Clare Island, Hitchhiking, and Karaoke

See this? It's a sewer grate that I noticed in Galway. Turns out they all have this symbol on it. Look familiar?

Crap. But it's also on tons of jewelry and t-shirts, so at least I know I didn't get myself a tattoo of a symbol that means "sewage".

I had four days off this week- SCORE- and used them to go island-hopping. I decided to set out on my own, and head up to Clare Island in Mayo, the home of Granuaile (Grace O'Malley), Ireland's pirate queen and Bevin's personal hero. It didn't sound too difficult... Mayo is the county right above Galway, not too far away, and I'd already looked up ferry schedules and prices. I'd take the 9:30 bus from Galway to Westport, take the 10:50 bus from Westport to Louisburg, and walk the 5km to Roonagh Pier and take the 12pm ferry to Clare Island. I'd spend the day on Clare Island and sleep at a hostel in Westport overnight. Great plan! What could possibly go wrong?

ALL of it. Apparently, when I travel alone, I travel stupid- either that, or things just go wrong. In all my extensive planning, I didn't take into account the evil tourist lady at the evil tourist booth. She told me that buses for Westport left every 2 hours, starting at 7:30 am, and offered to sell me a 9:30 ticket. Turns out that she was completely wrong, and Bus Eireann runs an 8:30 and a 12pm bus. Thank god I didn't buy the ticket. In any case, by the time I got to Westport it was 2pm, because for some reason a 70-minute bus ride takes longer in Ireland, and the next bus to Louisburg was at 4pm. So I walked around Westport. For the capital of Mayo, it's not the most thrilling of places... very quiet, and a lot of old people staring me down. Did I mention it was 85 degrees out?

I went for a walk a few miles around town, down to Westport Quay, where I saw Croagh Patrick, Ireland's holy mountain, an intimidating but beautiful granite colossus that would overshadow the rest of the trip. Then I walked back and while I waited for the bus, I bought a copy of "Dorian Gray". I knew the story but had never read the book, which turned out to have been an excellent idea on my part, because the book was dull as sidewalk-flavored ice cream. The bus finally arrived, and once off it I walked for 10 minutes in entirely the wrong direction before a friendly pedestrian informed me that some vandal had switched the signs leading to the pier and I'd better hurry, or I'd miss the last ferry of the day.

I jogged about a kilometer when I ran into a really cool taxi driver named Will, who as it turned out was going to Roonagh and was happy to give me a lift. Once at the pier, I asked the girl who sold tickets if there was a cheap hostel on the island, because if not I would just stay in Westport and check out Clare early in the morning. She said there was a B&B that ran 30 euro a night, and she'd call and set it up for me. That she did, and I bought a ticket. The ferry was empty except for me and some very awkward fishermen, but the view more than made up for it. I was hoping to see dolphins, but no luck again. I am doomed to never see a dolphin.

Clare Island has 140 inhabitants, who grow up together and go to school together and know everything about one another, from their shoe size to their mother's favorite color. Those who attend high school do so on the mainland. So I got to the island and was picked up by a boy from the B&B, who drove me across the island. One thing about Clare Island- sheep. There's an entire chorus of sheep wherever you go, everywhere sheep of all types and colors (they paint them to mark them.) The island was stunning and quiet (minus the sheep and donkeys) with an incredible view of the other islands, Achill Island, Inis Turk, and numerous other small islands. Once I realized that I was going to be stuck on the island for a while, the only thing that made me feel better about that was the fact that if you're going to be stuck somewhere, Clare Island wasn't a bad place to be.

There was another woman staying at the B&B, who had this incredibly eerie effect of making me very uncomfortable no matter what I was doing, and making me feel awkward about the clattering of my knife and fork. The owner offered me dinner of crab claws (which now, I realize, I should have guessed wasn't included in the whole "B&B" deal, but as I said, on my own I'm a stupid traveler.) Crab claws are very cold and slimy, so I dumped salt on them and felt much better. Sodium cures all ills.

Then I decided it'd be a great idea to go for a walk, which was my best idea of the day. I walked the 3 miles to the Abbey, where Granuaile is supposedly buried, and photographed it, but unfortunately the guy with the key wasn't home, so I couldn't ask him to let me in so that I could see the megalithic paintings inside. DAMMIT. The graves were interesting, though... an entire graveyard of O'Malleys. A woman was putting flowers on a grave, and it turns out that she, too, was an O'Malley, and a descendant of Granuaile. Cool!

There was only one other place that the guy with the key would be, because it wasn't exactly a big island, so I walked another 2 miles to check out the pub. He wasn't there either- apparently he'd been in one of the cars that had passed me on the way over. I wasn't in the mood for a pint, and it's remarkable how awkward islanders can make outsiders, so I left pretty quickly.

I saw Granuaile's castle, which wasn't so much a castle as a two-room stone tower- simple and cozy, I think we would have gotten along- and took some pictures and a video or two. I'll post those on facebook.

I then turned around and walked all the way back. At one point I thought it'd be a great plan to hop the fence and climb up to an outcropping of rock on a hill, thinking that I could get a panoramic picture... and Jenny, you'd be so proud of me, I got all the way to the top and back down without falling down! Of course, there was another fence at the very bottom, which I hopped with ease, and took a step into the grass- and fell on my face. Grass is untrustworthy in Ireland- the only thing you can trust to stand on is the rocks. You never know what grass might have below it- more grass? Empty air? A giant ditch? In this case, a giant ditch. Ow. I then freaked out because I thought there was a snake next to my face, and then realized I was being stupid for two reasons- one, no snakes in Ireland, and two, it was CLEARLY a stick.

At this point, I was exhausted and had walked a total of "a lot" of miles. I headed back to the B&B, and was at one time chased by a donkey, but otherwise got the rest of the way back unscathed. That is, of course, until I reached the B&B and the woman charged me 50 euro. Turns out the room was 40 euro- 30 only if two people share a room- and the dinner was 10. I mentioned that the girl at the dock had said something different, and it was as if her eyes had suddenly turned to ice cubes. The temperature of the room dropped 40 degrees. She made it very clear in no uncertain terms that I would be paying her prices, regardless of what the dumb ferry girl had said. As soon as I'd paid, she was all smiles and warmth again. Freaky crazy B&B lady. I went to bed with worms eating away at my stomach... I hate spending money.

The next morning, I hopped on the early morning ferry out of there, having seen all I wanted to see of the island. I hitched a ride direct to Westport, and caught the bus from there back to Galway. Hitchhiking now seems to me the ONLY sensible way to travel- that and couchsurfing- because otherwise you end up paying exorbitant bus fares. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, except that Hannah, Steph and I went out to a karaoke bar and earned another bottle of free champagne and some of the weakest Sex on the Beaches we've ever had. I swear that after I drank those I was MORE sober. Good thing, too, because I had work in the morning and didn't really feel like partying. Steph and her friends wanted to go out to another bar, or something similar, but Hannah and I were both tired so we went back to our respective hostels. I am SO glad that that weekend is over! I need a long work break before I go through the stress of that again... and hopefully next time Hannah will be with me.

Trips I want to take:
Horseback tour of Dingle Peninsula
Hitchhike to megalithic sites- namely, the Mountain of the Witch, Loughcrew. It looks SO COOL.
Cliffs of Moher. This I do free, which is nice.
An Ultimate tournament in Dublin (or two!) It's a 5 euro bus ride to Dublin, which is awesome, and I can couchsurf once I'm there, so hopefully it'll be fairly cheap.

Tonight is the Celtic Tales performance at a pub nearby, which I get to see for free, and Hannah's coming with me, which is good. It's basically an old Irish storyteller recounting myths and legends. Then work for another week, and then two days off. I wonder what I'll do for those two days?

I also asked to reschedule my ticket to leave a little earlier, because at some point I'll have worked more than I'll have explored, and I want to save a little money to start off with next year. So I'll be leaving somewhere between the 6-12 of August... but I miss all of you, and almost wish it was sooner. I'm having a fantastic time, and Ireland is so beautiful, but people should come visit me. Just saying.