The Cliffs of Moher

Saturday was another early morning, but not NEARLY as early, thank goodness. Our Paddywagon bus was  leaving at 7:10 at the tourist office about 10 minutes away. We woke up nice and early and made it to the stop with plenty of time. Paddywagon tours are usually in huge green buses, but unfortunately  there were so many tours that day that we had a boring white bus. I was still really tired, so I slept most of the way. We were going completely across Ireland, and our tour guide even said that the tour wouldn't officially start until we got to Galway, which was about 2.5 hours from Dublin. I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that I can't sleep on moving vehicles, however. I dozed off and on on the way to Galway, but nothing substantial. The bus was really cold at first and Matt (our tour guide) played music the whole way. At least he played good music-mostly Irish artists, with some traditional Irish folk music thrown in.

We stopped at Dunguaire Castle first and took a few pictures. It was a little strange, Matt didn't really explain what the castle was or say its name, he kind of just said "okay, we're stopping for 40 minutes, go take pictures." Which we did happily, but it was strange. He was a very funny and informative tour guide otherwise, though.

We hit the west coast next, at Galway. Right before lunch, we stopped at some "mini cliffs."

I hate heights so the cliffs kind of freak me out, but it's just so beautiful. Ireland is absolutely breath taking. It's not as green as Scotland (it's more rocky), but just as overpowering. 

After stopping at a cute pub (where I finally got some good salmon), we went to the real thing! Again, pictures don't do it justice. Even being there I didn't think it was real. There are two ways to up to the cliffs. One way takes to to a O'Brein's Tower (where you pay 2 Euro to see the cliffs from 10 feet higher...uh) and you get a view of the bigger cliffs. We started over here first. Thank goodness it was a lot of walking, we were feeling pretty bad about everything we ate at lunch (a common trend while abroad). 

Then we headed over to the other side. After a certain point, you could go beyond the barricades and pretty much to the edge of the cliffs. This was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I definitely didn't go all the way to the edge, but I'm glad I went over the barricades. It is literally a straight drop from the green grass to the incredibly blue water below. We were really lucky with the weather we had. Usually wind is a huge problem, but we had barely a breeze. It was pretty cold, but it wasn't raining or anything, just cloudy. At one point, the sun came out! The Cliffs of Moher was definitely my favorite part of Ireland. I would recommended to anyone who goes to Ireland. Absolutely breath taking and worth the $60 ticket. 

The tour got back around 7, and we were all pretty tired from the day. We ate at a delicious burger place (just fries for me!), and then went to a bar close to our hostel. A guy stopped me on the way to the bar and asked if I was from Sweden. When I said no, he proceeded to guess essentially every other country in the world where a person with blonde hair and blue eyes could come from. When I finally said I was from American he couldn't believe it. So I suppose I can pass as a European until I open my mouth! The bar was pretty crowded, and the guy and his friend told us that Saturdays are better in Dublin than Fridays. We were bummed, because we planned on heading back early that night. We didn't stay too long, but it was a cool bar, definitely a "natives" place. We've noticed that while Temple Bar is definitely crazy and touristy, Dublin on the whole doesn't feel like a tourist trap. It feels like any other city we've been to, in a good way.