So for the last portion of my trip, my class and I have been staying in the lovely city of Galway. I personally love it. It is beautiful. It looks like a traditional Irish village but it big enough that there is always something fun to do. Personally I’m just excited that I get to run around in a really cool city and have lots of fun. I like it even better than Dublin, which is awesome.

But we haven’t just stayed in Galway. Yesterday out class was loaded into a bus and taken out to Inis Mor, an island off of the Irish coast. To get there we had to take a ferry ride and I believe the sea was mad at us. It was the most brutal boat ride I can remember, with us being tossed around and rolled. Even worse was the fact that I spent the entire time panicking. The waves threw us sideways at one point which sent me into a flashback of the accident I was in earlier this year. If that had been the end of it, I would have been fine. But instead we were thrown around for another 30 minutes so I had a panic attack and spent the entire time sobbing hysterically. But I made it off the ferry and was rewarded for my bravery with this…

Ruins! Wonderful, beautiful 7-8th century ruins of the monastic community that once lived on Inis Mor! OHMYGODITWASAMAZING!!! I may or may not have run around the ruins like a hyper active six year old yelling at the top of my lungs about the great historic treasure we were seeing while everyone else stared at me like I was insane. But hey, it got my mind off the ferry ride.

Now I should probably describe the island for you all. Inis Mor is a god forsaken (get it? Cause of the abandoned monastic community?) chunk of rock off the Irish coast. It’s only ten miles length wise, and two across. The soil was created by the first settlers who made it out of seaweed and sand so they could live there. Hearing that, I began to question the sanity of these individuals. Ireland is just an afternoon boat ride away. You can see it from the island. And these people chose to stay there? Crazy.

But the view does make up for it.

All around the island are these stone walls. At first we thought they were for farms, but they’re not. The island is so rocky that when farmers were planting their fields, they kept creating piles of rocks. Unsure of what to do with them, they then created all the walls we saw.

And one of the most impressive walls is the ancient fort: Dun Aonghasa. Built in the early broze age, it is the oldest fort in all of Europe. To get there, we had to climb straight up a mountain. I went nice and slow not to stress my leg and it was beautiful to look out over Inis Mor and see the landscape stretching out. The view at the top was just as spectacular as the rest.

The fort once was away from the cliffs, but the years have eroded it so it hangs off over the edge of one. Now, you may be wondering why I look so ridiculous in this picture. The reason is simple. At the top of the mountain, gale force wind hits you. It knocked me back a couple of feet when I first got there. The entire time I was slanted sideways into the wind.

It really made me miss my little brother Spencer. He’s about a foot taller than me, so when we go to places like this he is my babysitter. His job in high wind conditions is to keep a firm hold of my hood so I don’t get blown off over the cliff. Without him there I had to make sure I didn’t get knocked over the edge.

It was a great little day trip. And the ancient history I saw made me ridiculously excited. Seriously. I was the most excited person once off the ferry of doom. I would love to got back there some other time when it is not super windy and spend more time poking aroung Dun Aonghasa and the surrounding shops.