Chapter Next: The one in which Ireland steals my heart.

Saturday November 14

Ok. Ready to wrap up this Irish vacation and tell you about the most recent one :)

Our last day in Ireland we decided to go to the lovely village of Glendalough. We got up early and ran through the pouring rain for like 30 minutes to make it to the bus station. The bus ride out there was about 2 hours long and the scenery might possibly have been the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Honestly, Ireland combines the two places I love most in the world- the mountains of colorado, with the rolling fields of Missouri. I got chills just driving through the countryside and felt like a part of my heart already belonged there. The fields are placed in each mountain valley and everything is the most alive shade of green- even in the middle of November. Driving out we probably saw several thousand sheep- which the boys still couldn't get enough of- and enough beauty to last a lifetime. Trigg tried to take some pictures through the bus windows so when I find them I'll make sure they get posted.

We arrived at Glendalough, a sort of village/state park, and had several hours to explore. The main attraction are the ruins of a old monastic city. Several buildings including a tower are still standing along with an extensive graveyard full of mossy tombstones tucked into every corner. We explored for a little bit, but not really feeling like a history lesson when the rain had (finally!) stopped, we set out to explore the rest of the valley. About half way through our time, the boys decided it would be pretty much the coolest thing ever to try and climb one of the mountains along side the valley. I, being clearly smarter and more rational, did not want to spend my last 2 hours sloshing up a muddy, tree-covered, mountainside just to have one good view at the end, so we decided to split up. Predictably the boys said they spend about 1.5 hours in the forest hoppy fences and getting royally muddy but they did enjoy making it to the top.

I on the other hand decided to explore some of the extensive trails surrounding the park. I even hit up the visitors center to ask for a nice loop that would take a bit more than an hour to hike. I eventually headed up the mountainside on, get this, a dry and well -graveled path, to find one of the park's many waterfalls. I spent two perfect hours just hiking in some of the most beautiful countryside I'd ever seen with only the sounds of nature to keep me company. Needless to say I was blissfully happy, took entirely too many pictures, and vowed to come back some day for a much longer hiking/camping trip.

So after meeting up with the muddy boys- we caught our bus back to Dublin - and set out for the evening. It happened to be the night of the soccer final between Ireland and France so the city was absolutely packed! It felt like we hadn't even left France so many people had flown up for the game. We met up with about 8 other ND kids in my program who were also visiting Dublin/London and we settled into a cute pub to watch the game. France won but the Irish were very good sports and we all had a great time sitting around and watching. I had some Irish cider, which turns out to taste more like beer than cider- but it was a great end to our last day in Ireland.