The week started with a trip to the Aran Islands with our group. The Aran Islands are just off the west coast of Ireland, and was about a 40 minute ferry ride from Galway. It is still a Gaeltacht, which is an Irish speaking region and is quite rare to find these days. It was really neat because I was able to practice some of the Irish that I have learned in class. The picture to the right shows a majority of the Island from the highest peak.
We had a tour guide who took us to the coast that had cliffs and other really neat natural landforms. We hiked all over the countryside and saw very interesting landscape, and there is over 400 miles of rock fence on the tiny Island. A picture of the cliffs is shown on the left. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable on the topics and is an archeologist so he told us many stories and took us to places that very very few people get to see, and the cliffs are one of them!
Our last stop of the day was at a fort from 800 BC! It was so amazing how intact it still was. It was right on the edge of the cliffs so it was impossible to attack the fort from the sea, and it was situated on the top of the hill from the highest point on the Island, so they could see an attack coming from anywhere and ready their troops to fight the threat off. A picture of this is to the right, and keep in mind that there was absolutely NO cement or mortar used, it's simply just stacked rocks.
The rest of the week was pretty typical, class and exploring new aspects of Galway. I had a 4 page paper that was due this week, so a lot of time was spent on that. We also spent a lot of time trying to organize a trip to Belfast to see some of Northern Ireland, but plans fell through so we weren't able to go :(
On Friday, after I got out of class we headed to the Irish Countryside to ride some horses! It was so fun and it was my first time actually riding in an English Saddle (I much prefer western). My horse was an Irish Plow Horse and she was pretty big and beefy, her name was Sheebra and she was the sweetest horse I have ever met. One of the girls in our group got bucked off because she had a high strung horse. She was ok, and now she can tell everyone how badass she is for getting bucked off in Ireland! haha.
Today we slept in for the first time in a couple weeks, then headed downtown. The town in packed with tourists so it was impossible to get around. Tomorrow we are going to go to the beach, and then to a parade that goes through downtown. It's supposed to be amazing so I'm excited!
Thanks for reading, and I can't wait to see everyone soon!
<3 Ashley
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