I knew i was going to be sick on this trip. Saturday arrived with me waking up dizzy and with a huge headache. So i popped some pills and hoped for the best. We had to be downstairs at 830 for breakfast. It consisted of soft runny eggs, and large flat bacon strips. And this weird weetabix type of granola-cereal. We packed up our bags and got on the bus. We drove to this Skellig heritage site on Valentia island. Apparently they had opened up the museum there just for us. It had this awesome 15 minute video telling about Skellig Micheal. It was an island 8 miles off the peninsula, and it was home to this monastery that generations of monks painstakingly built. I really want to go there. It is a harsh, desolate island that was on the edge of the known world. The monks ate puffins and gamut. We made jokes about clubbing the puffins for food. The museum was kind of corny and had a grass roof. We then went on and saw some cliffs! They would have been really cool, but it was foggy and rainy and we couldn’t see much. My poor camera lens must be scratched to hell after me wiping it off so damn many times. Matt and I climbed down the cliffs and the damn east coasters followed us. It was like Youghal and Ardmore all over again, with us being cool and everyone following. We then walked up to the Foghers cliffs, also on the island. We took pictures of the grey scenery and then drove to the slate mines. There was this really cool guard tower that reminded me of Mordor. Matt and I snuck past a fence and looked at this cool area that people weren’t allowed to go into. Then we collected some slate and went to get back on the bus. We get on there and start to pull away, when Shorts Girl asks to stop the bus. She has lost her camera! Marian and Tommy, the bus driver, go out and look for it for like ten minutes, and then give it up for lost. We pull away, and then she finds it! It was dangling beneath her seat. Oh, shorts girl.
We got on the bus and then went to Ballyskellig, Marian’s hometown. She kept telling us the inhabitants of these randoms houses as we drove by, like “This is my moms house, this is my brother’s aunts house, etc.” She said that everyone knew everyone within a 20 mile radius. All of the houses were kind of nice, but she said that a lot of them are holiday homes that sprung up during the celtic tiger and are now empty, waiting for a buyer. She said that when she was a kid, 70 children would walk down this narrow road (that our coach bus was having trouble fitting in) and nowdays only 3 would, maybe. She went to this little national school thing. So, we got to this cool beach in ballyskellig, and she said there is a good cheap hostel if you ever wanna get back again. We walked on the beach, which would have been really awesome had it not been raining. I noticed that my camera had this spot of moisture on the inside of the lens. This becomes a recurring enemy during the rest of the trip. We then went to this pub and heard Marian’s cousin give a talk about Micheal Kirby, her father, who published his first book at the age of 78 and had since done 16. He died when he was like 90 something. I want to read them. She talked about how her whole family had migrated to America and they reconnected and she discovered her Irish relatives living in Virginia. It was pretty cool. Then, we drove back to the hotel for free time. Marian said something about a possible hike we could do, and I thought it would be awesome. So we talked to her about it. She gave me a touristy map that said where to go, but none of the roads were marked. Andy, Matt, Hannah, Mattie, and I, plus Danielle and Chelsea from new York, set out. First we went to the o’connel memorial church, which is the only church in Ireland and possibly Europe to not be named after a saint or some variant of Mary. It was not as cool as the church in Cobh. But it was still way cooler than most churches.
We spent like 5 min in that church and then walked towards a road which I thought would lead us to the fog-cloaked, rainswept mountain looming behind the town. After Danielle brilliantly figured out that there are trail markers, we set off. It was blowing wind at probably about 30 miles per hour constant, and before we even got to the bottom of the hill my pants and wallet and everything was soaked. We climbed the little barrier and then went up the hill. The wind picked up the farther we got up. Andy and matt led, and I was soon in last place. They are in shape and were fast up the hill. Pretty soon my shoes were muddy and soaked, due to the trail currently being a river. We saw these weird clear eggs in a stream, and we are assuming they were frog eggs, cause no fish would survive that trickle. I couldn’t take a picture because of the weather, though. So then we get bout 80% to the top, and I cant even keep my backpack from blowing away. My camera is wet, and everything is soaked. It's awesome. Matt kept going with Mattie and Hannah, and we all stayed there and got blown away by the 40 to 50 mile per hour gusts. It was terrible yet fun. The rain hit your eyes and skin and made pock marks. We turned around, and headed down. I went off the beaten path and got stabbed by those damn gorse bushes. After a long time of walking we were back down. I thought I was gonna get pneumonia, from the cold and rain and gale. The wind was much calmer on ground level though. We got to the hotel and I spent the next hour and a half using the questionably-shaped blow dryer to dry my shoes. Everything was soaked. I took up the whole room trying to dry my stuff off.
Then we went to dinner. I had ordered the Hake, because marian said it was 28 euro, and I wanted to eat fish that I could normally not eat, and get the most out of my 170 euro. It was heavenly. Marian asked us how the hike was and we told her about the terrible conditions. She asked if I had ever done anything like that before, and I replied “I’ve gone swimming.” Lol. Talked to chin again, but Conner, a drunkard, had kept making humping motions into the table for 10 minutes. He rocked back and forth with his crotch while his arms leaned agains the table, and talked to this one really embarrassed girl who looked away and laughed. He would yell “Fuck” across the dinner table, in a room with everyone in it. Someone said he drank half a bottle of vodka in the interim time. I was making fun of Hannah for being a cake eater, and I said “You are just a cake eater from the east coast!” and connor goes “What’s wrong with the east coast??” and I quickly said “Nothing, except for her!” and dogdged a bullet. Didn’t want a drunk bastard beating me up. Then we piled into the room for the speaker of the night, Morrison. He was an all time Gaelic Football champion with 2 national titles under his belt. He had his kid machaud and the kids friend steven with him for the talk, plus an old guy who had stopped over for dinner. He explained about how Kerry hates Cork because it’s a famous rivalry, and he took the white and red Cork jersey and tossed it to his son, who instantly chucked it behind his head. “It’s a natural reflex here” he said, and everyone laughed. He pulled a few of us out to be members on the theoretical Gaelic Football team, and Danielle. I was defense, and Andy was the goalie. Morrison grabbed my shirt to demonstrate a certain football rule, and the old guy said “Might wanna keep your wallet in the back pocket!” He talked about how each little settlement has a team, and it is like the sport around here. Everyone loves it. Also, it is badass. He said that when people get injured, they nurse themselves back to health and don’t quit. You twist an ankle? Show up tomorrow for practice. Also, it is volunteer I believe. They gave soloing demonstrations, and then the drunk guy kicked the ball to the Steven, and pissed him off, so he charged the dude. Haha, idiot.
Then we headed to the bar for trivia. I sat with Mattie, Hannah, Hanna, and Matt. We had 9 rounds, the first 8 were just normal. The dumb east coast girls tried to cheat off us. They had some dumb questions at this trivia, like "which is faster, light or sound?" Matt and I overthought one, which was "what is the closest star to us?". We put alpha centari and felt awesome, but it was the F*%@$#% sun. I had selective hearing and thought "us" would be the solar system, not the earth itself! We kept such good score. I knew like 75 percent of the questions, including tough ones. But the rest of the team backed me up, like for what is a bloody Mary and what is a fungdale or Spanish dance. It got to the "fun round" and it was between Andy’s team and us. The questions were all about details we should have picked up on the trip today. They all pertained to stuff we saw.
After an intense wait for the scores to be tallied up, we got our victory! We beat Andy 74 to 73! This was out of 90 possible points! I was elated. We won coasters made from Valentia slate that was from the o'connel memorial church! We kept the east coasters out of the competition, because they were all like 10 points behind Andy! And they think everyone from the Midwest is an uneducated hick.
That's the end of Saturday. For any east coasters reading this, you aren't all vacuous like the people appearing in my story. It's just a generalization to prove a point.
