I Want To Lunch With You On A Mountain/The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Me Wheezing

The day after the excursion to Clare with API, Lauren, Monica, and I decided that we would go on a day trip with the Mountaineering Club to Kylemore Abbey in Connemara. I think it’s safe to say that none of us really understood what Mountaineering Club does. It was a little like the macaron/macaroon incident, but on a larger scale.

To start the hike, we simply got off at this church, sauntered behind it, and then just went into this field. Apparently, that’s just fine to do in Ireland, which I totally can dig. Anyway, for the first section the way was quite flat, but the wind was strong against us and the ground was like a swamp. Sometimes we would have to leap over little streams, and at the beginning, we were all trying to avoid the sheep poo, (spoiler alert: that will change by the end). 

I thought it might be kind of neat, instead of telling you about what went on, to just lay out my thoughts as they happened throughout the day. It may be a nice change-up to how these posts are normally. I’m sorry if they are a little sporadic, but hopefully it will be enjoyable for you to get a glimpse at my MENSA-like mind.

-This is so nice! I can’t believe I only paid 8 Euro to come out here! Look at all these mountains. We just get to take a nice hike, and then afterwards we get to see Kylemore Abbey!

-No path, that’s pretty cool. We just will get to frolic in the fields. This is going to be so fun.

-Jeez, this wind is a killer.

-Wow, we are kind of getting close to the hills and mountains there…

-Oh good, a break, I’m already starting to get winded.

-Oy vey, this ground really sucks. Literally.

-Okay, I can manage to do a few hills.

-I bet my cheeks are so red right now. Well, at least I won’t look like the corpse I normally look like.

-SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

-Huh, I wonder if there is a path or gorge or something that leads through the mountains.

-Alright, I guess we are breaking for lunch. Good, I’m tired.

-I should not have eaten that entire sandwich and granola bar. I didn’t know it was just snack time, not lunch time.

-Whoo, this incline is getting a little steeper. I wonder if it’s going to level out soon.

-Please stop for a break soon, please stop for a break.

-A break! Yes!

-Picture time.

-Hmm, the leaders just pulled out a map. Why are they pointing up the mountain? Nuts, time to get going again.

--epiphany- Oh. My. God. The plan is to climb a mountain…

-HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THEY WOULD CLIMB A MOUNTAIN, ALICIA!!!!! THEY’RE THE FRICKEN MOUNTAINEERING CLUB!!!!!! WHAT DID YOU THINK THEY WERE GONNA DO?!?!? YOU’RE SO STUPID, IDIOTFACE!!!!!

-It’s gonna be okay, you’re fine. You come from two athletic families. Easy squeezy.

-YOU MORONIC DOPE! IF YOU’RE SO “ATHLETIC” HOW COME YOU FINISHED IN LAST PLACE AT THAT 5K FOR ADRIAN AND MARGARET’S WEDDING?!?! RIDDLE ME THAT, YOU FOOL!!!!

-Cursing.

-sheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheepsheep.

-I can’t wait to tell everyone about this.

-What happens if I have to pee out here?

-Dang. I have to pee.

-How is Lauren going so fast? She’s a beast.

-A breaaaaaaak! Please break! Please please please.

-MY THIGHS ARE ON FIRE!

-Prayer.

-Come on, Alicia, give me 10 more steps.

-Woah! This is so pretty. –Takes pictures-

-MORE SHEEPIES!

-Why is this happening to me?
-Prayer.

-Climb every mountain!!! Ford every stream!!! Follow every rainbow TIL. YOU. FIND. YOUR. DREAMMMMMMM!!!!

-Cursing.

-Thank the Lord that we picked to do the short, easy course.

-I can’t believe I’m actually doing this! This is AWESOME!
-Cursing.

-I wish I was an asthmatic or something because then I would have an inhaler.

-How is it possible for there to be a bog on the side of a mountain?!?! It doesn’t make any sense!!!!

-SHEEP, SHEEP, SHEEP!

-You can do it! 10 more steps! 10 MORE STEPS, FATTY! Now do 10 more!

-Nuts, my sock is wet.

-This wind is ridonculous! Why won’t it stop?!?!

-I should take more pictures because we are 50 feet higher and everything is a little bit different.

-Prayer.

-Cursing.

-Prayer.

-A break!

-Gah! None of these pictures look like the mountains are that big!

-Baaaaaa. AHHHH IT LOOKED AT ME! I CAN SPEAK SHEEP!

-If I fall off this mountain, Maj will never forgive me.

-I am so tired.
-I'm gonna die up here.

-My lungs feel like I swallowed a chunk of anti-freeze.

-You’re doing great, buddy. Keep up the good work.

-I wonder if the sheep come up here because the grass tastes better.

-Whoops, something just popped out. Ow, ow, walk it off, walk it off!

-So close, almost there!

-Stop being a pansy, pansy-woman!

-I want to stand with you on a mountain! I want to bathe with you in the sea!

-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!!!!
-I DID IT! I DID IT! I DID IT!

-AWESOME!!!! THIS IS SO WORTH IT!!!!!! IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL UP HERE!!!!!

And then, I was at the top. After reading that, you may be thinking, “Wow, Alicia sure does have an awful lot of personalities,” and this may certainly be true, I’ve never been tested, but it was definitely both a big physical and mental challenge to get up that mountain. When you’re up there, though, that’s the greatest feeling in the world. On the one side are all the surrounding mountains, but I felt like we just climbed the tallest one.  On the other side is the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Basically, it’s as if there are all these massive entities all around you, but you are the greatest of them all. Then, it’s as if a sudden switch goes off as you realize how completely small you are, but, really, it’s okay to be that small if you are a part of something as great and beautiful as this world.

Before things got real.

Prior to the Pain Train leaving the station.

Pondering out the meaning of the world...

My shoes wouldn't talk to me for a week after the crap, literally, I put them through.

Sometimes the grass reminded me of Oscar the Grouch's fur.

Some people had fancy hiking poles. Those people intimidated me. I was also afraid they might accidentally stab me.

Atlantic Ocean.

Maybe if I look hard enough I can see Langhorne!

If you have eagle eyes: beneath the lake on the right is a small white speck. That's the church we started out from.

A lake on top of a mountain. I was pretty certain one of these lakes contained water that would give you immortality, but immortality makes me nervous, so I refrained.

I had to sacrifice Lauren's face in this picture. It was the best one I had of the 3 of us. My apologies to your face, Lauren.

Ah, here's a better one. I stole it from Monica.
Photo courtesy of Monica.

Mom told me the day before to not do anything dangerous after the whole Cliffs of Moher debacle, so, naturally, I just walked along the top of a mountain.

We took our real lunch on the top of the mountain, which made it the most epic lunch I have ever eaten, even if it was just your standard PB & J. It was like eating a PB & J that would decide the fate of the world. I tried to capture it in this video right here:

I have also been watching that video whenever I need a laugh. It cracks me up. Additionally, while we were happily munching on our noms, Monica says, “I’m probably sitting in sheep crap right now. I just don’t even care.” Then, she proceeded to get back to her sandwich.

Look at them all on top of the world. They are probably thinking big, important thoughts, such as, "I should have put more mustard on this sandwich."

The one in the multi-colored hat is Monica. She doesn't give a crap that she's sitting in crap.

Coming down definitely wasn’t as hard as going up, but there were absolutely moments when I ate it. I wasn’t too worried about myself when it comes to clumsiness, but there was the chance that if I fell that I could take another person down with me, so I tried my best to be careful. The atmosphere was a lot different on the way down. People were joking around and getting to know one another, instead of heavily panting with snot coming out of your nose.

Having to walk sideways like that caused me to develop some weird ankle muscles.

Shortly after taking this picture my butt got well-acquainted with the ground. 

We were pretty high up considering how tiny the road looks. I'm surprised I didn't get a nosebleed.

The Abbey is almost in view.

I thought it was pretty cool how they put Jesus watching over everything.

The mountains could get pretty steep.

This was kind of a weird change. It felt more like tramping through a forest in Malaysia or something.

As we were about to come down the last section of the mountain, the trail popped out at the back of Kylemore Abbey, which meant that we had to walk through their estate to get out. One of our valiant leaders, Ingus, told us that when we got down to the Abbey we just had to stroll through very casual-like, even though we looked like a bunch of dirty hoboes and hoboettes. He said we weren’t allowed to take any pictures or look around until we got outside of the Abbey’s grounds. We didn’t have tickets, so the Abbey apparently frowns upon people trespassing on their land. Who knew?

Once we were in safe territory, we could fully appreciate Kylemore Abbey. The Abbey itself is quite exquisite, but it is absolutely augmented by the spectacular surroundings. It is situated so that backing it is the mountain we came down, and directly in front of it is a placid lake. I’m sure that in the springtime when the trees are bright green it would make for a great backdrop, but I still thought that it was wonderful.

This used to be a boarding school for girls. I bet they were really rich girls.

There were no penguins out this day. Whoops, I mean nuns...

Being in the middle of nowhere has it's perks, though. I bet when it was a boarding school, the nuns never had to worry about teenage pregnancy.

One of my favorite parts of this whole experience was when I went outside the bus to change my horribly muddied shoes and socks, and I heard a bunch of the leaders talking. I don’t think they were being malicious, but they were just joking around a little about how people in the short/easy group were saying how difficult it was. I certainly wasn’t offended, I could see how they leapt around the place like mountain goats, but I did laugh about how this reinforces how out of shape I am. Even though this is apparently not one of the harder mountains to climb up, I’m still proud of myself for doing it!

I did feel really great after the trip, though. In my eyes, I killed not just two birds with one stone, but four birds! (I imagine it was a little like skipping a stone on a pond, and hopefully, they were either pigeons or seagulls, both of which I loathe.) I figured out that the Mountaineering Club does not do hiking trips, they do mountaineering trips; I met some really cool people on the trip who were Irish, American, Canadian, Spanish, French, Finnish; I saw one of the places that was on my list of things to see in Ireland, Kylemore Abbey; and I accomplished one of my life goals, climbing a mountain!

Yeah! Go me!

I’m sorry these posts are so wordy. There is just so much I want to tell everyone about, even the little things. Although, I don’t think that asking everyone to take 2-3 hours out of his or her day to read about me is too much to ask for. Maybe 3-4 tops if you’re a slow reader.

This is an extra bit you don't need to look at, but here are pictures of all the cute sheepers I saw. An ode to sheep, if you will. sheep.

sheep.

sheep.

sheep. sheep. sheep. sheep.

sheep. sheep.

This one's a little hidden. He's the Where's Waldo? of sheep, or, as they call him in Ireland, Where's Wally?
(Hint: how did he get up there?!).
sheep.

It's Clare, Ireland Is Much Moher Awesome Than Pretty Much Anywhere

Rugby is a sport I watch about once a year on TV, though I would watch it much more often if it was on. It is possible that if you are a male you will not appreciate this paragraph. As for the ladies, I hope you understand. I have stated in the past that watching the Rugby World Cup for me is the equivalent of a heterosexual male watching the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Three words: Premium Eye Candy. Naturally, then, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go see the real thing. And, boy, I wasn't disappointed. I feel like they just don't make shorts that short or men like that in the States. Thank God they do here.

Even though the weather was quite terrible for the game (cold with sideways misty-rain), it was still enjoyable to watch. The game we saw was Connacht versus Harlequins, and our home team was Connacht, so we rooted for them. If I had to compare an equivalent team to Connacht, success-wise, I would say they are below the level of the Pittsburgh Pirates, (Let's Go Bucs!). By this I mean the game that we went to was their first win of the season. Apparently, and I'm not sure if this is because they generally suck, Connacht shares it's home field with a greyhound racing track, which is known world-wide to be the classiest form of betting. For awhile I debated running the track on my hands and knees, but I thought about the potential consequences, so I refrained. To get to our assigned place in the stadium, we actually had to cross the track, so I had to do my very best to maintain my self-control. When we saw the location of our "seats," we couldn't help but laugh. Our standing room seats had us chilling on a few steps behind the goal post, but since we got there about 2 hours too early, fortunately, we had our pick of the steps.

Hmmm, do you want to stand on the left-hand side 2nd step next to no one, or the middle-right 4th step by nobody?

There were some pretty specific cheering rules. I'm pretty sure this was one of the times it was okay to yell.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? YOU ALL WIN!

I came to Galway through a study abroad program that Pitt recommended for me called Academic Programs International, or API, for short. I have been really happy with them so far, and I would definitely recommend them, especially since I've already heard horror stories about where some groups are staying with no heat and creepy crawlies and other fun stuff. One of the perks of coming with API is that included in the price are these fantastic excursions and cultural events. We already had one cultural event where we went to this pub called Monroe's and we learned how to Irish line dance. Well, other people learned, I sat on the side and awkwardly tapped my foot, but it was a start for me! The excursions that are provided to us throughout the semester include a day trip to Connemara, and weekend trips to Dublin and Paris. Two Saturdays ago, we had our first day trip excursion to County Clare.

You can actually see Galway across the bay from Clare.

I didn't realize it until now, but one of my pictures I took in Galway a few weeks ago has the mountains of Clare in background!

At 10 a.m., all 30-ish of us piled on the bus for a day of sightseeing. While the program had many specific places planned for us to visit, one of the best parts of my day was simply the drive in between attractions. The ride was also helped along by the fact that the driver played traditional Irish music on the bus, so it felt like you were in a movie. When you are in Ireland it is hard not to see beautiful things everywhere, except for the occasional chemical plant, but those are near the cities. The Irish countryside is as lovely as it looks in the pictures, and even now, in the middle of winter, the grass is quite green. I also am in love with the way that locals have erected walls to mark off their property with these stones and rocks, but they have no mortar in case they need to take them down. They are also used as pens for the livestock. In regards to the animals, (Beware: A rant is coming.), they simply look happier here, and they absolutely have a better quality of life. Compared to our horrible way that we treat livestock and poultry as merely a crop to be butchered down the road, where we feed them the incorrect food, pump them full of chemicals, genetically engineering them, and keep them in pens and cages too small for a proper and humane life, the animals here are getting the right kinds of food, they have more space to roam than they know what to do with, and they are treated as a living creature should be treated. That may have been a run-on sentence, but I don't care! My adrenaline's going!

These guys have seaside villas. And a summer home in the mountains.

Alpacas! And you thought these guys were only in Peru.

The area we drove through was called The Burren, which is largely composed of rock.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system we can press on. Our first major stop was at the Burren Bird of Prey Centre, which is a stop none of us were really expecting, but still fun, nonetheless. A lot of the birds in the center were owls, which, if you are a nerd, you can imagine led to more Harry Potter references than you can count.

HEDWIG! YOU'RE ALIVE!!!...Wait, that's not Hedwig?....NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Pigwidgeon is not looking super happy to be disturbed.

This guy was either really surprised to see us, or on some serious drugs.

Happy owls are happy.

This is Batty the eagle. He was a pretty clumsy flier...or he was drunk.

I don't know what kind of facial expression Amanda is wearing in this. I'm going to interpret it as a cocky confidence from having an eagle perched on her arm.

After checking out the birdies, we made our way up the mountain to go the Aillwee Cave. We took a 30-minute guided tour around the cave to check out stalagmites (up), stalactites (down), waterfalls, and 2,000-year-old bear bones. Basically, the story was that a farmer and his dog stumbled upon this cave and decided to check it out with nothing more than a candle. I have no idea what the farmer would have done if the candle would have gone out, because at one point the tour guide asked us to turn all of our electronics off because she was going to turn out the lights so we could experience true darkness. If you were in there with no light, there would be no way of getting out. You could not even see the hand in front of your face. While the lights were off I thought it would be the perfect moment to tell my roomie, Lauren, "I just stole so much stuff."

The tour guide said something along the lines of how the stalactites grow a centimeter every 1,000 years. Let's be real here, I could have entirely made that fact up in my head. Either way, they're really old.

This used to be a bear. It just doesn't look like one anymore.

What it looked like when the tour guide shut the lights off.

Our next stop was a cluster of mini-cliffs right next to the ocean that would probably not be so mini in the United States. The wind was extremely strong that day, so I was careful to not get too close to the edge. While on the mini-cliffs, my friend Monica and I were inspired, and we asked our Resident Director, Finn, if she knows if there is anywhere to cliff jump in Ireland. She seemed to be a little hesitant in admitting to the fact that there are indeed places that you can cliff jump. I have no idea why she would be, since I'm sure it's very safe. While we were at the mini-cliffs the bus driver and Finn remarked upon how Ireland has some of the best surfing in the world. I was surprised to hear this at first, but when I looked out upon the waves, it looked like the surf was good, but I just never thought of it before because the water is freezing all year round. Just another thing for Monica and I to put on our checklist of things to do.

Aw, mini-cliffs! They're just babies still!

The wind was making us all a little crazy.

We stopped in the village of Doolin to obtain some grub. Not much was going on in the little village, but that makes them some of the best to stop in. We went to a little restaurant where I got this wonderful seafood chowder with a side of brown bread. It was rich and hearty, which was perfect to thaw me out on a cold, blustery day on the Emerald Isle.

Our next stop was the one I was the most excited for, and one of my top places to go before I leave Ireland. The Cliffs of Moher are renowned for their natural beauty, and they certainly did not disappoint. They were everything I expected them to be and more. I have definitely been struggling with how to describe them to you all. I was hoping I could capture them through picture or video, but I failed, so you're just going to have to put up with my shoddy descriptions and craptacular pictures and video until you can go see them yourself, (which you should go see!!!)

And this is why you should come to Ireland. 

If you can see those little blips on top of the cliff there, those are people.

The people are a little easier to see in this one. No fence holding them back.

Easy. WINDY AS HECK! Beautiful. Covergirl.

The one thing I cannot convey enough is the enormity of the Cliffs. They are positively massive in size. If you look from one cliff to another you can see the itty bitty puffins flying around down below, maybe about halfway down, and they look like tiny specks to people standing on top. I just could not get over how high up we were, and the view that this gave us.

If you are standing on top of the Cliffs you can see out pretty far behind you, which is a plain of grass that eventually leads to a seaside town. In front of you is just ocean. To your sides are just the S-shaped Cliffs. It sounds pretty basic, but take my word for it, they are absolutely breathtaking.

The village behind us. Basically, the Cliffs of Moher are their backyard. Lucky.

WARNING!!! IF YOUR NAME IS DIANE EISSLER DO NOT GO PAST THIS POINT!!! OR THOSE PRONE TO GETTING ANGRY AT ME!!! IT WILL UPSET YOU!!!!! For a time I debated about not including the following details in this post, but I ultimately decided to because it is an integral part of my adventure at the Cliffs of Moher. I also want to make a disclaimer that I know this was an extremely stupid thing that I did, but it is done with and I can't take it back, so now all there is to do is to constantly apologize to Maj until she forgives me. With it being said that I am a complete idiot, I can now say how awesome my moronic experience was.

Basically, there is an area marked off on the Cliffs that have a very sturdy fence up to prevent any accidents from happening because the wind can be ridonculously strong. That is where tourists are supposed to be. Let's just say, that's not exactly where I stayed the entire time, if you get my drift. In my defense, I would say about 51% of the people who got to the end of the fence decided to climb over to the other side. 51% is a majority, so I was just doing what everyone else was doing. Even though this was a risky move, I was one of the more conservative people on that side of the fence by maintaining a ninja-like vice grip on this little ledge that was as far away from the edge as you could get. Some of the adventurous people looked so casual an inch away from the edge I almost peed my pants for them. Luckily, I put on my Pampers that day. While I was scared to basically have no safety net, (see above: peeing pants), it was a spectacular experience. I don't think I would have gotten the same spectacular views and experience from behind the walls as I did from the other side.

Extreme Danger. Alright, can someone give me a leg up?

Just a little confidence booster.

I was probably puking over the edge in fear at this point.

While this picture was being taken I was probably bargaining with God to not let me fall off. I think I may owe him my Playstation.

EVERYONE CAN START READING AGAIN!!!!! From most locations on the Cliffs you could see a castle perched in the distance on one of the edges, so our next destination was to check out that bad boy. The castle itself was okay, not one of the best I've seen so far, but still fun to check out. There were two really great things about being up by the castle: 1) the view and 2) the wind. From this vantage point, you had a great view to see the majority of the Cliffs.

To help compare how big the Cliffs are, here is the castle close up.

And there it is from another cliff, just a tiny thing.

It was up here that I had to say to myself, as I'm sure I will have to say many times in the future, to put the camera down and really see what I'm looking at here, which I'm so grateful I did. I have to keep reminding myself to do that when I go to other places around Ireland and Europe as well.

The wind was definitely bad on the Cliffs below, but it was outrageous up by the castle. We must have looked like a bunch of kids as we ran around because we felt as if we caught in the wind, (it was a very Pocahontas-y moment). One guy jumped off of this rock and it looked like the wind caught him and pushed him this huge distance while he was in the air. You could also lean against the wind so that you are leaning at this unbelievable angle to the ground. I think it's always nice when you have those moments where you act as if you're 5 years old and it's completely okay because so is everyone else around you.

Attack of the Medusas! Run for your lives!

After we were thoroughly worn out and our time was almost up we did a quick run-by at the visitor center. Complete truth: The visitor center at the Cliffs of Moher is straight out of Teletubbies. I honestly would not have been surprised to find La-La or Po running around in there. For some reason, I only bought one postcard from there, even though the pictures on them were much better than anything I could could ever take. That means, then, that only one person is going to be getting a postcard from me right now. Isn't this fun? It's like a positive russian roulette.

The sun-baby just got put down for a nap at the time of this picture

On a completely unrelated note, I want to wish Majington a HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! She still looks the same as she did as a 25-year-old, minus the afro-perm, (which I personally feel it was best to give up). I love you, Momma! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (Note: That was written January 26th.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM IRELAND, MOM!