The Day I Saw a Bear in Ireland

Having accomplished 2 of the 3 goals already, I had to finish the last one to call it a success.  On August 30th, I went to the Giants Causeway.  After I ordered a large Americano and they gave me a 12oz cup.  What is that?!  The Causeway is crazy cool, especially if you're into myths, stacked items, and/or hexagons.  You can read about the myth here.

Prash found a really cool throne...so, naturally I channelled Joffrey and made that throne my b-word. And then he acted like a Billy Goat again.  I was almost 90% sure he would just fall into the ocean.

The Causeway was really fun especially if you love to walk and climb on things, I recommend it if you're ever in the area.  I hear the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge is also fun...but we didn't go because it was really rainy and windy...totally not because I have a paralyzing fear of rope bridges.  Totally wasn't that.  

At this point in the day, we started the 5,6,7? (I can't remember) hour journey to Doolin.  The good part is we got to see most of Ireland and it is beautiful.  The other good part is I didn't fall asleep this time!!  The bad part is it was 6 hours in a car.  Luckily, Spotify saved the day with the Songs to Sing in the Car Playlist...and sing we did!  

After driving for a while, I think we were near Sligo, we decided to follow a brown tourist sign to a scenic location.  Let me be clear.  This seemed like a really great idea at the time.  So, we go down this road, and it seems to lead us to a deserted town.  That couldn't be the scenic view, so we keep following the signs.  The further we go, the narrower and less-paved the road gets.  We drove for about 10 minutes and saw only one person and no cars.  The person seemed to have come out of the woods and walked down the street a bit, and then went back into the woods.

For some reason we kept driving and in one of the pastures I saw a black bear.  Upon further review, it turns out it was just a very convincing cow.  But maybe it was really a cow-bear.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Check out that Speed!

At a certain point we got some weird vibes and turned the car around and sped back down the mountain as fast as we could.  When we go almost out of the place you go to be killed, there was a slow moving minivan coming toward us.  I was and am convinced that they were the people who were going to kill us and shove us in the minivan.  Thankfully that did not happen and we were back on the road again!

This is the time where I gush just a little bit. My wonderful boyfriend lets me eat smelly Dill Pickle popcorn in his car.  He tolerates it when I hand him a hand full of M&Ms only to have him find out that they are Pumpkin Spice Latte Flavored (which according to him, is "so me"?).  He will occasionally sing along when I get way too into a song.  He even lets me listen to One Direction when the new song won't leave my head.  But what really takes the cake is when he lets me sing Whitney Houston to him.  With all the passion Whitney would have had.  And then after his eardrums had burst, he high fives me for hitting the high note.  For that, Mr. Mancub, I love you. (I'm sorry I smelled up your car with the popcorn) (You made it worse with the cheese and ham in the trunk for days).

Finally, after what seems like ages, we made it to Doolin and checked into the hostel!  It was the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in, and we had a private room with a private entrance so it felt like a tiny one room house.  I mean, the toilet seat did have fish on it...so that was kind of off putting, but overall, not a bad experience!  The hostel is right on the river and there is a nice seating area outside.  All of the food at one of the 4 restaurants in town is insanely expensive...so maybe take a picnic.

Thus concludes our long, exhausting day of travel.  Coming soon, the Cliffs of Moher...where I just really wanted to reenact the Princess Bride.