What do you mean there's no 3G up here!?!

Wicklow Day 2! 

I think my alarm went off about 5 minutes after I fell asleep...

After we spent a good hour laughing to ourselves Joe and Jorie fell asleep and I listened to a three part symphony entitled “who snores the loudest” arranged by Joe, Jorie and Romanian Steve, with a special guest accompaniment of Joe's stomach trying to digest his 100^th fried chicken and chips meal since being in Ireland.

Needless to say I was tried. If it hadn’t been for my Dracula mug coffee topped off with 4% milk (yes, you read it correctly. 4%) I don’t think I would have made it up the mountain.

Before we left Trish gave us the lowdown on the various trails in the park and suggested we take the white trail which circles around Glendelough Valley.

Trish was the bomb, so we took her word for it. 

She drove us the 30 the minutes to the mountains, on the "wrong" side of the road while belting out Van Morrison the whole way there. We got there and had to walk about 30 minutes to get to the start of the trail so we took a few stops along the first of the lakes and a monastic city.

The monastic City from afar 

Headstone at the Monastic City 

Lower Lake 

 and I left a little piece of Jorie, Joe and myself in Wicklow!

We took some time to look for 4 leaf clovers 

And then it was time for the mountain... 

Here's the lowdown on the white trail of Glendelough "Glen of two lakes." It's official name is the Spinc and Gleneolo Valley Route. The trail ascends along Poulanass Waterfall and then you take a steep 600+ wooden step trek to a point that overlooks Upper Lake. After reaching the top you hike through Glenealo Valley and finally back down into Glendalough Valley.

That big long description translates into this... 

As I'm sure you can tell by the pictures, the day was perfect. The mountains were hands down the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to be in Ireland and experience all of this beauty with some pretty amazing people. 

Joe and Jorie kept me laughing the entire day. Joe (jokingly) couldn't seem to figure out why his international data plan wouldn't reach the top of the mountain and Jorie held up the rear to "take pictures," which looked something like this... 

Again.... plenty more where this came from.... Every time I asked if she was ok she would yell, "I'm not dying, I'm taking pictures!" The girl makes me laugh till I about pee my pants... or in this case, pee in a sparsely wooded area. 

Jorie and I also kept getting made fun of by other hikers for our runners (shoes). We didn't get the memo that vans were not Glendelough appropriate... oops. Lets just say our dogs were barkin by the time we walked through the rocky valley... But don't worry, that didn't stop me from climbing 

After Trish came to get us from the park and brought us back to town we were starved and just wanted some good food before heading back to Dublin. Since it was Sunday we knew most things would be closed, not to mention we were tired and didn't walk to walk all over town, we went to the resturaunt acorss from our hostile (where we had eaten the night before). 
Too bad the menu had changed and when we ordered 3 chicken ceaser salads we were given this... 

I literally thought Joe was going to explode. He turned more green than the Hulk and any hillside in Ireland put together... Regardless we ate it and hit up a Tesco on the way to the train station for some Candy which we shared with our new friends from Austriallia and Utah! 


After this weekend I'm sure it will take me a few days for my feet to stop hurting, but it was well worth it! Today was easily my favorite day I have spent in Ireland thus far and I am so thankful for every minute of it! 


Time for some rest and homework :/ 







Until Tomorrow... 


              Cheers, 
                  Becca :) 

Joe Hates Memories

To Wicklow we will go! 
Day 1 of the first weekend adventure!

I met Saturday morning with a little bit of nervousness, a lot of excitement, and no idea what to pack. But that train to Wicklow was leaving Connolly station whether I was on it or not. And so unsure of what the weekend would bring I shoved a few things into my bookbag and Jorie, Joe and I made our way to the station.

The train ride was just about an hour and when we arrived in Wicklow we made our way to Captain Halpin’s Bunkhouse. This was the first hostile experience for all of us, and lets face it you don’t tend to hear stories about how awesome hostiles are, so I think its safe to say we were all pretty nervous.

I wont get into the details of our room yet, but I can tell you that as far as the staff go, we lucked out. The bunkhouse was run by a lovely older couple, Ian and Trish who told us all about their tiny town in the middle of county Wicklow. They also told us they would drive us to the mountains the next day if we were interested. 
We were. And so it was decided, Sunday morning we would head to Wicklow Mountians National Park.

That just left Saturday to explore the town. Wicklow may be small, but it certainly has character.

 After the town came the coastline, which is a view I’m certain will never cease to amaze me.

While exploring the far end of the coastline we stumbled across The Black Castle Ruins. Which may sound odd to “stumble” across ruins, but that’s one of the many things I love about Ireland, there is so much history literally in the locals backyards.

Once again, I couldn’t contain my inner 5 year old and just had to climb everything I saw... As usual, the view from the top was the best.

After the ruins we headed headed back down the coastline to the lighthouse and Joe thought it would be fun to get his picture taken with every boat that was painted along the pier…. This was before he realized how many there were. He tried to back out halfway through, but I wasn’t having it. 
Somewhere in this montage the phrase “Joe hates memories” was born and has been said about 1,000 time since.  

Believe me, there are plenty more where that came from.

After the day of exploring we headed to the pub Leitrim where Ian told us there would be a band playing traditional Irish music. We were intruiged so we made our way there.

Even looking back now I’m still not totally sure what happened. Here is what I do know. We defientely went where Ian told us (we double checked the next day). We walked into a pub where the youngest person sitting at the bar was at least 15 years our senior, and the majority of the others looked as though they may have been a part of the 1916 Easter Rising (See mom, I am paying attention in class).

We walked in and were immediately greeted and dubbed as “not from around here.” Of the 20 people in the pub (including us) we had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time talking to Gerry…. Who we later were told was the town alcoholic.

Keep in mind, this is Ireland, for one man to call another man out as having so many pints that its too many pints… that’s saying something.

Aside from the blatantly obvious that Gerry had Guinness running through his veins, we learned that back in his prime Gerry was a schoolteacher who taught History and Irish. Between Gerry’s thick accent and the fact that I’m pretty sure he was speaking in cursive, its hard to say what we talked about. I know there was something involving hurling, Gealic football and the “hills” we were going to visit the following day.

When Gerry finished his pint we managed to sneak away to the Forge where we met Dermot. Dermot was the bartender and the one who informed us of Gerry’s place among the town. He told us that it wasn’t necessarily that Gerry was takin the piss with us (he truly believed what he was saying), but we shouldn’t listen to a word he said.

Not a problem Dermot, couldn’t even if I wanted to.

Dermot gave us the impression that Wicklow doesn’t really see its fare share of tourists. This made sense considering we were asked what we were doing in Wicklow at every shop we entered... 

After being looked at like an exhibit in the zoo we decided to head back to our hostile and try and get some rest before our long day in the mountains.

Well at least we tried.

For those of you who have never stayed in a hostile, I’ll try to give the best description I can, and for those of you who have…. I empathize.  

In the short time we had been in our hostile we had already been serenaded by a Hungarian womans choir, awkwardly shared a couch with two German girls watching Sex and the City with German subtitles, and “met” our roommate.

Our room at Captian Halpin’s was a 6 person room occupied by Joe, Jorie, myself, and….. lets call him Steve. Steve didn’t speak English, smelled a little like moldy cheese even after a shower, snored like a banchie…and slept in the bunk right above me.

After fumbling around in the dark getting ready for bed trying not to awake  Romanian/German/Mountain man Steve, and making our beds (that we didn’t want to give too much though about what may or may not be on them) all we could do was laugh.

The night was interesting to say the least, but more on that later. 

         Until tomorrow, 


                 Cheers, 
                    Becca :)