Day 1 on Tour

Hello everyone!

Today was quite the eventful day! We arrived in Dublin around 8:15 am, right on schedule. After getting our passports stamped (hooray!) and grabbing our luggage, we were off to find our guide and the tour bus. 

The view from my plane window

We were pleasantly greeted by our tour guide, Peter, at the airport. He led us to the bus, where we boarded and immediately knew that he had a good sense of humor. Our bus driver, David, likes to chime in on the jokes, too. :) Fun fact: in Ireland, wearing seat belts on tour buses is the law. Peter made sure to say "It's the law" in an American accent because it "works better" that way. He's a riot.

We stopped for a "comfort stop" at a place called Midway. They had a huge row of all the different kinds of nuts you could think of. Dr. Wis seemed to like that part of the stop the most. :) There were also 4 or 5 restaurants, including a coffee shop. 

After our comfort stop, we drove another hour and a half to stop for lunch at Blarney Woollen Mills. We were able to grab a bite to eat at the cafe upstairs, then shop in the various sections of stores downstairs. I bought 5 postcards in hopes of sending them out soon.

When everyone had finished spending their euro, we admired the view from the parking lot and climbed back on the bus. Somewhere along the line, Dr. Wis decided that we should sing one of our Michael McGlynn pieces, Cunnla, to see if Peter and David could recognize some of the Gaelic words. After we sang, Peter answered our Gaelic with a few sentences of his own, commenting on how our singing was "better than good". Like I said, we like him! :)

During the drive to the Cliffs of Moher, there were many "ooo's" and "ahh's". Ireland is just gorgeous! If you have never been, I'll be the first to recommend making a trip out here to the Emerald Isle. We saw so many cool things on our journey.

Once we arrived at the Cliffs, everyone's cameras were out of their day bags. We all had fun playing photographer, trying to capture the perfect picture of the Cliffs and O'Brien's Tower. We also were able to enjoy the Visitor's Centre and some of the cool specialty shops built in to the bottom of one of the cliffs. So many good memories were made at these sites, including singing "May the Road Rise to Meet  You" at the bottom of the O'Brien's Tower steps. 

Some of the tour group posing in front of the Cliffs of Moher!

O'Brien's Tower

Cliffs of Moher

Limestone

 After boarding the bus to go check into our hotel in Galway (Clayton Hotel), everyone was pretty worn out. Peter showed us many awesome site-seeing opportunities along the way. At one point, we had to stop and get out to take pictures because the view was so amazing. Peter told us about what we were seeing - it was limestone and shale layers that had been eroded and cracked over years and years of time.

We had a very fun-filled, jam-packed day! Tomorrow we'll be heading to the Aran Islands via a ferry, and will be giving a concert at St. Nicholas Collegiate Church. As always, thanks for reading and following our adventure, and don't forget to stay tuned for more posts!