Toast & Tracy's Epic Ireland Adventure
August, 2006
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Day 
Eight
When we woke Wednesday morning, excitement filled the air: The ocean was calling to us.
This was the day we had all chosen to take a boat trip out to the Aran Islands. Specifically, we were off to Innismore (alternately, "Inishmore"), the largest of the three islands that lay off the coast of Ireland, just outside of Galway Bay. Now a popular tourist destination, the Aran Islands were once the sole province of fishers and farmers eking out a living in often brutally raw conditions. Surely, their tiny home off the shore would prove fascinating. (And if not, I would still get to go on a boat ride! Yay! Boat ride!)
It was sunny and relatively warm in Galway as we left the hotel to go meet up with the rest of the family. Everyone was present and accounted for except for John and Kara, who were running late getting Ryan ready. Afraid we might miss our bus, Tracy, my mother, and I headed down to the pick-up point around the corner. The bus, an old, red, cramped, double-decker affair, was packed to the gills when we got there. Annoyingly, it seemed as if half the available space was being taken up by the gargantuan back packs that accompanied the horde of young adults who had already boarded. We squeezed into three of the half-dozen or so seats left, wondering what the rest of the family was going to do when they got there, fearing they'd have to stand.
Minutes later, they arrived, walked straight past us, and stood at the door of the bus behind us. Little did we know that the tour company would be running multiple buses, right?
Immediately, Tracy, my mother, and I got up and escaped from the sardine can we were in. As we joined the rest of the family to board the clean, white, double-decker coach, I exclaimed, in my best Out Loud voice "Thank goodness we got away from those smelly college kids!"
My family turned away in embarrassment.
As the bus travelled west along the coast through the Connemara, the bright sun we'd been treated to in Galway stayed behind. Indeed, it seemed we were headed for the one storm in all of Ireland that day. A cluster of dark clouds hung low off the coast, right over the spot where, if my bearings were correct, the Aran Islands would be.
Sure enough, as we pulled away from the pier and headed out towards our destination, the rain started coming down. I didn't let it stop me from standing outside in the cool, brisk ocean air, however. No way I was going to stay cooped up inside the glassed-in passenger deck. I loves me the ocean and I loves me some boats, people. Proudly -- nay, stoically -- I stood at the stern, raindrops be damned, and watched the Irish shore recede from us. The deck rocked gently beneath my feet, but I eschewed the handrail before me, allowing my hips and knees to absorb and compensate for the boat's motion. I was gettin' me sea legs.
"Hi, I'm Tracy. That's my husband over there in the rain doing his best Ernest Hemmingway impression. Don't mind him: He's just a little stupid."
After about 40 minutes, we arrived at Innismore. As our craft sidled up to the dock, I saw the fishing boat pictured at right. That completely cracked my schizzle up.
Wouldn't you know it that, just as we stepped off the gangway, the rain really started to come down? The wind whipping the drops at us, our party dribbled off the boat in twos and threes and made our way down the long, long, long pier. No, really, it was long. Long and shelter-free.
Four hundred yards later, we squeezed into the packed tourist information building to wait for the rest of the family to catch up so we could hatch a plan.
Turned out the shell on that particular egg was a little too thick.
No one could agree on what we wanted to do. Should we take a half-day tour? A full-day tour? Stay in town and shop? Rent bikes? (No, seriously, rent bikes in the rain? Right.) What shall we do? What. Shall. We. DO?!
Tracy and I knew exactly what to do.
We headed for a little establishment called, oddly enough, the American Bar, where we ordered a couple of pints. The proprietress, a woman whose brusque manner walked right up to the border of unfriendliness and played footsie with it, was a little off-putting...
...but really, how could you complain about a place that had won the James Joyce Pub Award?
It was in the American Bar that we first encountered an interesting sort of display that we would see in several other establishments over the next few days: Above the bar a collection of patches was arrayed from policemen and firefighters who had visited previously. The great majority of them seemed to be from cities in the northeastern United States. We saw one from West Springfield, MA and one from Wethersfield, CT. This was very cool. I'd have left my ID badge from work if I'd been dorky enough to bring it. Then again, software engineers don't exactly bring a place the same credibility as America's first responders.
As we sipped our Guinni, an amazing and wonderful thing happened: The sun came out. Moments earlier it had seemed like our visit to Innismore was going to be a cold, wet affair spent mostly indoors. Within a half hour's time, however, every last hint of crappiness had cleared from the sky. The whole island appeared to glisten. It was byoo-tee-ful, I tell ya.
We saw these two fowl characters, along with a dozen of their friends, walking around the front yard of a house along the main street. Roosters are so cool.
Walking back down to the town center, Tracy and I found a tour guide, Owen*, who was running a half-day van tour out to Dun Aengus, an old stone fort overlooking some very impressive cliffs. Being a big fan of cliffs, I was all over this. Tracy, being a lesser fan of cliffs, agreed to go because she's a wicked good sport.
The drive out revealed some breathtaking scenery. Here's a shot looking back across the entrance of Galway Bay to the mainland.
The drive itself was, as usual, entertaining. The roads on Innismore were even narrower than what we'd become accustomed to. They truly were one-lane affairs for the most part, and they were filled with pedestrians, cyclists, and horse-drawn carts. Fun stuff.
Arriving at the visitor center for Dun Aengus, Tracy and I paid our entrance fee and began the 3/4-mile hike up the hill to the fort. No sooner had we taken ten steps, however, than -- SNAP!!! -- an unfathomable horror befell me. My belt broke.
Now, I blame Ireland, OK? Sure, I run to the heavy side, and yes, the waistlines on my pants take a bit of a beating, but I honestly cannot remember the last time a belt broke on me. This was definitely the result of all the pints those damn Irish had forced on me. And what timing!!! About to begin a hike and absolutely no place to buy a replacement belt in the vicinity. Tracy thought I should offer to buy a belt off one of the scruffy college backpackers hanging about, but I'd be damned if I'd stoop to that. Besides, they all looked emaciated. I'd've had to buy two belts and run them end to end.
So, realizing that there was no help for it, I hiked my 36" loose-fit jeans up over my love handles, puffed myself out to give them something to grab onto, and, once again, we began our ascent.
Prior to heading up, we had run across my mother and my Aunt Loretta coming down. My mother insisted that it was a treacherous and grueling climb. As it turned out... eh, not so much. A little slippery in parts, but all in all a mild ascent for two reasonably fit middle-agers like Tracy and me.
This is a view of the lower cliffs, looking south from the trail to the fort.
Arriving at the top, we passed through the outer wall and crossed a stone-strewn field to the door of the fort proper. We walked through and found ourselves in a 100'-diameter semicircle of stone, the open end of which terminated at a 300' drop to the waves crashing below.
This is a view looking north along the cliffs from over the last few feet of the fort wall.
A word on heights, as they relate to your narrator and his wife, is in order.
I love heights. I absolutely thrill to the experience of being up on top of tall things. I am cursed, however, with an incredibly strong sense of vertigo. If I get too close to an edge or, FSM forbid, find myself climbing an exposed face, I freeze up really bad. So, whenever I'm on a cliff or mountaintop, I invariably find myself creeping and crouching towards the edge, stalking the limit of what I can handle, wanting to peer out over the edge but certain that, if I do, gravity will somehow suck me over.
It's very weird.
Tracy's relationship to heights is far less complex. She hates them. Absolutely freaks out. She can be three full body-lengths away from an edge and still be petrified. What's worse, she cannot bear to see me go anywhere near an edge either. At one point, while I was exploring the area around the fort, she threatened to scream if I went any closer to the cliff edge.
I had to crawl on my stomach to get this shot. And rather than stick my head out I just thrust the camera forward over the precipice, clicked, and then rolled back to safety.
We had some time to kill, so I whipped out my palette and portable easel and did this quick-and-dirty watercolor sketch of cliff edge and western seascape. I tried to go for a sort of high-contrast realism that I find really captures the spiritual and emotional dimension that imbues scenes of majestic natural beauty.
No, no, please. I can't do this for a living. I've got software to write.
After a few too many minutes of watching me gallivanting around exposed to the threat of an untimely demise at the hands of the treacherous landscape, Tracy decided to seek refuge. Like the fighters who had built this fort centuries before, she took shelter in one of the many small doorways spread throughout the inner wall.
Oh, and I'm not just saying this to be funny. She really did say she was going to hide in there until I was done. I had to go coax her out afterwards.
Heading back outside the main ring of the fort, we found this interesting, extraterrestrial-looking rockscape. Looking at it, all I could think of was that it looked like the remains of a major metropolitan landscape after a nuclear attack. Or maybe the ruined husk of a collapsed alien civilization.
Of course, even as I was trying to capture this on my camera, I was fully aware that when I returned home the images would show a pile of rocks.
Rocks are so not photogenic.
Our van was due to pick us up soon, so we headed back down from the fort.
Here's a shot of Innismore looking south from the trail. If you enlarge the shot you can see the pancake-like layering of the island's landscape. Also, in the foreground and snaking left is the trail that leads from the fort down to the visitor center. I wish this picture came out more clearly, but as I noted earlier, my camera kinda blows.
INNISMORE, IRELAND: FSBO. A fixer-upper in a stunning location! 1 BR; 1 BA (not attached); Open Floorplan; Needs roof.
Back down at the shopping center near the visitor center, Tracy hunted around a few souvenir shops while I sat and gave my pants a rest. We also grabbed a couple of beverages at this cute little cafe.
Tracy loves thatched roofs, by the way. We're planning to remove our shingles and install one next year.
The next stop on our tour was the Seven Churches, a collection of centuries-old ruined and mostly-ruined church buildings. Owen informed us that, at its peak, this installation had been one of the foremost learning destinations among all of the Catholic Church's holdings.
This building here, the main church, is in the best shape of the structures that are still standing. Not exactly Notre Dame. In fact, given the size of this building, I can see why they needed to build seven of them.
Here's a shot looking in through the slit window you saw above the altar in the previous pic. Tracy and I both took this exact same picture on our respective cameras because we thought it would be all arty and cool and stuff. Yes, we're geeks. But we're on the same page.
The oldest graves in the graveyard around the church. I didn't make note of precisely how old they were, but I believe it was somewhere between "Quite" and "Very". Note the bordered pit over the plot. Apparently that particular idiosyncracy goes pretty far back.
I loved the Gaelic script on this headstone. Very Tolkien-esque.
Having had our fill of ruined churches, we hit the road again. On the ride back, Owen pointed out to us several "leprechaun houses" in the back yards of the island's dwellings. They looked like oversized doll houses. I didn't ask if this was some sort of genuine tradition or just a cute gimmick to amuse the tourists.
Soon enough we were back in town. We ran into my Aunt Bon, who was meandering about the center with Kara and Ryan. The rest of our crew, they informed us, were still out touring the island.
With time on our hands before our boat was scheduled to depart, Tracy and I grabbed a late lunch at a restaurant across from the American Bar.
Once again, I had fish and chips.
Once again, it was... pretty decent.
After eating, we did a little shopping and walked around by the harbor a bit. The shops there offered a range of products that included a delightful variety of wool sweaters, a more limited selection of wool vests, and of course some splendid wool blankets, all of which would have been much more appealing if Tracy didn't have such a terrible reaction to wool.
There really wasn't a whole lot else left to do at that point, besides holding my pants up. Innismore is all about sight-seeing. The town itself is pretty limited. I mean, we could have gone back to the American Bar but... nah. Had to save up space for the evening's carousing.
The boat ride and bus ride back were pretty uneventful. Everyone was dog-tired at that point, so we all just kind of zoned out.
We got back to Galway around 6:30 PM. Immediately, we rushed for the Eyre Square Shopping Center and found a department store that sold belts. I bought a cheap, no-frills one for 12 Euro. Nothing fancy, but it allowed me to return my pants to their normal elevation. Ah, sweet relief.
Tracy and I then headed back across the square to our hotel (pictured at right - it's the reddish building in the center). She went upstairs for a nap and I headed over to the Red Square for a pint and some quality time with the newspaper.
Walking in, I did a bit of a double-take. Is that... no... Ben? Hey, it is! What were the odds?
Ben, you'll remember, is the Huskies/Blazers fan I'd hit it off with at the reception. He and his girlfriend, Becky, had arrived in Galway the day before and were staying at the Eyre Square. Our encounter, it would later turn out, was to be quite fortuitous. Anyhow, we chatted for a bit and then they headed for their room and I moved on to the bar.
Sitting and reading the Independent, sipping a Guinness, I unwound from our trip. Sometimes it's nice just sitting in a bar by yourself, reading, watching the TV, or just zoning out and staring into your beer. This was one of those times.
About a half hour later, Tracy came down to join me. The plan, as given to us earlier, was to meet up with the rest of the family at a restaurant called McDonough's on Quay Street at 7:45 PM. As we were heading out of the Red Square to walk in that direction, we crossed paths with Ben and Becky, who were also heading that way. While exchanging stories from the previous couple of days, they told us about a restaurant called Nimmo's that they had dined at the night before. Very quirky setting, wonderful atmosphere, and great food, they said. We filed this away for future use.
We split up from them a few blocks on and continued down to McDonough's. When we arrived, however, none of my family were to be found anywhere. The line for McDonough's was out the door, so perhaps they had gone elsewhere? We checked in a few of the adjacent restaurants and in some nearby bars. Wherever they'd gone, they hadn't bothered to have anyone wait around for us.
Well, then. We were on our own.
Hmmmm... What was the name of that restaurant Ben & Becky had mentioned? And did they say it was just on the other side of that historic landmark, the Spanish Arch? Off we went, as dusk settled over the town, embarking on an unplanned dining adventure.
We crossed over to the bank of the River Corrib and followed the pedestrian path through the Spanish Arch. On the far side was a stone building that looked like a 400-year old warehouse, or perhaps a navy barracks. This would be Nimmo's.
We entered and approached the maitre d', asking if he had a table for two. Why, no, we did not have reservations, we informed him. No matter. A party of four was a half hour late for their table. With a hint of barely suppressed satisfaction at the prospect of punishing them for blowing off his establishment, he decided to give us the special room they'd reserved. And if they showed up late, well, they'd have to wait.
He escorted us to The Room.
The Room is about 8' x 6' and sits halfway between the entrance and bar on one side and the main dining floor on the other side. It has only one table, a converted spinning wheel and seamstress' bench. Despite the fact that we could look out our doorway and see two other tables, and that there were staff and patrons walking back and forth past us continuously, it felt exceptionally secluded.
At left, my beautiful wife, with just the beginnings of the Tracy Wine Glow.
Dinner was exquisite. Tracy started off with a tian of crab and I had fish chowder. For entrees, I had a gorgonzola-encrusted New York sirloin steak -- perfectly done, melt-in-your-mouth texture, unbelievably flavorful -- and Tracy had a wild mushroom rizzoto with truffle oil. Toss in a bottle of Beaujolais Villages and we were in heaven.
Good thing, too, because no one was checking up on us.
We ate and drank and ate until we were just about ready to pop. And the whole time, no one ever returned to ask how things were, see if we wanted more drinks, or dessert or anything.
After a while, this got a little weird.
Finally, after nearly having to stick my leg out the door to trip her, I got our waitress' attention.
Amused, we remarked that we thought the entire staff had forgotten we were there. Did this always happen to patrons in The Room, we asked?
Well, oddly enough, she explained, Yes. It wasn't that the room wasn't clearly visible, but for some reason when people were in there it was easy not to see them. And yet here was the truly strange part: On numerous occasions when no one was seated in The Room, members of the staff had reported seeing a dark-haired woman sitting in there alone, just glimpsed out of the corner of their eye.
Split brain reaction: My cerebral cortex says "She's pulling your leg" while at the exact same time my lizard brain sends the orders for the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck. Like I always say, I may not believe in ghosts, but they sure do scare the crap out of me.
Having thus enjoyed dinner and a show (of sorts), we headed back down Quay Street. We ducked into a few shops and stopped to see a few street performers, and then headed back to our hotel. Or, more specifically, headed back to the Red Square Bar.
We found Ben there, working on his journal over at a table in the corner. (Odd that some people keep travel journals in real time, no?) He joined us at the bar, and for a while the three of us drank and talked and hung out, occasionally glancing up at the soccer coverage on the television (hey, we were sports fans desperate for a fix). Tracy took her leave to go upstairs, after which Ben and I spent another hour or so talking about his upstart beer, wine, and spirits brewing business on Nantucket and my exciting career in insurance sof... Well, seriously, we really did have a fascinating conversation about his beer, wine, and spirits businees.
Finally, another full day in the books, I grabbed a double Jameson's for the road, said goodnight to Ben, and headed back to the room to read for an hour or so and then knock off.