Where in the World is Chelsea Gibbs?: All Things Ireland

We've been in Ireland since Monday, the 13th. I came to Ireland with my mom and grandparents when I was 16. My grandmother is from Ireland and my mom lived here for a year when she was 6. I hated everything back then, and I didn't want to go on the trip at all, and didn't appreciate being here. It's been nice being here again and enjoying it this time. We stayed in Dublin for the first four nights, and we've been in Doolin for the last 3 nights.

Dublin was okay. My mom had to take care of some family business, and the weather wasn't that great. We were really glad to see my brother and dad on Tuesday morning. They were pretty jet lagged. My brother went straight to sleep, but my dad decided to try and stay up. We went to see my great uncle, Larry. Larry is 74, and he is my grandmother's brother, or my mom's mom's brother. He's never been diagnosed, but he most likely has some form of autism. He's really sweet, and we took him to lunch that day with his caregiver and next door neighbor, Rose. It was good to see him again after 7 years and he remembered us. We went back to Larry's and looked at old pictures, had tea, and actually got to do some laundry, which was a real treat for us. We walked around downtown that night and ended up at Arlington Hotel, where they have Irish dancers. We didn't get to see any dancing, but they had some live Irish music that they played while we were eating dinner. My dad and brother were about to crash after that so we called it a night.

The next day, Wednesday, we walked all around downtown Dublin and it rained on and off. We went to Trinity College, in hopes of seeing the Book of Kells, but it was closed by the time we got there. On Thursday, we took the dart, which was like a tram, out to the beach in Dublin, called Port Marnoch and Mallahide. It was so windy that day it could have been a category 1 hurricane outside. The beach was pretty. It was rocky and sandy at he same time. Real gray and typical Irish looking. There were people swimming. Crazies! That water is about 55 degrees. We ate lunch at hotel called White Sands, which is the same place we ate when we came 7 years ago. After that it was raining pretty good and blowing really hard, but with my mom there is no such thing as relaxing and wasting time, so we caught the bus on to Mallahide. Mallahide was like a port town that looked like it could be the Irish Beaufort. It would have been really pretty and nice if it wasn't raining, cold, and blowing. But it was, so it was pretty miserable to me. We walked around for a little bit and then went into a pub, where I immediately fell asleep and they all got a drink. That's about it for Dublin.

Friday we headed to Doolin, which is on the west coast, and is where you access the Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher. Doolin is very charming and the weather has been much nicer than in Dublin, despite people telling us that it rains nonstop in "the west" so I'm happy about that. We took a train to Galway, and then a bus, so my dad and brother got the true traveling experience. We're all staying in a hostel, in one room, sharing a bathroom. My brother and I are sleeping in bunk beds (he's 36) and my parents have a double bed. It's pretty comical if you think about it. I wish I could record all the stuff that goes on in here. It's a good thing we love each other.

The first day we got to Doolin, Friday, we just walked down to the "sea" and checked everything out. It's about a 15 minute walk from the village, but it's really pretty. You walk by dozens of cows and wildflowers and you can see the cliffs of Moher in the distance. There are lots of people camping down at the sea, and that's where the ferry is to get to the Aran islands. We walked all around and took pictures. There were more idiots swimming. We were also told that people surf out there, which seemed like a death wish because of all the rocks. At least it would be a pretty way to die. It was really beautiful out there and it wasn't raining so we enjoyed checking out the scenery for a while. We walked back and ate a a pub called Fitz's and ended up sitting next to a couple that lived in North Carolina. It's a small world. They had been in London, judging some sort of horses for the Olympics or something along those lines. I got horses, judge, and Olympics from what they said. It was really loud in the pub with the band. The band played "Sweet Caroline" before we left too. That was pretty cool.

Saturday, we took the ferry to one of the Aran islands, Inisheer. It's the smallest island and supposed to be the most beautiful. It was definitely beautiful. We rode bikes all around, uphill, downhill, aroundhill, throughhill. You name it. My legs got a workout. The weather was really beautiful and perfect. We saw the ruins of a fort, which we climbed all through, and we went to the beach where there was a 1960s shipwreck. We had lunch at a B&B, and the woman served fresh crab claws that my brother and dad got. If you like seafood, they were to die for. They practically fell out of the shell. My mom and I got the seafood stew that is an Irish staple. Riding all over the island was a lot of fun and it was really beautiful and quaint over there. I would have liked to have seen the other two islands if we'd had more time. On the way back, the ferry drove us by the Cliffs of Moher and let us check them out up close and personal and take pictures. That was a really cool experience. I'd seen them when I was 16 and thought they were even cool then, so seeing them from the boat was pretty awesome.

Today, we took the bus to the Cliffs of Moher, so my dad and brother could see them from the top and check out the tower. It was pretty windy today, but still a nice day. We walked around the top of the cliffs and climbed up the tower and caught the next bus to Lahinch beach. Lahinch is the surfing beach, and my parents surf, so they wanted to go out there and check it out. There were definitely some waves, but I just don't know how people go out there in that cold, cold water. There were plenty of people out though. Lahinch was a really cool town, and we walked around and went in some shops for a while before we had to catch the bus back to Doolin. Tonight we went and ate dinner at Fitz's again. They had more live traditional Irish music. We went to another pub in Doolin that we named the "stinky pub" because theres a sewer smell outside and listened to some more music for a bit.

Tomorrow we have to get up bright and early to catch the bus back to Galway and then the train to Dublin for our last official night in Ireland. I can't believe I'm actually about to leave Europe. It's kind of surreal. 5 weeks is a really long time to be gone. Tomorrow I'm going to write a blog that's dedicated to how much I love America. Stay tuned... :)

These are pictures from the past week. A whole lot of them...