The Cliffs of Moher

The cliffs of Moher. These pictures did not come out particularly well because it was raining. You cans till tell how breath taking the cliffs were though.

This is Haika, the German woman I met. She was in Galway for two weeks studying English. She was very nice and great company for the day.



When I was up here I met a man who asked to photograph the back of my jacket. He said that his buddy used to play rugby for OSU and would never believe that he met someone with a OU rugby jacket on in Ireland. I should have told him that our two teams don't exactly get along well.

Me, all soaking wet.

Me again, this time you can tell how windy it was. The wind would literally push me a couple feet at a time. Our guide was telling us that a tourist got blown off the cliffs and died a couple weeks ago, apparently it is a fairly common occurance. Maybe I'm losing my backbone in my old age, but I was too nervous to go to the edge where there wasn't a wall. Especially since the ground was all muddy and slippery.




This is the visitors' center. I'm going to show my geeky side here, but most of you already know me and are aware that I am an avid science fiction reader. Does this make anyone else think of the Shire? Seriously, almost exactly what I pictured a hobbit's abode to look like.

A farm in the Burren

The church in the distance is called the seven sisters...or something like that, I forget, actually. I just remember that it had a number in the name that was more than the number of actual churches because that was a religous number.
The farm that I was on was designed to raise calves and then sell them. This is the famous bull that got all the work done. The cows are up somewhere in the hills grazing.

The Burren

Yeah, it was really misty and windy. Hence the hair in my face. But hey, this is the worst weather I had the whole time I was in Ireland. I can live with that!

Look I learned something! The rocks in the Burren are limestone. So, although there is very little land in the Burren, it is very good land because of all the minerals found in it from the limestone. Cows that graze on this land are healthier, produce stronger offspring, and give milk that has high levels of calcium.

The Aran Islands: Inishmòr

The pier where the ferry arrived.

Our ferry! It stormed right as we were getting on the ferry to come here and everyone got soaked walking from the bus to the boat! The water was very rough on the way over and several people got sea sick; however, as soon as we landed the skies cleared up and it didn't rain another drop. I took the chance and rented a bike anyway! I got really lucky with the weather.

Sunshine! In Ireland!

I forget the exact number, but there is a very small percentage of topsoil on the island. To be able to farm for sustinence, the locals had to first remove enough rocks from a piece of lqnd to be able to farm it. That is why there are rock walls EVERYWHERE. Also, to make more topsoil, the native moved tons and tons of seaweed and manure onto the land that they had cleared.

I tried to find the pot of gold, really I did...but I just couldn't get my bike to go fast enough!

This is where I stopped to have lunch.

There were wild blackberries and rasberries growing along all of the stone walls on the Island. I ate a few for desert!


The tide was out. All of the brown stuff is seaweed. There is alot of seaweed everywhere on the west coast it seemed when the tide was out.

So calm and peaceful! Look how the wind ripples the water and blows the reeds!

Most of the Island was dedicated to farming cows and horses. (I never thought of raising cattle as farming, but that's what they call it.)