Wrap Up!

Well, I've officially been back for almost a month, so I should probably wrap up the Ireland portion of this blog. Whether I'll keep going with it remains to be seen.

Ok, so our last day in Galway was spent on another bus tour. The countryside was absolutely gorgeous. We saw Kylemore Abbey, a famine wall (a huge stone wall built by starving Irishmen for a penny per day - because, you know, when people are starving to death, why would you just help them?), and a lot of ruins and medieval tombs. At one of the tombs, I chased down an Irish cow and made friends with it! Ok, maybe that's not true, but I did get super close and got my picture taken with it. In other farm-animal news, I fed a Connemara pony! He was adorable. On our way back to Dublin, we stopped to watch a sunset over Galway Bay, and it was completely awe-inspiring. Absolutely magical. Freezing cold, but magical.

We got back to Dublin on Monday night, and we just had a chill evening at Jacobs Inn and rested up after 2 veeeeery long days. On Tuesday, we just kind of hung out and waited for everyone else to get back from everywhere they went. Some people went to Scotland, some went to London, and one went to Kilkeel to visit friends.

That night, we went out because it was our last night in Ireland! A few of us went back to the Temple Bar, hung out there for a while, and then we spent the rest of the evening at The Quays Bar watching some live music. It was a great last night!

On Wednesday, we got up WAY too early (5am!) and walked to the bus stop, where we caught a bus to the airport. We spent the rest of the day travelling home, and we got back to Minnesota around 8pm. It was a LONG day. It was good to see family again! I'm happy to be back, but I just felt such a profound sense of belonging when I was in Ireland that it's weird to not have that here.

All in all, I'm going back - I just don't know when. My Ireland story isn't over yet, and I hope it never will be! Thank you all for sticking with me through this!

Love,
Amanda