It’s funny, that Ireland wound up to be the first place I spent any real time abroad after my semester running around the world.
Ireland was the first country I flew to on my own, my first (albeit four hours of) solo travel, and the place that I first realized how lucky I am to be so independent and have such amazing opportunities. What better place for my reentry into the world after being back for a couple months?
So, when I found I could fly to Dublin on a whim for $49 in February, it took less time than my connecting flight would for me to book three seats.
Fitting as it was, my mom knows an insane amount about the country, and was hoping to get to take a trip for her 50th birthday. After about an hour and a half of making sure everything lined up, which felt long for me after a fall of booking flights in as little as 10 minutes and incredibly short for them (being exceptional planners with meticulous attention to detail), we were set.
A little over a week after my mom’s birthday, we were meeting in Boston, spending an extra 4 hours in Iceland due to a delay, and exploring the Irish countryside. My aunt and I had intended to plan the trip and surprise my mom but, being the planner that she is, we knew she’d want to be involved.
I wish I could say that it went 100% smoothly and we had the best reunion with no bumps in the road. In reality, I’d forgotten how much not sleeping for 2 days, navigating new places, and remembering to be flexible, takes out of you. For the sake of being honest, I probably was not very fun to be with for part of our time. It was a lot harder than I expected to travel with my mom and aunt and follow a very different style of doing things than I was accustomed to. We had so much fun and I loved getting to reunite with my family in such an adventurous way, it just took a little getting used to.
Instead of sleeping after nearly two days of travel, we each took turns coming dangerously close to falling asleep during a private Black Cab tour about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. (That may sound insensitive, but we were all really trying there.) Despite our increasing levels of exhaustion, Belfast was beautiful, and I learned so much about the country. Hearing a lot of world history from a different point of view was beyond intriguing and reminded me that people often have different perceptions about the same event. Everything is relative, really.
Our first full day was filled with checks off the bucket list. From the Dark Hedges (the King’s Road for all my GoT fans) to Carrick a Rede, Giants Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and the Mussenden Temple, we saw enough natural beauty and incredible ruins to last us the whole trip. Carrick a Rede, a famous rope bridge on the Northern coast, allowed me my first proximity to the ocean since December, and it was such a great thing to be able to close my eyes and hear waves crashing all around me again. Mom and I got lost in history as we wandered around Dunluce Castle, talking about what it must have been like to live there once.
Despite getting caught in the rain at the temple, a private library behind some more ruins, it was a great end to the night. We talked to some locals under the cover of the most precious wood-paneled coffee cart and got more than our fair share of suggestions of how to spend the remainder of our night in Londonderry- complements of the barista. My first mojito in months was incredibly welcome, as was the hot water back at our hotel (the same cannot be said for our Belfast Airbnb.)
Day three was off to a good start when we all (accidentally) got mimosas with our complementary breakfast. Each of us grabbed ours and chugged it before realizing that it was not, in fact, regular orange juice.
Driving through the countryside, we found a beautiful little waterfall in the side of a mountain that looked across a lake, and spent a lot of time there before getting on the road to Doolin. The drive was a long one, and our search for food eventually found us at a ‘beach bar’ in a quaint little surfing section of Sligo. We waited while the weather turned from windy to rainy to hail, and even a bit of what we were convinced was snow, before it became sunny again. They let me drive some from there (bad move) and I gracefully did not hit a single thing. There was lots of them telling me to be careful and me telling them I had it while, in hindsight, we were all very lucky I didn’t wreck that car because I did not ‘have it.’ I’m not sure that me driving on the opposite side of the road was worth it for any of us, but I’m glad I did it anyway.
By the time it was pitch black out, and we were still hours from our Bed and Breakfast, we were all getting tired. Our spur-of-the-moment decision to pull off to the side of the road made up for that and then some. The wind was insane the minute we opened the doors, but the view was unlike anything else. With no other cars or houses nearby, the world was dark but the sky was bright. The stars that we saw were unreal, and I had another one of those moments. You know, the kind where you cannot help but to stare at the sky in awe of the planet we get to live on. In that moment, all of my tiredness and impatience were gone, and I was me again- soaking up every bit of wonder I could find. I was reminded once again that there is beauty anywhere and everywhere, all it takes is the right time or place, or even mindset, to find it. But it’s out there, even if we can’t always see it.
Our arrival in Doolin was straight out of an Irish rom-com, without the men, romance, or quirky ending. We got into the tiny town 10 minutes before all the kitchens were set to close, got checked in by our host whose name none of us could remember, and found a bar where my aunt convinced the owner to let us have the little remaining soup, stew, and soda bread from the day. We talked and listened to live music, and despite the unfortunate time of our arrival, it was perfect. Our waiter had worked in D.C for some time, so had no shortage of conversation topics for us and we had found a true Irish bar to round out our other, less cozy, dining choices.
I woke up on our last day to the most beautiful view. I hadn’t seen Doolin in the daylight, and the fields of bright green grass were exactly what I pictured of a small town near the cliffs.
It poured the entire time we were at the Cliffs of Moher. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t put a tiny bit of a damper on things, but at least I didn’t end up falling on my ass in the mud, near the edge of the cliff, like Vicki did. The rain might have kept us from getting good pictures, or walking the whole path along the cliffs, but it didn’t keep me from taking another moment to appreciate where in the world I was at that time.
Upon leaving the cliffs, we stopped in a coat shop and ended up spending what must have been an hour while my aunt tried on every type of outerwear you could imagine, and we talked with our new Irish shop-owner friend, the most hilarious 60-something lady with wild life stories. In typical fashion, Mom bought me the cutest yellow raincoat even though it was her birthday trip (she really is the best) and then we started the long drive back to Dublin.
Only we would end up stuck in a ‘snowstorm’ in Ireland, where they barely ever get snow, and miss our last night in Dublin. Que night two of trying to find somewhere that was open and had food. It wasn’t the last night we had planned, and I didn’t get to make anyone sing Happy Birthday to mom since we ended up at a Japanese restaurant with no cake, but it was a good last day nonetheless.
A travel day filled with long flights, some more delays, and parting ways for another few months, ended our first European trip all together and left me hoping for many more adventures to come.
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