Aran Magic

I will admit it from the start, I am in love. The Aran Islands were so amazing, anyone who does not fall in love with them obviously does not have a heart...or a brain.
My time in on the Islands was full of illegal activities, questionable ethics, freezing swimming, too much Guinness and "cider", hanging off of cliffs, old men who like to 'shake hands' when drunk, and a really great time. When I think of the last few days I am stunned at how much I saw and experienced...it was amazing.
I am really overwhelmed trying to write about it so this may be a really garbled post but I will try my best! I arrived on Inish Mor on Friday afternoon and checked into my hostel that was right on the harbour. After a bit of wandering I walked up to the Artist's hostel where I was hoping to make a reservation for the next night. I met a couple from Minnesota who were hoping to get a room for that night. We could not find anyone who ran the hostel so finally I wandered up to the street and asked the neighbors. Now, a few minutes before I had joked that he was probably at the pub up the street and we all had a good laugh at Irish stereotypes...unfortunately I was right. So we wandered up to the pub, Joe Watty's..which is much better than Joe Mac's, and found the 'manager' of the hostel who was drinking a pint with his friends...so begins my story of my saga with John. John is probably in his 60's and is a great ol' nice guy when he is sober or tipsy and a wonderful musician when drunk...but not the other way around. Anyway back to my story, we found John who said no problem there will be a room for you tomorrow night and offered to make special arrangements for the couple to stay in his "cabin" for the night and he would stay on a couch in the house. He insisted we had a pint and with the weather so wonderful we had to oblige.
So a few hours later I met up with my old room ate Tessa, who is WWOOFing on a vegetable farm for a year, that night and we left a very weird pub I had popped into earlier called Joe Mac's and went to Joe Watty's where as it happens John was still there drinking and singing with his guitar. We had a great time catching up and much later I headed back to my hostel for the night.
Saturday I found a nice small place to have breakfast and guess who was there...John, he told me I could put my bags in one of the rooms in the house/hostel and he would be around later if I needed anything. So then I headed out and hired a bike and met up with Tessa at her house a few miles down the lower road of the Island.
After fixing out bikes up a bit...most of the gears are hardly working because of all the salt in the air.. we left for Dun Aenghus, an amazing fort, with some of her co-workers who were from England, France, and Switzerland. Over the next few hours we rode across the island, broke into Dun Aenghus by climbing over some fairly tall walls, had a picnic in a fenced off area of the fort, fell asleep by the cliffs...a safe distance away, went swimming in the very cold ocean, and then biked back across the island. Dun Aenghus was so amazing it deserves a bit more of an explanation. From far away it looks like a bunch of rocks standing up ... which it is... but it was built as a last resort to protect the island from invaders and it would have worked really well as it is a half mile-full mile walk up a big hill to the actual fort. When walking up the fort you can hear the ocean but, at least when we were there, you couldn't see the ocean. Once you enter though a doorway into the fort you emerge into a large half circular area with a big rock table in the middle. Once the cross the table you can finally see the ocean that you had heard while walking up the hill, and the ocean is all you can see...for miles. It was such an amazing feeling, knowing that you are nothing in this huge expanse of water...being around such an amazing site makes you feel different...realizing that something much bigger than you or your friends is around you, and not just in the physical sense.
After we climbed over a stone wall to a fenced off area of the fort we had a picnic and layed in the sun for a long time. It was an amazing feeling,
the sun hitting my arms, legs and face
The waves beating into the cliffs 300 feet below us
Seagulls peacefully crowing above us
Salt covering your face
And all around you this huge ancient fort made of stone
..it truly was an emotional/spiritual experience.
It was amazing, I layed down by the cliffs and stuck my head out over the edge and although it is always foolish I felt safe. Perhaps safer than I had felt climbing over fences to get there. Ancient areas really affect me, and many others. I am always skeptical about 'spiritual' areas but there was no denying this.
A bit later we biked back down to the lower road and a consensus decision was made that we all needed to go in the water. All 5 of us, at that point, locked arms and ran into the sea, immediately a huge wave hit us and most of us got knocked down in the water and over the next hour we kept on running in and out of the waves.
We biked back into town and I headed to the hostel to wash up and met up with one of my friends who took the ferry in that night to visit for a few days. We went back to Joe Watty's for the rest of the night with Tessa and can you guess who was there again? Ya...it was John who made us all shake his hand and talk to him for a while..this was mostly drunk John, and told me he overbooked the hostel so I would have to sleep in the 'cabin'..after making sure he would be sleeping in the house we settled into a corner of the pub. Late that night before we left I went up to John to make sure he got his stuff out of the 'cabin' and he was totally gone, he turned around and his eyes were...i guess in the back of his head! Needless to say he didn't really respond so I headed to the 'cabin' that on the side of the hostel. There were no lights on at all so i decided to see just how drunk John was and I found many empty beds in the house so I grabbed the bunk I had thrown my bags on earlier.
In the morning I left the Artist's hostel and stashed my bags down by the harbour, I had tried to pay John twice the day before for the bed but he had said 'ah, we will deal with it later' and I couldn't find him anywhere around the house or the pub or the breakfast joint I met my friend Tanya at that I had seem his at the day before. So we headed out to Tessa's house/farm and went to a Celtic mass that was really great to experience. Afterwards Tanya and I hung out with friends at the house and then headed back into town where again John was no where to be found, and he never got my 17 euro!
Now I am in Galway and am exhausted from my time in Aran...to think that I was only there for 2 full days! And even though I am really sunburned and tired I wouldn't trade those two days for anything, the Aran's truly are magical.

It's in the water!

No really something IS in the water in Galway, my present location, but no one knows what it is! I went to a chemist to buy some hand sanitizer and they said it is something to do with "animals" but that no one is sure what happened.
In other news, yesterday while still in Cork I took a whole bunch of showers and slept a lot...more interestingly I went to Blarney and yes, I kissed the Blarney stone. It was quite entertaining watching people freak out over kissing the rock. In order to kiss the rather unimpressive stone you lay down on you back, and grab two handles attached to the castle, with the help of an extra grumpy old man (who can blame him) you lean over the edge and go as far down as you can to kiss the stone. I got some tourist to take a picture of me kissing the stone as proof too! After the big kiss I walked around the grounds of the castle, after all I payed £8, and hung out in the town for a bit before catching a bus back into Cork City.
My really exciting news in Cork City is not exciting at all unless you're me or have experience with a) smelly animal farming or b) not having access to books in a really long time. After I got into Cork I found an awesome bookstore called Vibes & Scribes and bought a couple of books because in Ireland, unlike Norway, books in English are not that hard to come by! Who would have known, I have a break from school and I missed reading hmm. After my amazing bookstore experience I grabbed dinner at this really funny cheap pizza place called Four Star Pizza (ya i know but like i said it was cheap!) and then I literally ran into a laundry! I finally found a place to 'de-goat' and I was so excited I speed walked back to where I was staying, grabbed all my laundry that hadn't been done in over 2 weeks which basically consisted of everything I wasn't wearing and jogged back to the laundry called Washtub. Thankfully I got all my stuff back before I left for Galway...I know I probably sound so lame but it is so great to not have gross clothes! It was a serious accomplishment and a lot of stress gone.
Anyway, so now I am in Galway after a 5 hour bus ride and I just bought a ferry ticket for the Aran Islands. I leave tomorrow for Inis Mor to hang out with friends for a few days then back to Galway on Sunday night and leaving for Dublin on Monday!
Wow the time has just flown by...I can't believe my solo leg of my trip is almost over! It is kind of a mixed blessing, friends are always great to hang out with but I am so used to not knowing where I am going to sleep at night until I get to where I am going, and walking around meeting people...it will be really different from here on out.
One more note, I have to say...it is really nice to be in a semi-big city again and I know this will sound gross but I love the smell of the streets. When you walk around New York City and even Seattle you can smell it, it is this horrid sweet smell that you wouldn't want to smell anywhere else. But I smelled it when I first started walking around Galway and it is well....nice? maybe not the right word, but I guess it reminds me of home!Maybe the smell here has to do with that contaminated water?

The miracle of birth

Yesterday after cleaning out the milking parlor I got this weird feeling that I should go check on the goats who are kidded. I hiked down to the north end of the farm down this really steep hill and started counting all the goats. It was important that all 21 were together because usually if a goat is going to give birth they will go hide, at first count I got 20, second count I got 22. That is when I saw two just born kidds underneath their mother. They are the cutest little things ever! Giving Buddy some competition for cutest goat on Cape Clear Island for sure! After I found them I made sure no ravens were circling, they like to eat little goats, and ran up the really steep hill to the house where Ed was. Buddy ran with me the whole way, he is really cute, baa-ing away as if trying to tell Ed about his two new brothers. When I finally got to Ed I loudly proclaimed that he had two babies then I stumbled over myself..thankfully silently...about how awkward that sounded! I got a blanket and ran back down the hill where the herd was crowded around the new kidds, then came the second hardest part of the ordeal, taking the kidds away from their Mom called Horny...she is the only female with horns...they were crying for her the whole way up the hill to the goat house it was so sad. After they were safely in the goat house the hardest part came. I had to hike down the steep hill and get Horny to climb up the hill with me after she had just given birth..think exhausted 60lb goat..which basically involved me carrying this huge lug up the hill. Unfortunately because of the language barrier she couldn't understand my rational for getting her up the hill which was quite simply..they are your f'ing kids you should have thought about that a while ago! About a half hour later after my hands were beat red from her horns and we were both exhausted from the struggle to get up the hill I got her into the kidding pen with her two young goats. Once Ed got to the goat house from his house he sprayed the goats with anti-bacterial spray just in case and we got them all settled in the pen. He figures I found them minutes after they were born because the umbilical cord and afterbirth were still attached...they were covered in placenta when I carried them up the hill. So after about 4 trips up the huge hill with and without the goats I got to spend some quality time with the two babies trying to help them nurse off their mother and watching them learn how to walk. One of the new kidds is alto stronger than the other, so I had to hold the weaker one while he got milk and moved around. Ed was worried that the weaker kidd might not last through the night but luckily this morning he was a lot better.
When I found them in the pen he was trying to walk around, very adorable. I got him on all fours and it looked like he was trying to dance because he was swaying around so much on his legs. He was wagging his tail and trying really hard and after a half hour or so he could walk around slowly. As soon as I can I will post some pictures..they are so tiny right now!
The only other event of note was the WWII siren that went off at around 11am today...Ed and I were herding the goats in and out of the milking parlor and this siren went off from across the Atlantic from Schull, another Island nearby. I instantly remembered the noise from all the movies they make you watch in school about air raids and looked up but the skies were clear. Ed had never heard the siren before which is a bit alarming because he has lived here for 30+ years but he said it might be the 3,000 ft mountain on Schull. I guess they alarmed it after the IRA bombed the radar station on it in the '70s...weird stuff.
Well, in a few hours I am leaving the farm and taking the ferry and a couple of buses back to Cork where there is warm water! I am going to shower and sleep for two days...no really I am..although I might duck out for a few hours to go see the Blarney Castle :)

A few facts on a Monday afternoon

1. Cape Clear is actually the most southerly point of Ireland, the old one Fastnet Island, is no longer inhabited. This kind of gives you an idea of how remote we are out here.

2. I REALLY smell like a goat but it isn't very noticable because everything around me does too, that said..the fact that I can smell the goat on me while around other goats is very troubling.

3. I am 'afraid' of two things at the moment...going into town smelling like a goat (town meaning taking the 4 hour trip back to civilization tomorow) and eating goat while on the goat farm or elsewhere for that matter. Ed put goat sausages in the food yesterday..I had just gotten back from frolicing in the fields with the herd and picked the goat out of my plate!

4. I really like traveling alone and wouldn't be suprised if I get to the Aran Islands and later Dublin to see my friends and freak out a bit over a familiar face.

5. Goats are quite strong and seem to enjoy slamming into the back of your legs and watching you stumble along.

6. It's cold but fun...okay this is not a fact

Greasy grimy goat farmer

I have been working on this goat farm for three days and we finally have running water! Only problem is it is freezing cold water...needless to say I plan on showering soon..three days of working with goats all day makes you smell like well, a goat.
It has been really fun so far though, every morning at around 8:30am I get up and drink tea with Ed the owner of the farm then we head down to the north end of his property and let the goats out of their pen after we put grain down in the milking room. While the first set of goats chow down on a oat, barley and soybean mix I milk the goats. Today I was milking one named Minty and Ed kept on saying brilliant, grand, splendid, and other terms that basically mean good job....so I guess I can milk the goats alright. After feeding and milking two sets of goats we get Buddy who is the runt of all the kidds and therefore the most adorable one and let him milk off of a goat named Jammer because his mother abandoned him. I spent a lot of my Easter hanging out with Buddy and the rest of the herd while they wandered around the huge hills of rocks that have amazing views of the Atlantic Ocean. The views literally take your breath away when you get past the hills. After setting the herd out for the day I go back into the milking room and wash it all out with water...which has involved walking across the property to the one working tap on the farm. Then I brush out everything the goats left behind and get things set for the next morning. The rest of the day involves doing odd jobs for Ed and watching after the goats and then the best part which is taking long walks around then Island and seeing these amazing views. Occasionally tourists will show up too and we sell them goat ice cream...yum?...t-shirts, postcards, and other touristy things.
The great thing is that throughout the day everything will stop and Ed will say "Ah isn't it about time for tea then?" and we will leave the goats and make tea and sit and talk for a half hour over really great tea. Another amazing thing about this farm is that Ed is blind...he is an amazingly intelligent person and doing this job without being able to see is really impressive. It is a real testament to the power/will power of an individual...plus he is cool because he was on Britain's list of threats to the state for protesting the Vietnam War and such things back in the day..obviously anyone on that list is worth talking to for hours!
Well that is about it for now, I leave the farm Tuesday morning and take the ferry back to Baltimore where I catch a bus to Cork via Skib. I figure I deserve another day as a tourist after the farm so maybe I'll catch a bus out to the Blarney Castle where the stone is and give it a kiss, or just stay in town and catch a session. But after a night or two in Cork I am heading to Galway for a night and then the Aran Island where an old roomie is WWOOFing as well but on a vegetable farm. It will be kind of nice to see a friend after nearly three weeks at that time but I have really enjoyed traveling solo so far. More later...hopefully after I find some warm water!

The Real Deal

Wow! I am finally in Ireland and damn...it's gorgeous! Right now I am in Cape Clear Island, the second most southernly tip of Ireland, which is right up there with Bergen in it's amazing beauty. I arrived in Dublin on Wednesday thinking I would reach the farm on Clear Island the following night but no no no. Silly me, it takes two days to get anywhere! When I left Dublin I had no idea how far I would really get so I hadn't made any reservations. When I ended up in Cork City in ..County Cork I frantically went through my travel book calling hostels, all of which were full due to the easter holiday. The sixth place I called was a B&B called the Garnish House. Luckily they had a great deal on a small room and I had a place to stay! Upon arrival at the B&B they give you tea and biscuits and the such. I sat down with an Irish family on holiday, their son was in love with Florida, think Disneyworld, and said it was very educational to fly upside down..it was really interesting to hear their thoughts on NYC, the short story being they never ever want to go back. After I left the B&B i headed to a local pub off a tip from someone about good Irish Music. I got my first pint of Guinness, sooo good, and sat down. Someone told me that the live music was going to start in about a 1/2 hour. But this being Ireland it was another good hour and a half before there was any music whatsoever...gotta love it. So after a few pints and listening to live music I headed back to the B&B. The next morning before I headed south for Cape Clear I was given a complimentary full Irish Breakfast...oh my goodness. I was so overwhelmed by the amount of food..especially meat I didn't know what to do! I didn't touch the blood pudding...but remember I had reindeer in Norway so don't yell at me...but I did try the huge amount of bacon, sausage, potato bread, and everything else piled on the plate. I don't know how people eat 'the fry' which is about twice as much food..I couldn't even finish the Irish breakfast!
Anyway so after I left the B&B I hopped on Bus Eireann, the main bus company in Ireland..a less sleazy version of greyhound, headed for Baltimore through Skibberean. Once I got to Baltimore...after we almost ran over a dog that looked just like the Bus Eireann dog...slightly funny...I had a 4 hour wait for the next ferry to Cape Clear. The ferry took about an hour altogether much of which involved traveling along in the water in the middle of a cloud of fog! You couldn't see anything around you, just the cloud. Once I got onto the Island I made my way to the goat farm which has great views of the Bay from it's position on top of the hill. The Island itself is tiny..3 miles by 1 1/2 but it has many rocky hills, much of which I just finished hiking through, with amazing views. The goats are adorable! 8 kids so far and one who is just about due any time now! Well that is about it for now..I must go water the goats!

Carrying a small child through Europe

Walking from my hostel to the centralstajon (central train and bus stations)today I realized that I am carrying the weight of a small child through Europe, my bag was last weighed in at Stansted airport in London as 45lbs...add my other bad that is probably about 8lbs or so and you have a child. Although I think it would be better if I was giving a child a piggy back ride through Europe because then I could make them walk...and I would..because they are heavy!
I am currently waiting for my bus that goes out to Oslo Torp..the cheaper airport in the area that isn't even located in Oslo at all! It is nearly 2 hours south in Sandjefjord, I don't really mind the long bus trip because the views of the country side are beautiful, and believe me Torp is in the country...when I landed there last week from London there were horses staring at the plane as we coasted dorm the runway.
My day and a half in Oslo has been fairly interesting. I found a place to stay that I later read is mostly used for military personnel, which explains the bland white paint and structured set up of the dorm rooms. It was in a great location though right by Karl Johans Gate, the main 'drag' so to speak through central Oslo. Yesterday I grabbed one of those free touristy maps that seem to be everywhere you turn in Oslo and headed up to the Royal Palace. Gunnar had told me that the guards outside the Palace wore these hats with what I would call feathers on one side that cover part of their face...I had to investigate. The King's guards were very entertaining, they each have their own post outside the Palace and when they get bored they not only march but stomp around and make very quick turns and are overall terribly entertaining. I feel bad being one of THOSE tourists who enjoys watching guards around castles and palaces but c'mon...you don't see this type of thing just anywhere. After walking around the castle I headed across the city to find Vigelandparken, a park built by an artist by the name of Vigeland. Vigeland made over 200 sculptures and they are all displayed in this beautiful park. At first the park doesn't seem so interesting...just sculptures in a park..but no. All the 200+ sculptures are naked women, men and children in different poses. Some are fighting, hugging, kissing, throwing eachother etc. and they all look very lifelike. The other interesting thing about Vigelandparken is that all the sculptures lead up to a giant phallus made up of sculptures of people. Now that you don't see everyday! As I was walking through the park I kept on thinking that this kind of art, at least on this large scale and in a very public place would never be allowed in the US. But no one seems to bat an eye here as children run around the statues looking at them and some even climbing them. I have to say that the park is very amazing and even though it took me nearly two hours to get there after getting lost in the twisting streets of Oslo and refusing to take public transportation (you see more when you walk) it was totally worth it!
One thing I wish I had time to do is to go see the Munch Museum. Munch is a famous artist whose painting the 'scream' was stolen many years back, and restored once it was found. But I did see a lot of graffiti about Munch and a huge spray painted version of Munch's 'scream' on the side of a builing.
Alas, maybe another time I will be able to see the real 'Scream' for now I am headed to Dublin and am very excited about it! After studying Ireland for 6-7 months it seems like it is about time I go. I will be staying in Dublin for a night and them catching a series of buses to get to County Cork where I am going to be organic farming for a week. From there I am headed to the Aran Islands to visit an old roomate, and after that headed back to Dublin to hang out with my friends there for a few days before we go to the language school in County Donegal.
But before I leave beautiful Norway it seems that I should write more about it, I have written pages upon pages in my journal about my experiences in Bergen and how thankful I am for being able to have gone there. It is hard to summarize an experience that means so much, as Gunnar drove me to the train station Monday night I was reflecting up on how much fun I had meeting family and seeing exactly where my ancestors lived. For a moment I thought about how everyone told me my life would change on this trip and as we rounded the corner in the city centre in Bergen an overpowering feeling came over me. This feeling was something much larger than myself, it was a feeling you get that lets you know that what you just experienced or saw or felt has changed you, that your mind will often drift back to this magical, beautiful place and the amazing people you met. It is hard to describe but I can imagine everyone has these feelings after they have a great experience such as I had.
Gunnar and his family will never know how much that trip helped me in regards not only to family but also things about myself. Its amazing how much you realize about yourself when you are on top of Fløyden, one of the 7 mountains surrounding Bergen, looking down on the fjords realizing that a couple generations back your own blood called this place home. It is as I wrote before...undescribable.

Indescribable Bergen!

Wow, my time in Norway with my family in Bergen has been incredible. So incredible it is difficult to write about both emotionally and hard to put into words. But I will do my best. We [family in the US] first got into contact with family in Bergen, Norway on April 1, 1998 exactly 9 years ago on this past April 1st when I was at their flat. Thankfully my wonderful Grandma had the will to find family and learn more about our family before we came to America. Through her research she found Gunnar, and they have been emailing since they first made contact 9 years ago. As a young kid I can remember my Grandma and Mom reading me these emails and explaining where Norway was, and I have always wanted to come and visit. So you can imagine what meeting our family here meant to me.
When I got off the train in Bergen, after traveling for a day straight and being up for two days straight...totally worth it, I was nervous about not being able to pick Gunnar and his wife Britt out of the crowd on the platform. Miraculously it was a non issue as a I found a couple and we both checked eachother out and somehow instantly knew eachother even though pictures we had of eachother were 8 or so years old. It was almost like it was meant to be, which is how the whole trip felt.
Gunnar and Britt were so great to me, taking time off from work to show me around Bergen, Lakevag, and where Nodre Vaggen was [where my family is from] before the Nazis took over the area in World War II. I got to meet my grandmothers first cousins who are wonderful women, so hilarious! Neither of them speak english and I only know the little Norwegian they taught me so there was a great language barrier. Thankfully Gunnar has excellent english and was able to translate so I could speak to them. Gunnars mother even tried to speak to me in German just in case! I also met one of Gunnars daughters and her adorable 5 year old daughter. Saying goodbye to them was very difficult, and I already miss them very much! I will write more later when I have had more time to digest what I have just gone through, there is so much to write about.
My current plan is to leave for Ireland this Friday, Good Friday in fact, but this might change due to poor transportation in Ireland on the weekend. I might leave for Ireland tomorow which would be fine with me, it is really hard to be in Norway and not be in Bergen. But as I said I will write more later!
Harda!