Glendolough

Pics: Top is picture of the valley where some monastery/church ruins are located. Bottom is a very old book that St. Kevin was supposed to have written.

Before I mention Glendolough, I should mention an adventure that happened right before it. My friends Liz and Kilby and I went into Dundum village one night for dinner, and we ended up going to this tapas place, Buena Sera. It was really good, but the best part was the really hot, newly arrived Spanish waiter. He came over to our table when we were finishing and asked us if we could teach him English. His English was broken and he wanted to improve. He was looking at Liz when he said this. Liz is very pretty and gets hit on a lot here. I think he wanted more than just English lessons from her, hehe. So, of course we couldn't communicate with him, and I tried remembering my Spanish from highschool, but blanked out. Needless to say, David, our Spaniard, gave us his number. He was actually genuine about wanting to better his English, because he kept on saying he wanted to. So we might go back another night and practice English with him.

Okay, onto Glendolough, last weekend's day trip. Glendolough is a small village and hour and a half southwest from Dublin. It is home to St. Kevin's monastery, or at least the ruins of the monastery. Apparently, St. Kevin is very famous among Christians and this is actually a pilgrimage site to go to. There's a museum with all the information. Outside of the village is a cutsie little town Bray, which is very intriguing. Anyway, the funny aspect to this story has to do with how my friends Liz, Kilby and Simone arrived, with Martin (Roper). I took a bus and they took a car (I couldn't go with them because there's a law here where only three passengers can ride in a car, because there are only three seatbelts. So it was my former writing professor (for the first three weeks) and three friends. Well, needless to say, even though I had to pay for my ride, I definitely had the better of the deal with the transportation. My prof, who is a Dubliner, took a wrong turn and they ended up back in Dublin. He's just like you with directions, no offense. But it did make me laugh at how a native Irishman got lost. Anyway, I arrive and call them and they say they are back in Dublin and are still coming, but now an hour and a half late. So I bought a ticket for the museum, looked around, had some lunch, and stayed in the museum to eavesdrop on the French tour group, to see if my French was good enough. The tourguide was speaking a little too fast for me, but I was able to get phrases and words here and there. I withheld the monastery part so that I could see it with my friends. Meanwhile, while I'm eating lunch and enjoying the museum, my friends and Martin are getting pulled over by the Garda (police). They drove up to a checkpoint station to ask for directions and were caught with an uninsured car (in his defense, Martin was driving his friend's car), uninsured driver, and three foreign, uninsured (Irish uninsured) passengers. In short, to be uninsured is highly illegal here. I couldn't help but laugh, because not that Daddy is uninsured, but this is the type of thing he would do, no offense. It's a professor thing.
When they finally arrived, we went to meet a friend of my prof's who lives in the only privately owned house left near the monastery. (We ended up not being able to see the actual monastery :o( ). But it was still cool because this guy built his cottage from scratch. Yep, the gorgeous cottage, which has a B&B attached to it, by the way, was built by this guy. It was incredible. He has a cottage and B&B that overlooks the valley, a lake, and just miles of landscape. He built his own greenhouse and has an immense strawberry and cucumber patch. I was blown away. These people had a cottage, that they built out in the middle of nowhere, and it was so peaceful. My friends and prof took off down one of the trails and walked around the lake (the prof's friend had to cook dinner), where we saw the cave that St. Kevin used to live in when he was a hermit. I was snapping pictures and wishing I could live there. A perfect place to write. We all wished we could live there. Except for the frequent rain and midges, this place was perfect. You would've loved it. It was a nice escape from the city. And on the way back on the bus, an old Irish man was sitting next to me and I found out that he was a writer. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, hoping to go to Galway this weekend, so I have to pack, but tune in for more Irish adventures.

Love,
Hannah