November 7: Doolin

Today we headed down to Doolin which is apparently the home of traditional Irish music. On the way, we stopped in Kinvara because Kevin promised us some hookers (not that kind, but some sort of traditional Irish fishing boat), but we didn't find any. Oh well.

We stopped at Corcomroe Abbey, which was a 800-something year old abbey. It was pretty, even though we didn't get right up close to it. It's weird, I know I said I was churched out after Europe but they're all so different and stuff, and the really old stuff like what we've got here is super cool. I like old stuff.

After that we headed to the Burrens, which is basically a huge thing of limestone as far as the eye could see. You had to climb up a hill to it, but it was really word it. It was just piles of limestone with little plants growing in between the rocks. Apparently the Burrens is good grazing land (as evidenced by the vast amount of sheep shit everywhere), but I'm not sure how.

Then we stopped quickly at St. Briget's Well (which apparently has healing properties) and then it was onto the Cliffs of Moher! Wow. That is a super touristy spot, but it was really wort going to. They just redid the visitor center so it now looks like it's in the hill, kind of like hobbit holes or the thing the teletubbies live in (we had a little bit of a debate as to which one it looks like more) and the cliffs themselves were spectacular. The water at the bottom of the cliffs is the Atlantic ocean, and you could see across to the Aran islands (but just barely because it was kind of cloudy). There was also a busker there playing some pretty cool pipe music so I gave him money.

After that it was home for the night in Doolin, which literally is a street with three pubs and some houses on it and not much else. Scott, Meg, Leanne and I also visited a spooky church on Gallows Hill (overlooking the city) where apparently 30-something Spanish sailors got executed. There's an old graveyard and all the graves are all over the place and I kept accidentally falling into grave holes. It was pretty cool though. That night we hung out at a pub and listened to some traditional music, and I tried to convert people to eat chips and mayo but they didn't buy it. I also wanted to go back up to the spooky church at night, but I was too tired and everyone was drunk and warm and listening to music so that didn't happen either.