Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

Rather, Buses, Ferries & Bicycles better describe my weekend.

Before I came to Ireland while I was doing some research, I came across the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway and decided I really wanted to go there. No reason, it just looked pretty. It is a small group of three little islands off the West coast of Ireland. These islands have managed to preserve the Gaelic culture with Irish traditiong and speak mostly Gaelic. The largest island, Inis Mor is 9 miles wide with a population of 800 people. Very quaint. So this weekend, pretty last minute, I booked a hostel and went!
My housemate, Steph, and I decided to take an adventure and traveled up to Galway to catch the ferry to the Islands. While we were waiting, we stopped and had breakfast at this cute bistro. I had my first (and hopefully last) taste of the traditional Irish Black and White pudding.. (If you don't know what it is made out of, you don't want to find out...) It was.. interesting?.. to say the least, but I figured it was definitely an Irish experience I couldn't pass up!

After that, we took a lovely ferry ride over to Inis Mor. It was the most gorgeous day I have seen here. Warm and sunny all day with no rain at all! Which is shocking because it almost ALWAYS rains on the islands. After we found out little hostel a little out of town (town consisted of a grocery store, 3 bike rental shops, 1 cafe, and 3 pubs and restaurants), we rented a couple bikes to travel around the island. The scenery was so gorgeous. When I picture Ireland, this view is exactly what I imagine.

Pictures just don't do it any justice. But it wouldn't be my life if there wasn't some sort of catastrophe in the day.. It really doesn't help that there are never street signs, not that it would have helped because they would have been in Irish, but still. We didn't even get the first mile without getting lost and going ALL the way up a hill before realizing that was supposed to be the end of the cycle so it would be downhill. So after that workout, we finally got on the right path. AND THEN, after cycling about 4 miles out to the far side, my chain breaks. So we're stuck in the middle of no where with no one around, pushing a bicycle, trying to make it back to town before it got dark with a map we couldn't even read. I felt like the girl on Leap Year- lost in the middle of Ireland. But finally, a little old Irish man came to our rescue and fixed the bike and we made it back to town for dinner.
We explored a bit of Galway the next day (which is such a nice city, I was in love) before making it back to Limerick, home sweet home!