Tour Buses and Friendly Folks

After St. Patty’s day we booked ourselves onto a bus tour (much to my chagrin at the time, since I always thought they were the epitome of touristy and avoided them like the temptation to ever say “top ‘o the mornin’ to ya”). This bus was taking us to Connemara, an area that is lovely and very rustic. Despite my stereotype of the tours, we were very excited to be getting out of Galway for a while and to get a chance to see another part of the country for more than 2 hours. We were picked up by a taxi (as part of the tour!) and boarded the bus with 32 other ‘foreigners’. I think that we were the only ones on our bus that spoke English as our primary language, which made it really fun!

We made a bunch of stops throughout the day. One of the highlights was the ruins of a famine village. There were more stone walls here than we could believe! It looked like a giant labyrinth. The village homes were very tiny one room stone houses, of which roofs were missing and often walls were collapsed or destroyed by the landlords of the homes. Many of the people were forced out of their houses and had to watch as their homes were literally ripped apart by the owners of the land if they could not pay rent. The history was incredible.

The landscape in Connemara was beautiful. Homes were sparse and there were more sheep than people in most places, which Mike and I enjoyed seeing very much. We could tell a few farmers shared some land for grazing their sheep because some of the sheep on one field would be spray painted red, while another was pink and blue!

Lakes and mountains are sprinkled throughout and cast a breathtaking view when the sun shone upon them, which to our surprise was quite often that day. Greens and deep blues scattered the landscape. I was hoping to see the reflection of the mountains in the water, but the wind was so fierce that there were actually whitecaps in the lakes. Michael really enjoyed being outside in the beauty, and being able to get a sense of this area that we will be able to share with our visitors soon.

Another highlight was the Kylemore Abbey. It was originally built by Mitchell and Margaret Henry as a castle-home for their family. He built it right on a lake, overlooking the mountains, what a life! After his death it was bought by Benedictine nuns who transformed it into a private girls’ school. They restored the gardens and church and have kept it up beautifully. We’d like to go back to see the large gardens in bloom, there is a whole herb garden and ‘herbaceous border’ and I bet it would smell like the best kitchen ever! Oh yeah and we want to go back to see the ‘Nuttery’ as well, hee hee!

We met a friendly lad named Luca, on the tour. He’s from Turino, Italy and we got a chance to talk with him a bit. After the tour we met him out for pint at Taffe’s and for “Irish” music. However, there were so many tourists from the weekend that they played more American music, to humor them, than Irish songs. Tunes like “Country Roads” and “Bridge over Troubled Waters” were sung loudly by the crowd. We were a bit embarrassed to be American at that point, and disappointed to not be hearing Irish music in Ireland… oh well the tourists seemed happy.

The next night we met Luca again for a pint, but this time it was at Monroe’s for the set dancing (see previous blog). The music was jumpin’ and so were the dancers! Luca was dying to be on the dance floor and I was joking about how serious and intimidating these dancers are from my experience watching them last week. Well, before I knew it, Luca was pushing me aside, but kept pushing and pushing until I was right beside the best dancer on the floor. Luca was standing and looking down at me as if it were our turn on the greatest carnival ride. The next thing I knew was I was being lined up and was given instructions on how to do the next dance! I quickly looked back for Michael, who was happily having a conversation in Spanish to another person we met from Spain. He beamed at me, gave me a thumbs up, and I wondered was he secretly laughing at what was to come.

After watching the dancers I knew a bit how move my feet in a triple step, and after my three second lesson (literally), I had a vague idea of when to switch partners and when to hold on for dear life during the spinning. I was so dizzy after one of the dances that I had to keep hold of my partner for fear of looking drunk and falling to the ground. Michael said that I looked great and that I looked like I knew what I was doing. It was a big advantage to have the best male dancer as my partner, and I kind of just kept my feet moving as I was pushed and pulled in figure 8’s and tight circles on the floor. It was so much fun!! Luca definitely held his own, and he was proud to have done what it seemed he had come to do. We hope to meet up with Luca again, whether it’s in Italy (as he invited us to stay with him if we are traveling) or back here or the US (as we did the same for him).