The bogs are somber and bleak, yet strangely beautiful in their own way.
Upon changing buses
in Galway, I was headed for Kylemore Abbey, a castle built along a small lake
out in those rolling green hills mentioned previously. The entire scene looks
like something out of a fairy tale, and in fact, it sort of is. The history of
its founding is essentially a love story. And, as is typical of any authentic
folktale worth half a euro, it's a love story that ends in tragedy and death.
Sometime after the original owner's passing, the castle came into the company
of a group of Benedictine nuns. Since the 1920s, the castle has served as
school and home to hundreds of young girls. The (not so) inner feminist in me
walked gleefully through the castle gardens and halls, knowing that so many
young women, both from Ireland and other parts of the world, received their
education here (including the sciences and mathematics!) at a time when women
where not commonly encouraged to obtain one.
After Kylemore
Abbey, I toured the picturesque Connemara region and then headed back for
Galway. I checked into the hostel, climbed the stairs to my room, and fell
asleep about as soon as my head hit the pillow.
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