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!