October 22nd--Healy Tour to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren in Ireland

   This morning I woke up at 7am. I got up before most of the other girls, so that I would have to battle for the bathroom. We went to Coco Café for breakfast (the same place as lunch yesterday). I got a classic omelet that had ham, cheddar cheese, and tomatoes...and chips and salsa again. Also, I got a regular hot chocolate. They had like 6 different types of hot chocolate, but I just stuck with the regular because it was cheaper. Both my omelet and hot chocolate were GREAT! My breakfast cost 8.20 Euros. When we finished our delicious breakfast, we went back to the hostel for about 30 minutes and put our luggage in lockers to hold for the day. We got to the bus station at 9:45am and climbed onto the bus for our tour. The tour was called Healy tours, and it takes us to a bunch of places including the Cliffs of Moher!

   Our first stop along our tour was the Burren. It’s really rock hills, but it’s super neat. The tour gave people the option to climb the Burren, go into some caves, or just chill for like 2 hours. We paid an extra 7 Euros and take a “gentle” climb up one of the hills. Our tour guides name was John and his family has owned the house and 2 hills in the Burren for over 200 years. Insane. John gave us wellies (rain boots) to climb the hill with. The “gentle” climb turned out to be pretty difficult. Some of the rocks were slippery, but luckily no one fell. Normally, there will be a ton of flowers on the Burren hills, but we went to late to see them. I hope I have a chance to come back sometime to be able to see the Burren with flowers. The climb lasted for about an hour and then we went into a house and had some of John’s Grandma’s Apple Pie. YUM. Caitlin and I split it, but it was delicious. Then our Healy Tour Bus came back to picked us up.

   The next stop was at a Stonehenge like rock formation. We just stopped here for 5-minutes, enough time to get a picture. It was funny because unlike Stonehenge, you could get within 10 feet of this small rock formation. Also, cows were grazing all around us, not in a fence or anything. It was insane. Our next stop was…the Cliffs of Moher!!! It took about 45 minutes for our tour bus to get there. When we got there, we had to pay a 1 Euro fee (I don’t know why?). We stayed at the Cliffs for about an hour. You walked up a path and could go either right or left. We decided to go to the right because then you could see a farther distance of the cliffs. It was simply breathtaking. It felt so surreal. I have plenty of pictures though to prove I was there. AMAZING!

   Our next stop on the tour was at some smaller cliffs where you could see the Cliffs of Moher to the left and 3 islands across the water. We stayed here for about 20 minutes. Here though, the cliffs didn’t have a fence, a wire, or anything blocking you from the edge. You could look right into the water. I chose to do this either sitting or lying down. Scary! It was really interesting looking at the water because it was bluish-green. Anyways, after we left there we went to a small seaside town for lunch. The tour had special plans set up with a place called Fitzstephen’s pub, so I got seafood chowder for 5.25 Euro. It was okay. I only noticed salmon in my seafood chowder, but whatever. At this point, we were on our way back towards Galway, but we were taking the road along the water, which was beautiful. About 30 minutes outside of Galway, we went to a castle on the edge of Galway Bay for about 15 minutes. I got some really gorgeous reflection shots of the water. I’m a nerd…it’s okay! On the way back, I took a quick, probably 5-minute nap and arrived back at the Galway Bus Terminal at 5:45pm.

  We walked around the square in Galway and found postcards! You can’t forget them. We then went to Marks and Spencer’s to buy our dinners (for at the airport) and snacks. I got a sandwich, 4 apples, a banana and a pear. Next, we back to our hostel and checked out. We got our luggage out of the locker (after having to go get help because we jammed it stuffing it too full. Whoops!) Once again, we used the computers (no knowing when we would have another chance to check our e-mails) and set off for the bus station at 7pm. Our bus left Galway at 7:30pm and I ate my dinner. I tried to sleep on the bus, but for some reason, I could not get comfortable even though I was super tired.

   The bus arrived at the airport at 10:30pm. We went to the first floor food court and found a long bench where we could all sit/sleep. I ate an apple and a banana and chatted with the girls for about 30 minutes. Then, I went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. It was really awkward and nasty doing this in an airport bathroom, but oh well. I then went “to bed” around midnight.