Catching up... it will never actually happen

I just got back from Morocco!!! A thrilling thrilling trip, which I will eventually write about. I think, in the interest of time (less than a week left in Ireland, which is rather depressing), I'm going to be a bit more abbreviated than usual as I finish up blogging the rest of my time, although that does not mean any of it meant any less to me! Plus it will leave me with at least a few stories to tell when I see you all face to face. So, back to the Mary and Tine extravaganza! On Tuesday of their visit we drove out through the gorgeous scenery and impressive mountains of Connemara, north of Galway. The roads were small and very windy, and windy, but Mary handled them admirably! Our destination was Kylemore Abbey, which used to be a castle but is now a school. It's set on a lake surrounded by mountains, and is gorgeous, and fabulous, and we were all excessively jealous, and you'll understand why if you look at the pictures. We toured the house and took a walk along the lake to the little church, which was decorated with cool little columns of different kinds of marble. We set off from there to Donegal, driving once again through some stunning mountain and coastal scenery. Our B&B was in the Bluestack Mountains a few minutes from the town of Donegal, so we settled in there before heading into town for some dinner and a little sightseeing, but we didn't do much that night.

The next day we went to Donegal Castle, the ancestral home of the O'Donnells (Tine and I have an O'Donnell friend from school), and it was full of fun little rooms, tiny doorways (for me, that is... Tine and Mary, being mini-people, were ok), and old fireplaces/nooks! Perfect =) Next we went to (of course) two old graveyards. One was a Famine cemetery, but there weren't any actual graves, just a cross marking a small field where the bodies are presumably buried. It was very sad to stand there and imagine what it must have been like, and even more solemn and somber for being so unadorned. We went on to Donegal Friary, which is now in ruins and full of gravestones, many old, some new. It's set right on the bay, so it's a pretty lovely place, and the Friary building itself is pretty cool, with lots of little doorways and things. Our next plan was to drive westward out along the coast, first to a mountain called Slieve League and then to a town called Glencolumbkille, named for the Saint. Our drive took us through the town of Killybegs, which smelled so much like fish you wouldn't believe it, and along some nice (tiny, hairpin-turn-filled) coastal roads.

We initially missed the turn for Slieve League, which is a random little road next to a pub in some small town, but we soon got back on track. The roads now got even smaller, and at one point two cars were expected to drive up a steep curve around the side of a mountain on what was barely wide enough for one car. Anyway, we all survived and made it up to Slieve League, where we parked the car and began our ascent, seeing plenty of sheep (and babies!) as well as other mountains, cliffs, and the sea. Glencolumbkille is in another Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area), so that was cool for me. It's a really little town, but they have a folk village and stuff. We ate some soup (vegetable... we had been overdoing the meat with all the full Irish breakfasts we'd been eating every morning) and then ran across the street to a little church (with graveyard) before driving down to the folk village... which we decided wasn't really worth paying to get into, as it was only a couple of cottages. So we explored the area a bit in the rain, finding a few more fun things, and contemplated taking a new route back out and around to go south again, but as it got smaller and smaller we elected to go back the way we had originally fun, which was fine, as it took us past more mountains, peat bogs, and sheep wandering the roads. As for the road we didn't take, we read in the guidebook later that it's one of the prettiest views in Ireland, as well as one of the smallest, turniest, dangerous roads. We feel we made the right choice, ultimately.