Ealai and more sightseeing

Today I made some new friends: Virgil and Enid. I had some free time in the afternoon, so I decided to walk along the other side of the bay that I hadn't really seen yet. As I was walking along, I came to a spot on the river where some of the smaller boats are tied up, and all around - swimming in the water, walking along the wall and sidewalk - are dozens and dozens of birds! Swans, seagulls, pigeons, and other seabirds just hanging around, preening, poking each other and whatnot. I didn't really linger, but took some pictures and moved on. As I kept walking, I saw, backed by the mountains across the bay, a lighthouse I never knew existed. So I strolled that way and discovered a long concourse leading out the the lighthouse, flanked on either side by rocks (it was low tide) and, farther out, the sea. There were also several people (it looked like a family) climbing around in the rocks gathering mussels or something along those lines. It was so lovely to smell the sea! You'd think, being right on the bay, you'd smell it all the time, but you really don't. Only when I got to the beginning of the concourse, which seems to be a popular walking spot for the people of Galway, could I really smell the salt tang. You can only walk so far along the concourse, so you can't actually get to the lighthouse, but it was so pretty! On my long walk back I decided to sit on a rock near where all the birds were and just look out over the water, and that's where I met my new friends. They are, of course, swans (ealai), and not people, but we bonded anyway. Virgil had a bad wing but a neck like rubber, which he used to great effect in cleaning every part of his back and his neck itself. He was sitting about three feet from me, but luckily the birds here, as I mentioned, are pretty mellow and not prone to attacking random bystanders. Enid sat a little behind him, closer to the edge of the wall and the water. When Virgil stood up a little later, he walked over to Enid and poked her in the back, but she was unmoved. Ice queen.

Saturday we went on a tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. Our bus driver and tour guide was Desmond, who was an adorable old man with a slightly dirty mind who knew everything about everything he showed us and had a slight habit of repeating sentences. When we left Galway, it was a beautiful sunny morning. As we drove along, the sky turned dark dark gray and it started raining. As we came in sight of our first photo stop (Dunguaire Castle), it was starting to clear, and a few minutes later it was a beautiful day again. After we left it stayed cloudy the rest of the day, but at least it didn't rain anymore. We saw some really beautiful countryside and adorable towns. One of my pictures is a sort of blurry shot of a man waving, surrounded by sheep. He had been feeding them in the pasture adjacent to his house, and as a unit the girls on the bus all exclaimed over the adorable lambs that were running up to him for food. Of course, the entire side of the bus whipped out cameras to photograph said cuteness and, noticing this unabashed display of tourism, the man waved cheerily at us. The Burren is a really incredible area just covered in limestone left over from the Ice Age glaciers and is the home of Poulnabrone, the tomb you saw photographed. I was just typing out the details of ancient Celtic burial practices, but thought better of it.

After a delicious lunch at O'Connor's pub in Doolin (whose walls are covered with police and fireman patches, many from Massachusetts, as Ethan was pleased to discover) we headed out to the Cliffs of Moher, which are really just incredibly stunning, and you really all need to go see them if you haven't yet. It was very windy by O'Brien's Tower (especially when you walked through the little doorway), but it wasn't nearly windy enough for us to worry about being blown off. O'Brien's Tower is to the right, and if you go to the left you eventually reach a stone wall with signs telling you that you can't come over here because of danger or something. Obviously, we climbed over. Here it was a mud path - the rest was paved - and there was no guardrail, so you could get right up to the edge. One of the other API boys who was there, Dan (or D-Mac), sat right on the edge with his feet dangling off. There were a couple other groups who had flouted the sign as well, but it's sort of the off-season now. I'm sure during the height of tourist time they actually enforce the danger zone. We made it home in the end (the roads are all very narrow, and Desmond drives like a maniac) and spent a quiet evening eating food and (for me and the boys) preparing for Sunday's outing.