Aran Islands

     After we came back from our European adventures, I knew it was time to get down to business and study for my two exams.  So I planned a trip to the Aran Islands for the next weekend.
     To be fair, I did study during the week, but I knew that two weeks was more than enough time to prepare for my finals.  So I planned for a few days in the Aran Islands, a group of three islands off the west coast of Ireland.  I arrived in Galway, a nearby city, to spend the night before taking the ferry over to Inis Moir, the largest island.  I stayed with a friend, and of course, spent all night talking instead of sleeping.  Waking up was just short of torture, but I managed to pass out in the ferry for a bit.
     When I finally arrived on the islands, I whipped out my camera to take some pictures, and realized to my horror that despite bringing three extra pairs of batteries, I had somehow forgotten the memory card. Brilliant.  I sighed and dragged myself to the hostel, where I met my new roommates--a Polish girl and a Russian girl, who were very involved in making a scarf into a hat (it was pretty cold and windy outside).  Once the lopsided turban was in place, they set off, and I rented a bike to explore Inis Moir.  Inis Moir is only six miles long, so the most common  method of transportation is by bicycle.  When I first heard about this scheme, I was delighted--biking? I can do this all day long!
     I was sadly misinformed about my own fitness. While I can bike all day long on flat ground, the hills of Inis Moir are specifically designed to decimate your thighs within the first half-hour.  Nonetheless, I persevered until I stumbled upon my roommates once again.  They invited me to join them, and I gladly accepted. They brought out a film camera, telling me that they were so blonde that they brought the memory card but forgot their actual camera.  No way. NO way.  It was a match made in heaven.  This sealed the bond and ensured that we would not leave each other's sides for the next two days.
    We decided to try and conquer the "Ring of Aran," a loop that contained some of the most famous sights on the island.  While we didn't make it to all of them, what follows is a smattering of pictures from what we did manage to find.

We did not find the Wormhole, a perfectly rectangular pit in the cliffside.  We did, however, find Mickey Mouse, which we figured was just as cool.

The map advertised a seal colony. Alas, we (or the seals) were misinformed.

Sitting on the edge of the cliff!

Maria, my Russian companion.

Seaside wanderings.

Famous old graveyard.

I laugh in the face of danger. Ha ha ha ha!

Just like the Cliffs of Moher, only more beautiful (and with fewer "Don't Commit Suicide" notices).

Seaweed :)

Le ladies.

    After a full day of biking, we raced back to town to return our bikes before 5pm.  I was the only successful party; the shysters who ran Maria and Karolina's place closed ten minutes early.  Thankfully, Maria put her Russian skills to the test the next morning and managed to convince the surly old man that they had been at the shop on time.
    That night, we wanted to have some midnight wanderings on the beach....after we ate dinner.  And after we hung out for a bit.  And after we cooked some more.  And after we took a nap.  By the time I woke up, it was 1am, and my feet were too immersed in sheets to ever want the sand again.  I resigned myself to spending some time at the beach the next day.
    We spent Sunday on foot, and covered the southern tip of the island. The whole place was pretty deserted, so we hopped a few cow fences and walked down towards the coast.  It was beautiful.  We spent the whole day walking along the coast, poking our heads over cliffs, and narrowly avoiding cow pies.  We ate our lunches while dangling our feet over the ocean.  We didn't see a soul for hours.

Dancing on the beach. Maria clearly has had training. I clearly have not.

She sells seashells down by the seashore. We spent so long collecting shells.

I never knew worm poops could be so pretty.

Workin' it.

I am not the only one with Top Model potential here!

Didn't see any people all day, but the donkey was enough for me :)

So glad I found two girls as silly as me.

    We made our way back to town just in time to wander around the overpriced sweater store and then catch the ferry home.  We decided to sit up top, and when it started raining we decided to tough it out.  We lasted about ten minutes until the indoor seats tempted us beyond our control.
    On the bus ride from the dock to Galway, Disney songs were on our mind, and I'll wager the whole bus knew it.  Despite all our singing, the driver did not crash, and we made it back to Galway with nary a broken part.  I parted ways with Karolina and Maria, and headed back to my friend's apartment to collapse until my train left for Dublin in the morning.



Current update: I am done with exams! I finished Monday, visited Bray (a seaside town south of Dublin) today, and am headed to London tomorrow.  Life is beautiful.

Bohemian Like You {A Few Days in Prague}

    Our final stop on the Grand European Adventure was Prague. We arrived in Prague after a 5-hour bus ride from Munich.  The bus was set up as almost an airline, with a hostess who brought you drinks and snacks (if you paid for them, of course), and the man across the aisle from me was taking full advantage of the service.  On our 5-hour bus ride, he had 6 beers; after the 3rd, even the hostess was giggling.  He would scratch his hairy beer belly as he drank, and after one too many accidental hairy-belly sightings I had to close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

   We finally arrived in Prague, completely exhausted despite the fact that we had done nothing but sit for the past 5 hours, and walked into the central station for train tickets.  The lady at the tourist information counter could not speak English, so instead yelled at me in Czech and gestured wildly when I tried to ask for directions.  Lady, I wanted to say, be nice to me. I fuel your economy here.  The least you could do would be to help me get to my hostel so I can spend some money.

   We did end up making it to our hostel, and essentially threw down our suitcases and headed out straight for dinner.  We had reservations for the Ice Bar afterwards, but the line was long and we wandered around the surrounding club.  Now, this club was advertised as pretty much the coolest place in Prague; 5 floors, with tons of different rooms and different styles of music, DJs, lighting effects, it sounded like The Place To Be.  And it would have been, if not for the 14-year-olds who inhabited it.  I do not know how so many preteens and high school freshmen got into the club that night, but we had accidentally stumbled upon Preteen Mecca.  It was ridiculous. I've never felt old, except in the club.

      We made a hasty exit from the club and finally found our way to the ice bar.  Our relatively expensive ticket allowed us only 20 minutes inside, so we had to make the most of it.  The ice bar is completely made out of ice--the floor, walls, counter, tables, cups, and everything is made out of ice.  They give you superwarm jackets before you go inside, along with gloves, so you don't completely freeze. It was pretty cool.

Our ice-barman.

The bar itself.

My drink was in an ice cube cup! So awesome.

   We hopped out of the ice bar satisfied with our night's excursions, and got back to our room just in time to hear the girl underneath my bunk bed throw up repeatedly right next door.  Needless to say, I was quite perturbed by this turn of events, and immediately switched to another, less vomity bunk bed.

   The next morning we awoke and set off for our official walking tour of Prague.  Our guide was ridiculously tall and also ridiculously entertaining, and we spent the morning learning about some of the history of Prague and seeing some of the most beautiful places.  We walked around the Jewish Quarter, saw statues of Franz Kafka, learned about the astronomical clock...

Apparently, Prague is The City to get married in.  Here we have 15 brides getting married at once in the Old Town Square; I saw at least 19 total for the whole day.

The Astronomical Clock! Still ticking after 600+ years.  The story goes that the city was so pleased with its  clock that they blinded and cut the tongue out of its creator, so that he could never produce another one like it.  He got his revenge, though, by sticking his hand into the machinery and messing up the clock for 100 years.

Old Town Square.

Part of the Jewish Quarter.

Statue of Franz Kafka riding on the shoulders of a body-less suit. The story goes that Kafka always had nightmares about this empty suit chasing him, until in one of his dreams he turned around and faced it, and it picked him up and put him on his shoulders so he could see better.

The entrance to the Charles Bridge.

Gardens!

     Directly after our three-hour walking tour, we decided to be crazy and hopped on another tour, this time of the Prague Castle, a huge complex of buildings that are all part of the castle.  This time our guide was a born-and-bred American Southerner, complete with a George accent and the attitude to go with it.  Let's just say he wasn't the most sensitive of guides.  Nevertheless, we learned even more Czech history, and got to see lots of the castle as well.

If you've seen the movie Amadeus, this is the outside of Mozart's house!

The cathedral in the center of the castle.

Golden Lane. Kafka lived in #22.

   We arrived back in the center of town completely exhausted, and wanted to get some dinner.  We found a restaurant that our guide had recommended, and sat down to eat.  By the time we noticed that they charged for water, it was too late; we were stuck at this tourist trap, whether we liked it or not.  We had water bottles and did not much feel like paying, so we took turns sneaking to the bathroom to drink from our water bottles like fugitives.  I'm sure the waiters knew exactly what we were doing, and were immensely entertained by it.

I felt left out of all the beer pictures, so I borrowed Breanna's beer and took a picture with it.  I realize this is pathetic.

   That night we decided to be adventurous, and went to an absinthe bar.  Absinthe is a type of alcohol that supposedly makes you hallucinate, but is actually just hyped-up normal alcohol.   We all had a drink and were completely fine, and felt mildly cheated out of a legal hallucinatory experience.  Oh well.

    The next morning, Breanna and I headed out to a modern art museum.  Some of the stuff was interesting.  Some of the stuff was....art.

Stairway to heaven?

Wow, look at that. So inspiring.

Ditto.

Ooh. This is cool.

It's my family!

    I spent the rest of the day wandering around and buying hippie jewelry.  That night, though, we had something special planned: the opera.  It turns out that Czech opera tickets can be extraordinarily cheap if you get bad seats, so we capitalized on the opportunity and made our way to the State Opera House to see La Boheme.  The Opera House was gorgeous, and the opera itself was lovely.  I wasn't expecting much, since I usually don't like too much vibrato, but it really was beautiful.  We were also surprised to see how similar the plot was to the Broadway show Rent; they paralleled each other almost exactly.

The State Opera House in Prague.

     Our final morning in Prague, we walked across the Charles River Bridge and bought more hippie jewelry.  Then we headed back to the airport and found our way back to Dublin.

Google'd picture of the Charles River Bridge.  There were too many tourists for me to really get a good shot.

    And thus our EuroTrip ended. Those were the best three weeks of my life, and ones I won't forget for a long time. I will probably never have the chance again to travel for such an extended period, and I'm really glad I took advantage of it. There's still so much more to do and see, though--I have a list a mile long of cities I want to visit.  But for now, our lineup--Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Prague--was an excellent one, and there's not a thing I would change.

Current update: I am in exam mode!  I've been studying for the past few weeks for my two exams.  I had one today, and my last one is Monday.  Despite my pressing need to study, I visited the Aran Islands last weekend, and next week (after my exams), I'm going to London.  Living it up while I still can!