Monday, April 25, 2011

Little Hut in Connemara

On a hike in the Connemara National Park in Ireland
Me, Kelly, Cara, and Mandy (Kelly's sis)

I just got back from a two week vacation to Galway, Ireland with two of my coworkers, Kelly and Cara. We needed an escape from 115 F weather, and Kelly was meeting her sister, who has been studying abroad in Galway, and her parents who rented us all a cottage in Connemara.


Beautiful Moroccan pottery
Rule of thumb: ask the patisserie
owner his favorites, then get those
On the way to Ireland, we had a 12 hour layover in Casablanca, Morocco, and managed to run around town a little. We had just enough time to take the train into Casablanca, see the market,














and buy several kilos of delicious and unpronounceable Moroccan pastries.
They lasted us almost the entire rest of the trip.
Kids were sailing little boats on
the Luxembourg garden pond
From Morocco, we headed to Paris for two days.  We were almost disappointed by the heat and lovely weather, but the flowers were all blooming and people were all out in the parks, so it was a wonderful atmosphere.

We wandered all over Paris on foot, stopping frequently in cafes, and for a picnic.

Nicolas and I (Elliot peeking behind)
The highlight of the Paris leg of the trip was that I got to see my friend Nicolas.  We had studied together in Northern Ireland and I spend Christmas with him and his family in France that year.  Nico's a very charming guy with perfect English, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with him and another friend of his whom I'd met before.  
Galway waterfront
Finally, we made it to Galway, where Kelly was reunited with her sister Mandy. 
We stayed with her the first few nights in Galway city until Diane and Ed Henkler arrived and swept us away to a cottage right up the path from the bridge that's in the film The Quiet Man.
It was a little ironic that we went all that way only to find ourselves staying in a stone cottage thatched with grass...but it was completely modern inside, and we finally got the chilly weather we'd been craving.
The Connemara countryside around us was rugged, really rocky and boggy, but dotted with tons of lakes.  It was really beautiful. Cara and I hiked up behind our cottage, and even up high on the hill the ground was completely waterlogged.
Thatching the roof next to our cottage
There were sheep everywhere, and horses.  One day Kelly and Cara, who both used to ride horses, went out on a trail ride with some ponies from a nearby farm.  Ed was a champion, and drove us all over successfully, despite being on the wrong side of the road. We went to see the Kylemore Abbey, a castle built by the nobility and taken
Kylemore Abbey
by refugee French nuns later. There was a very regal walled garden, and a small chapel as well. 
These are the Cliffs of Insanity
in The Princess Bride!
We also went to see the Cliffs of Moher, but weren't able to get a very good view because the fog rolled in.  They're still impressive, though. We also took a gorgeous hike in the Connemara National Park.  It was very barren of trees, but beautiful.
We went out to hear Irish music and see some Irish dancing, we ate 

                           bagels and cream cheese that Diane brought us from America, we went shopping at the mall, and finally we went to Dublin for two days, where we saw some movies and had high tea at a hotel, and did not pay $14 to go inside a church. 
Finally, Kelly and I headed home, leaving Cara for an extra week with her friend who lives in Dublin. But the adventures weren't over yet. Herb and Gerda, distant German relatives of Kelly's, met us at the airport in Frankfurt, where we had a short layover, and bought us lunch. They were very interesting and fun, and we got to have weisswurst and pretzels and Hefeweizen in Germany.
But even then the country hopping continued - our last layover was 5 hours in Lisbon, Portugal, and we managed to spend 2 1/2 of those exploring downtown. Portugal is a really pretty city, I thought.  We saw enough palm trees to remind us of where we were headed back to, but we ate enough pastries and pizza to forget again. To top the whole trip off, as we were waiting for the bus back to the airport, we met a group of Senegalese guys who work in Lisbon, after we thought we heard them speaking Wolof.
There was some really impressive street art on apartment
buildings in downtown Lisbon. 
The sky was really interesting
while we were there.
I loved the yellow buildings.















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