Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Oranmore

This past Saturday, Erik and I realized that we have already spent nearly a month in Galway, so we decided to take a break from city life and see a smaller area of Ireland. We love taking walks, so we wanted to go somewhere that was close enough in distance to do so. Originally we thought we would go to Athenry, where the focus of the town is an old castle and other medieval buildings; it's about 14 miles from Galway. However, many parts of Ireland seem to close down during their "winter" months, and we were unable to find a place to spend the night. We settled on a closer town called Oranmore where there are ruins of a castle with origins that are unknown; this is also where the tip of Galway Bay is located. We found a bed and breakfast to stay at, the first of hopefully many, and we immediately decided to head out there; we would leave as soon as I was done volunteering at 3PM. We had recently purchased rain boots that we were in dire need of, so we were excited to get to try them out. Unfortunately, we didn't think to bring other shoes! It was only a six mile walk one way, and we left at about half four (430). The walk was very relaxing and we were able to see some of the country side, even a few thatched roofs! During the last hour of our journey it began to rain lightly, but luckily we were wearing our rain boots.


At about half six we made it to our B&B. It was a lovely home that over looked the bay, and right across the bay was a view of the Oranmore castle. We met our host, were shown to our room, and dried off a bit. After taking a short break, we headed to the town to get a bit to eat and a few pints. We ate at Keane's Restaurant where I had fresh salmon with potatoes and veggies, and Erik had curry chicken and rice. The restaurant was lovely, and our dinner was accompanied a Motown classics soundtrack! After that we headed over to a local pub for a drink. We stayed for a little while, but were quite tired and wet from our walk. As we were leaving, there was a band who was setting up, that we would later learn was my roommates band! Unfortunately, I had talked to him earlier about where his gig was at, otherwise we would have stayed and listened...especially since their specialty is Motown funk!


The next morning we woke up and had a traditional Irish breakfast (without the bloodsausage, which Erik had told me about on our walk, whew!) It consisted of tea, cereal, homemade bread and homemade jam, eggs, toast, regular suasage, and bacon. It was the first time that I have had ham in years, and it was delicious! I had forgotten how good it really is. After our hearty breakfast, we got ready for the day, and were off for a hike.


We made our way to Renville Park, and after much confusion and a bit of wandering the town we made it. In order to get to the park we passed through residential areas and then through farming lands. It was a beautiful area for walking, and there were several families taking strolls together. This led to our realization that, at home, we don't see parents out with their infants in strollers very much; it is even more rare to see a father alone out with his kids out in a stroller. It's completely common to see mothers/father/parents together with their infant(s) in strollers, whether it be morning, afternoon, or evening, seven days a week. Just a difference we realized--one that made us smile and gave us insight on family values of Ireland.... Anyways, along with them we saw many unleashed dogs (which is another common feat, in the city too, and the dogs are all so well-behaved!...imagine Summer or Nickle out in public, leashless!!), kids playing soccer, and a person flying a kite. There was also a view of an inlet with ruins of an old building across the way. Brilliant! After walking through the woods we came upon the remains of another old building, but we couln't tell what it was for, and we were unable to enter it. Before going to the park we tried to see if we could get to the Oranmore castle, but it appeared unattainable. We both had high hopes of being able to go inside a castle or ruins, so we decided to trek along the shore of the inlet and make our way to the ruins.
After following the shore, which consisted of rocks, seaweed, and purple oyster-shells, we got to the 'entrance' of the field that contained our destination. It was elevated about 3-4 feet above the shoreline with a small wire fence going around it. It was apparently a private farm and a sheep pasture; the sheep were standing off in the distance at a different ruin. We walked straight to the ruins we wanted to get close to. It kept getting bigger and bigger as we got closer and closer. While we were walking towards it two vehicles left their houses and drove down the road a little closer to the ruins...about 50 feet. They then just got out of their vehicles and watched us. This kind of freaked us out, so we quickly got to the ruins, where we unspokenly agreed to stay on the opposite side of the ruins, beyond sight of the Irish men watching us. This worked out though, as this was the sunny side, which made for much better photos. After getting close to it, we discussed and we came to the hypothesis that it was probably a priory or a monastery. It was almost definitely a religious structure, as it was topped by a cross and had those ecclesiastical looking arch-windows. It also seemed like it had a living/sleeping quarters, a little of which we explored after we realized a part of fence was down near there. We got inside and climbed down the rocks to the closer, darker basement. It had rained the night before and there were cracks in the ceiling from the floor above, so a constant drip was sounding somewhere in these big stone rooms. Being down here for only a short period of time, we thought of the guys watching us, looked around in this 14th century dengeon-looking basement, thinking only
this is how scary horror movies begin, often involving traumatizing ways of death, and quickly climbed out into the beautiful, sunny, mid-50's weather outside. Realizing our spectators weren't closing in on us, we started back to the beach. We were obviously on someone's property, they allowed us to see what we wanted to see without bothering: we didn't want to wear out our welcome. We really wanted to see the other ruins that the sheep were hanging out at; we couldn't tell what it was...but it was a big cement fence that was shaped in a square with pillars holding it up, with thatched, or grown-over, roof houses that were of differenst sizes all facing one another. It looked like a little village or something--maybe it is a little sheep village! That would be so cute!
Anyways, we didn't want to bother them, thinking that is probably what these farmer-men were most concerned about. We quickly got out of the field and walked the short walk back around the bay to the park. We arrived, sat down at a picnic table, ate an orange and some bread, had some water, stretched and headed back to the little town. We thought about old school rap songs the whole way, rapped some Coolio...then some Will Smith. Big Jiggy Style. We laughed about that little rap stint...Wild Wild West, Jim West, Deperado, No we don't want nonna this...and laughed. Fresh Prince, Will Smith, Big Willy. Ha! It was even more amusing when we would be rapping loudly, and then walk by natives, unable to contain our rapping, so just doing it under our breaths. The volume increased as the distance between us and them did...
We got to the town, bought some food and put it in our body, and decided to head back to Galway. We though of maybe taking a bus, as we had already walked somewhere around 14 or 15 miles since leaving Galway. The bus wasn't going to leave for over an hour though, so we started walking. We went back a different way...a totally different way (on accident), and spent most of the walk on the shoulder/bike lane of a highway--for about 5 of the 6 miles back in our support-less rain boots. This was a little painful and a little scary, and especially since we didn't know exactly where we were, we just kept following the Galway signs around the roundabouts. We finally did get back though, after about 2 hours. We suddenly came into town very near my house, completely clueless as to where we were until we were there. We desperately needed to take our rain-boots off. They were very beneficial for our rainy walk there and our trekking through mud and thick seaweed, but for our 6 mile walk back on asphalt, they truly sucked. Our feet, ankles, knees, and backs were all in very much pain upon our arrival to my house. We went to my house first, so I could change my shoes and grab a book for one of Erik's roommates. We went to his house, and I use some contact solution of his roommates' ; I haven't purchased any, seeing it is 17euro for a normal sized bottle at the pharmacy (the only place I could find it). He also changed his boots, and we hobbled back to my house to make a huge, delicious pasta dinner. We devoured it while watching X-3 the Last Stand with my roommate Martin, and headed to bed where we slept very soundly. Despite our bodies' soreness the first part of this week, the trip was a beautiful excursion and a nice break from the city. The weather was in our favor, we had a delicious breakfast, and we got to get up close to some real ruins. We are looking forward to many more future adventures!

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