Adventure!

top: Far away from the tip of Ben Bulben
bottom: Ben Bulben from far away

I climbed Benbulben. It’s pretty and pretty big. I parked my car, unloaded unnecessary things from my pack, filled my mini-Nalgene with water, filled my pocket with some stale bread from the day before (body warmth made it soft again—stale Irish bread still tastes more delicious than Wonder bread ever will), and started up the trail. About 50 steps from my car, I was already huffing and puffing. I mean, I’m getting over a cold, but that’s no excuse. Regretting I hadn’t spent any time on the stairmaster in the past four years, I told myself to sack up and hike the fucking mountain. I didn’t have to do it. I was there because I wanted to be. I wanted some physical exercise and some beautiful views and I was going to get both, and not simply by doing pushups in a hostel and buying a postcard in a gift shop. Alright, so after a few more minutes of hiking I got warmed up and actually didn’t have a very hard time. There weren’t really any trails to follow, though. I just clambered up through tall grass, trying to find the best way to get from point A to point B.

This is a good time to talk about the Irish sheep. They are not your cute little curly-haired friends you see in children’s books. The lambs look cute enough, but the adults are hefty, shaggy beasts that could kick my ass if they tried. Good thing is that evolution made them afraid of everything. There are no natural predators of sheep in Ireland (except me, of course—mmm, lamb chop), but they still bolt. Point for Darwin. However, the fact that they wouldn’t stick around for a fight made them rather enjoyable. They would baa at me then run away and baa some more. The running away part consisted of them deftly hopping up and down parts of the mountain that I tried to avoid. They’re like that annoying little kid in grade school who runs circles around the big, clumsy guy, all the while yelling “na-na na-na boo-boo!”

The view was incredible. If you want more pictures, go to my facebook album that I will eventually create. There was a group of six people picnicking at the edge of the cliff when I arrived at the summit. We exchanged pleasantries, but I didn’t really have any company or anything more than crumbs and a few drops of water for lunch, so I took a few photos, took in the majesty, then started back.

On my way down I realized that I totally missed the trails. I basically thought there weren’t any other than a few goatpaths and went up the thing the hard way. Whatever, I had fun exerting myself. Then I smelled bad.

The next night I stayed in a pretty nice place, but I couldn’t for the life of me find it. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Ireland has no street signs. Actually, streets sometimes don’t even have names. Long story short, I spent quite a while on the phone with this girl working at the hostel while I was doing circles in my Nissan Micra with people tailgating me. Obviously, I found the place. The girl is from Hungary. She’s kinda cute. We had a good laugh about how difficult it is to get around. Then I went out for dinner. It was sunny when I left. When I finished dinner, it was raining. Pouring. If I didn’t have my laptop with me, I wouldn’t have minded getting wet, but I did have my laptop and my bag I had with me was not waterproof. With a huge meal and a pint o’ Guinness in my stomach, I ran through the rain in flipflops about a mile from one end of town to the other. The girl at the hostel had another good laugh at my expense. They’re supposed to have free wireless internet here, but it’s down so I’m sitting on a couch across from a goofy German dude and a Russian girl who “needs computer help.” They’re hitting it off quite well.

Day: 4
Guinness count: 2 (I need to catch up! I think if the weather cooperates tonight, I'll hit up a bunch of bars)

update before i don't see the internet again for a while:
Day: still 4
Guinness: 5