Seeing him work so hard makes me feel a little lazy and guilty, so here I am, back at the computer. I actually have a few blog posts saved in not-quite-done stages; I just haven't found time to put the finishing touches on them and get them up. So today, I at least have to share with you our recent (well, sort of recent) trip to Ireland.
Ireland was one place that we definitely absolutely 100% had to visit before we left Europe. I had been there years ago, and Ben had a brief layover in Shannon on his way back from his little desert adventure in Kuwait. Both of us were dying to go back, filled with memories of green green pastures, stone walls, and beer, sweet beer.
We finally made it there, mere months before our time here ran out, and Ireland did not disappoint.
We stayed at a B&B in Ballyvaughan, a small town on the coast in Co. Clare. I had stayed there on my previous trip to Ireland and had absolutely loved it and wanted to share with Ben. It was still beautiful and quaint and everything you would want out of a little Irish town.
We even lucked into being there for the weekly farmer's market where the locals gathered outside the community hall and sold fruit preserves, potatoes by the bucket, bake sale desserts, goat's milk soaps and the best darn blueberries I've ever had.
We spent some of our time exploring Ballyvaughan, and then ventured out the explore the rest of the Burren. We drove, took pictures, chatted with cows, saw the Cliffs of Moher, had a Guinness. It was feckin' lovely.
Oh, and we of course stopped at a grocery store. No foreign visit is complete without foreign grocery shopping!
We also spent one day on the island of Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. We had to take a 30 minute ferry ride to get there (discovering on the way that both Ben and Wes get seasick. Luckily only one of them threw up)
And then we spent the day wandering around the small island.
It was a little (or a lot) cold and rainy, but we only had one day there, and frankly there was not much choice but to buck up and get out and enjoy it. Inis Oirr is not a bustling place with lots of entertainment options. We did wait out the worst of the rain in the one café and one of the very few pubs. I warmed up with tea and Ben chose the Guinness while we watched old guys speaking Irish at the bar, downing their pints at 11 a.m.
When the rain had died down a bit, we explored a lot and saw an 8th century church,
castle ruins,
a 6th century century church,
and some very angry cows. We were trying to find an old well (which, okay, doesn't sound exciting, but it was on the map and we wanted to see it), and these cows had gotten loose and we monopolizing the very small road we were walking on. We looked around. No cow owners to be found. Hmmm. I slowly, quietly, nonconfrontationally walked past the cows. Ben tried to follow with Wes. The cows got angry.
I ended up separated from Ben and Wes by about a hundred meters and 4 disgruntled bovines. Eek. Moo. Neither Ben nor I could get past them again without further inciting their anger and potentially getting trampled, so after much frantic shouted discussion and gesturing (we were at this point quite a distance apart) I found a gate that I could climb over so that the cows could safely go past me. Ben reached deep inside himself and found his inner farm boy and herded the cows along down the road so that he could safely join me and I could come off of the fence I was hiding on.
Undeterred, we continued herding the cows along so we could keep walking until we found this well. Unfortunately, we never did find the well, but we did find lots and lots of blackberries growing on the side of the road and I picked as many as I could fit into my sweatshirt pockets before running to catch up with Ben on our way back to the café for soup and fish cakes.
The angry cows were definitely the most eventful part of our trip, but all of it was wonderful. Lots of beautiful sights. We want to go back, again and again.
Next up: Our last hurrah in Paris! Wes and his Papà are staying in Eygelshoven to live it up, sneak cookies, and learn to play baseball while Ben and I drink enough wine and eat enough croissants and chocolate to last us however many years it takes for us to return to France. So excited to go, so sad to be leaving. I might even blog about it sometime before we move back to MN (Beginning of November! Mark your calenders! Get ready! The Morrisons return to the land of Target and Starbucks!).
