Today we had a leisurely morning because we left at 11am. This meant that after breakfast at 9, Alex, Annika, and I decided to practice our tin whistles. Eric, Hannah, and Nick went with us as we tried to find the hot tub, but when we failed, we parked down outside the hotel (a good distance away) near a stream and sat on a bench and started learning more songs. We worked on intonation so we’re definitely more in tune than we were before, and our next step is fixing our air flow. One lady (we think it was a concierge person) came by and asked if she could take some pictures of us to put on the hotel’s website (HAHA) and then Dr. D and Mrs. D walked by later to take some pictures of us as well.
We then got on the bus for a 4 hour ride. First stop on our way to Derry was Drumcliffe, which is this very photogenic cliff, and then it has a church and next to the church is the grave of Yeats, the Irish poet. We decided to take the Riverwalk trail, which honestly was just a short path alongside this river that took us about 10 minutes to walk round trip. We are all getting a bit antsy because none of us have been getting exercise and have spent most of our waking hours sitting down, whether on bus rides, meals, or playing music. So though the trail helped somewhat, and we all really just wanted to be walking instead of sitting down, it wasn’t long enough and we thought we would hit a scenic spot to take nice photos, but we never really did, so it was a little disappointing. The river and the pictures we did take though were lovely and the trees shading the path were very picturesque and Eric kept wanting photos of him in it, which resulted in many very nice photos that also had Eric’s smiling face in them.
After heading back on the bus, we drive for 2 or so hours and then we stop at the cliffs. We saw the cliffs from a distance (we saw the water) and we got progressively excited as we neared. This was honestly the highlight of the day and the trip so far (sorry Yeats) because for the whole trip we were hoping to get to see the famous Irish cliffs, and we were (or at least I was) a little worried that we might not actually get to see them.
We stopped at Mullaghmore Head and got down to take pictures. I pulled out the piccolo to play a few Irish tunes and Meredith was an awesome photographer and took some nice photos. Soon, everyone sees Peter as he’s randomly kneeling on a cliff. From our location, it does not look safe at all, but pretty soon everyone is walking and trying to go onto that location and walk down on the rocks, even as Dr. D is worriedly calling out “no one go on the rocks!” But Dr. D eventually caves and comes down with us, and oh gosh it is just so beautiful. Seeing the dark rocks and the white waves crashing into them, and the beige porous rocks contrasting with the dark mussels stuck to them, it’s such a powerful scene. The wind was blowing and it was quite cool, and all of us got wonderful photos.
None of us wanted to leave and it was a sad trek back up the cliffs and back to the bus. The last leg of the bus ride was really rough and it did rain for some time (but when does it not rain in Ireland??). I try not to sleep on bus rides just because it doesn’t help jet lag, I’m afraid of missing some scenery, I like looking at the countryside, and also because I don’t want pictures taken of me. However, I did doze off for 20 or so minutes collectively, and Annika managed to get some pictures of me. Whoops.
Arriving at the hotel, I am for the third location, roomates with Meredith (we’ve settled into a comfortable routine with each other though and I’m infinitely grateful that she is a sound sleeper and puts up with me staying up late because I’m uploading photos to Facebook and writing blog posts), and the rooms are nice, but the one small meh factor is that the rooms are all metal keys and there is only one key per room. It makes it more inconvenient to go back to the room, and one person has to be in charge of the key, preferably the more responsible one. Actually the major downside is that wifi doesn’t work in any of the rooms, and it is barely functioning in the lobby, but hey, that means most of us were off our phones!
Before dinner, many of us played card games in the lobby (everyone gravitated to the lobby for the wifi, but with so many people on, the wifi just stopped working altogether). After dinner, some of us had to find an ATM to exchange money, and so we ended up walking around town and exploring a bit. We pass by Emil and Camille, who tell us that the ocean is a 10 minute walk from our hotel. We don’t believe them because we wander around and don’t find the ocean. We walk down a neighborhood and this dog has put its head through the bars of the fence and 5 minutes later, we look back and the dog is out of the gate and running around. So this starts a 10 or so episode of us trying to figure out how to get the dog back into the gate and we eventually realize that the gate is held closed by this large log leaning on the gate doors, so we open the gate by removing the log, the dog eagerly runs in, and then we close the door and leave.
We then meet up with a bunch of the chaperones, and we all walk down this path because we see the ocean in the distance.
It’s a long walk, but we do make it eventually, and take pictures of the sunset and the traintracks (and there was a field of sheep and they were baaaaing so loudly and Clara and I took so many pictures of them).
We watch the sunset over the ocean and it is so beautiful. The lighting created a silhouette effect and lots of us were taking pictures of each other (new profile pictures?? Today was definitely the day to take amazing new profile pictures, between the cliffs and the sunset over the ocean).
Obviously it’s past curfew (curfew is 10pm, we got to the ocean at 10pm) but hey, we were with chaperones so it is 100% okay. I teach Joe how to skip stones and so many of us just stand there sifting through the rocks to find some smooth pebbles to skip. Emil and Eric are really good, and I think Neil (new jazz director) had 9 or so skips, which is crazy.
When we get back to the hotel, it’s almost 11pm and we just sit down in the lobby because we are too pooped to walk to our rooms. The walk did everyone good. Everyone has been antsy because of the lack of exercise, and I know that we will all sleep very soundly tonight. It’s past midnight and I need to sleep. Goodnight and stay tuned for tomorrow’s post and pictures!
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