Stag who?! Stagdoo!

I’ll break this past weekend up into two blogs. This one will focus on Saturday.

Throughout the summer there are three school-sponsored trips that you can go on that will take you throughout Ireland. One to the North, West, and South (and then we live in the east!) The problem is they’re 200 Euro each and my friends and I knew we could do the same thing but cheaper! So that’s what we decided to do!

At the burren. (L-R: Amy, Lindsay, Kelsie, Me, Jahna, Meghan, Ellie).

This past weekend we booked a tour to Galway, which mean being downtown by seven in the morning so we had a pretty early start! It wasn’t too bad though because I went to bed relatively early (around midnight maybe) so I got a few hours of sleep. Plus I think what helped was knowing we’d be able to sleep on the bus.

Our bus driver was great! And he told some great, funny stories throughout the day that kept us laughing. One of the first places we went on our tour was The Burren,

Standing out on a rock at The Burren.

which is an area with a bunch of limestone covering the landscape. We spent some time there and was able to get some great pictures. It was a bit tough walking in places because the rocks didn’t exactly make for a stable surface.

Ellie standing out on a rock ledge at The Burren.

Of course, Ellie was our adventurer (as always) and took the pic out on the protruding rock… the rest of us worried it would fall!

At some point in the day we switched bus drivers and moved onto a smaller bus for the overnight portion of the trip. Here we picked up a new bus driver and were now on a small bus with only about seven other people (plus the seven from our own group).

Meghan and Jahna at The Burren

Although the bus felt a little cramped at first because we’d just moved from a much bigger bus, I actually liked this one better. It was really nice being in such a small group and it allowed us to meet the other people too.

After switching buses we headed to the Cliffs of Moher, which were absolutely amazing!

At the Cliffs of Moher.

There were two ways you could climb up to look out at the Cliffs and Amy and I

Amy and me at the Cliffs of Moher.

went to the left while most others went to the right- to the right were lotttsss of stairs that I wasn’t willing to trust my asthma on!

Sitting at the Cliffs of Moher.

I suppose technically you weren’t supposed to go to the left but everyone did anyway. Really they should just pave it and make it safer for us since they know we’re going to go that way anyway.

Oops- we must've missed the sign! :-O

Instead we actually had to climb over a mini-wall and walk on some unsteady surfaces to be get to a point where we could look out at the ocean.

The whole while I was up there all I could think was how beautiful it was… and how much my dad and grandma would have hated it! We were sooo far up and when you look over the edge it’s just a straight shot down to the rocky waters. Dad might have been able to make it took look out a bit, but I’m not sure Gran-mi-ma would have made it as far up as we did!

We headed to our hostel after visiting the Cliffs of Moher, which for a hostel actually wasn’t too bad. It was in the town of Killarney, which was a pretty small town with most of the main pubs and shops on just one little road. Five of us were able to stay together in one room at the hostel and then Kelsey and Lindsay staying in a different room with three other people from the tour. The only downside was that their hot water wasn’t working so they could only put it on for an hour at night and an hour in the morning. Which mean very cold showers! Us smart ones just decided to shower when we got home the next day- but Meghan and Jahna braved the cold water and we could literally hear them screaming the whole while they showered! No thanks!

That night the fourteen of us from the tour met at a local pub for dinner, along with our bus driver. It was nice because the tour we used (Paddywagon Tours) goes there often so we actually got a deal on our drinks! Always a plus! After dinner then our driver took us to another local pub to hear traditional Irish music and then at 11 a live band came on.

This second pub was actually a lot of fun. We also wound up running into three (!) different bachelor parties! We love our bachelor parties because it’s a whole group of guys out looking to have fun… it meshes well with our whole group of girls out looking to have fun! Hehe. Oh but I forgot, here they’re not called bachelor parties they’re called “Stagdoos” because the bachelor is a “stag.” We learned that from our first stagdoo way back in our first week- remember that? Oh, good times!

While we were there Kelsie caught the eye of someone but was having a bit of trouble breaking the ice! He’d come over to talk to us for a bit but then the conversation sort of broke off. So when I saw him and his friend were up at the bar I pulled Kelsie up there to get them talking. It turns out I’m actually a pretty good wingman, hehe! I got the conversation going and then sort of passed him off to Kelsie so they could talk as I talked to his friend. He turned out to be Scottish and though he was adorable, there was something about his accent that actually made him less cute to me when he talked! Haha…. I guess I prefer those Irish accents. Anyway, he turned out to be not so exciting after we actually talked to him so we moved on to other people throughout the night… though I did get a free drink out of them!

I spent the rest of the night with Meghan talking to a guy named Shane; he was also with a stagdoo! We had a good time but at one point he said he had to ask my age, even though you’re never supposed to ask a woman that, and I think he was a little unnerved to find that I was only twenty-one… he was twenty-nine. Oh well.

I actually wound up having to leave the pub early because I went to the bathroom at some point and when I came back Meghan was somehow about to punch the “stag” from the party, who had been bothering her all night. I didn’t want to leave because I was still having fun talking to Shane but you gotta put your girls before your boys, ya know? So I got her the heck out of there and we headed back to the hostel a bit before everyone else.

The bed was the most uncomfortable thing in the world… but by the time I hit it at past 2am- and with too many drinks and shots in me to name- it basically felt like the best thing in the world!

written by

kmr788 on June 15, 2009 from Killarney, Ireland

from the travel blog: Dublin, Ireland

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