Amazing Days

All I can say is that Friday and Saturday were both amazing days. On Friday it was Irish Studies and we were taking an all day bus tour. We started at about 10 and were back at about 4. We went and saw this great cathedral called St. Brendan's Cathedral. It has some really great stained glass windows all over. Everywhere you look in the place is one amazing thing after another. The colors of the glass were so vibrant that it filled the place with an odd but beautiful aura. After leaving the cathedral we went out rather far from any town to Yeats' castle. It was nothing more than a tower house next to a river with a few buildings attached, however, it was one of the greatest sights I've ever seen. This is where Yeats sat sipping tea and writing some of the greatest works of the 20th century. Our professor, Gordon D'Arcy then proceeded to read aloud many of Yeats' poems while standing right near to where they were written. I can't explain how grand it was. Shortly after this, while back on the bus, I mentioned to Pat, who I was sitting next to, that I really was sick of rocks and just wanted to badly to see a forest again. Literally about a minute later we turn into this wooded area, over 1,000 acres of what I had been wishing. It was the former site of Lady Gregory's house and the current site of the forest and garden that she built up. There we saw the first deer since coming here, they're caged in, but still they were there. There was also large amounts of wild garlic everywhere, so much so that you could just smell the garlic in the air. We then took a 45 minute walk through the woods and then the sun came out and everything became extrordinary. There were so many old and gnarly trees that everytime we saw one, at least one person decided to climb it. They were HUGE. I have plenty of pictures, but I don't think any of them can really reflect what was there. Once through the forest we came out into the gardens. In the garden there is this tree that many of the great writers of Lady Gregory's time signed their names in, including Yeats. Everything about this place was amazing. I don't even think that I can explain how everything was so grand that we all left with smiles on our faces. Our trip then concluded.

Later that night at the house, we watched Donnie Darko, it's the first time that I have seen it all the way through and it kind of played with my head. My mind was already full of what we had done during the day and it was really hard to grasp what had just happened. I want to see it again. Once we were done watching the movie it was almost time for this woman, Karen, to pick us up so we could go to this Caylee (unknown spelling) which is pretty much like and Irish barn dance. It was in Galway City which is about 45 minutes away. I think 9 of us got lifts in all to dance at this. Now, I must say that all of these people have definatly been doing this for much longer than we have, but still, we all joined in and it was one of the greatest things I've done since I've been here. We do all of the really simple steps, as in we just do what we're taught, while the advanced dancers do all of this crazy footwork that sounds amazing on the wood floor. It's something you have to see/hear for yourself. The dance didn't start until about 10 and it wasn't done until after 12:30. We got home at about 2:30 and I just conked out.

In the morning, I woke up early (about 9) to go to Lahinch which is a town about 45 minutes the other way from Galway. It's on the west coast and is a great surfing spot. When we got there it was about 11 and the first thing we did was head to this place called Seaworld, which had an aquarium and a pool. We went swimming for about an hour maybe more which was a lot of fun. It's something that none of us have done so far while being here. After swimming we were all starved and found this great Italian restaurant, which actually was founded just behind our school but had to move. Once we were done with one of the best meals we've had in a long time we set off into the streets. We soon found that there really was only one street that had shops on it and that you could browse through them in about 20 minutes. Not knowing what to do, we went to this pub to wait for the bus that dropped us off to come back, which was about 3 hours away. Once 5:30 rolled around, one hour until pick up, we went back down to the beach to watch the sunset. The waves were amazing to watch crash in and move back out, while the sun slowly moved closer and closer to the horizon. The bus came before we were able to see the full sunset, but it was good enough for me. I've only seen the sunset over lakes before, never over the ocean. As we drove off the sun had slipped behind some clouds making a site that looked like a painting. The skies here tend to be epic, even if it's just grey clouds, it's still epic. When riding back, just after leaving Lahinch, the full moon was rising above the hills. It looked pasted up against a sky of pure blue. It was an amazing sight, which only got better. There was this cloud that was moving closer and closer to the moon which we then realized was no cloud at all, but a large flock of small birds. It was like something out of National Geographic that you only can see to believe. The cloud would disappear then reappear just because of the angle of the birds to us. It fluxtuated shapes and sizes and finally after probably 10 minutes of watching this, it flew over and dipped behind us. One of the guys that I live with later described it in the only way that any of us can think of. He called it a 'death storm of mystical birds'. Just picture that. So the whole way home after having such a great day, everyone was all smiles. Nothing could make the day better, until later that night. I mean, I didn't think the day could have been any better, I'm still amazed by all that happened yesterday, and can't wrap my brain around the fact that it really was only one day. At about 11 o'clock there was a total lunar eclipse. We watched as the moon slowly disappeared behind the dark shadow of the earth. The moon seemed to be on fire for a long period of time, it was glowing red so vibrant that I thought it may actually be on fire. It got too cold so we had to go in, where we went to finish a documentary that we had started watching about the Pharos of Egypt. We were watching it on a computer that we had set up in this fort that two of the guys in the house had built a few days earlier with all of our living room furniture. They layed down the futon matress so it was really comfortable. comfortable enough that four of us ended up falling asleep in there only to wake up in the morning a little dazed.

Tonight there is supposed to be a huge storm coming with 140km/h winds. I think I'm going to stay inside for the night.