Aran Island

This is where I spent the night Thursday, on Inishmor, the largest of the Aran Islands. The school group had come for a few hours and it just didn’t seem long enough for me, so I found a cheap hostel and spent the night. After I’d checked in I just rode around on my rented bike for several hours, taking pictures and sitting and looking at the incredible stone walls and ocean scenery, like the above. Later, at the pub, I fell in with some locals and discovered that the island drug dealer, Spoons, had been gone for a week or so, nobody knew where, so there was no pot available (not that I wanted any, but it was good to know). A Scottish guy who actually looked vaguely like Mike Myers (reminding me, of course, of So I Married an Axe Murderer) came back to the hostel with us to drink American whiskey and got even more pissed than he already had been, then (I suspect) discovered my bike lying out back and availed himself of it to ride home. At least, it was not there next morning when I woke up.

This being an island, the guys at the rental place didn’t seem too concerned about it when I came back empty-handed. Next came an epic journey involving a ferry ride, a bus into Galway, a longer bus back to Cork, finally a city bus back to our dorm. I was so wiped all I could do was crash in my room and sleep…