September 14th: The Aran Islands

I felt it would be hard to top our trip to the cliffs, it would be a hard act to follow for sure. The following day we went to Aran Island, specifically Inis Mor, which is the largest of the three. It was two days in a row of waking up around 8am so we were all pretty beat but the bus seat offered a decent space for a nap. The bus took us the ferry port and we took a 40 minute ferry ride to the island across the beautiful blue Atlantic. Once we were on the island, we stopped at Burke’s Bikes to rent and ride around the island. He gave us some directions it turns out we didn’t understand on where to go on the island. The bikes were nice, and it was nice to finally do some exercise aside from walking. Long story short, we took a left where we should have went right but it turned out to be a great mistake. We ended up on the western coast of the island and the sights were incredible. We walked up some rock faces that were pretty cool and just looked out at the Atlantic.

We went back to where the ferry dropped us off and got lunch at a good B&B place. After awhile we went back to explore the island and try to see some of the landmark spots. After about a 30 minute bike along the coastline(breathtaking), we stopped at a spot that seemed cool. The waves were just crashing up against this tall rockface, it was just another incredible sight. Not to get super philosophical, but the fact that there is something this beautiful that is just the Earth’s natural beauty is baffling and hard to grasp for me. It makes you feel small that anything the human race can create would be inferior to sights like these.  In contrast, a very cool aspect of the island is all the manmade rock walls, it makes the whole island look like a maze. And it’s all done without mortar so it’s quite a feat.

Overall, Inis Mor was equally incredible as the cliffs and it made for an awesome weekend. There was more of a 360 view on the island whereas you only look at the cliffs while your there. Exploring on the bikes is right up my ally too so it was a good time. Hopefully I can post some better stories from here on out, not just instances of sights I describe as indescribable but I hope you bear with me. I’ll post some pictures in the next blog post for you guys. All abroad the train to Dublin, signing off,

Ryan

P.S I had another thought and wanted to record it here. While the experience of studying abroad is all about building new connections and making new friends, I think its cool how it can bring people who are already friends closer together. It was very generous of our friend Mike to house us for the weekend, he took us out and showed us the city,ect and it was just a very fun and comfortable trip. Peace.

My best 90s rapper impression

cool cliffs

best pic of the day

artsy train pic

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