January 16, 2011 - Day 3

Everyone (except for Erin, Kelly, Dr. Sprayberry, and me) is hungover. They all came stumbling in to breakfast late and feeling sick. One individual refused to remove her sunglasses off. While we ate breakfast, a lady that worked in the dining room told us that one person from our group didn't go to bed until 7:30 a.m. At that moment, it was 8...almost time to get on the bus to drive to Sligo. This girl, let's call her Lindsey, stayed out all night drinking with, talking to, and getting into cars with strangers. She was by herself. Her explanation: "They were buying me drinks...what was I supposed to do? What would you have done?!" Two girls packed her stuff and helped her onto the bus by 8:30 and we were off to Sligo. Most people had taken dramamines to help with the motion sickness of riding the bus while hungover. Lindsey was, presumably, still drunk. The girl behind me threw up basically right beside my ear. Luckily, I am not visibly affected by vomit and was able to keep my tea and toast safely within the confines of my stomach.

The drive to Sligo was lovely, although some parts weren't the lovely pastoral paradise scenes that Ireland calls to mind. However, the area closest to Sligo was magnificent: beautiful green hills and valleys; stones fences; lush, dark forests; and a plethora of wooly farm animals. I especially liked the white sheep with black faces and legs.

The coach dropped us off at the Sligo City Hotel where we got our bags situated in our rooms and then ate lunch in the hotel pub. We got back on the bus shortly after that. The water at the hotel tasted like beef.

We drove to the base of Knocknarea, the "hill" upon which sits Queen Maeve's Cairn.

Then we climbed it. There are only three words to describe the climb up Knocknarea: horrible, agony, beautiful. It was hellish. The cold, the wind, the steep ascent, the grueling pace set by Martin (Joyce's husband), the wet and soggy, mud-covered path--all of those things added up to horrifying pain and thoughts of suicide. I kept falling behind the group because they were walking so fast. I have a very short stride which accounts for some of it...although Martin was overweight and over sixty...

I was the last one up. The legend goes that Queen Maeve is buried on Knocknarea standing up with a spear in her hand and a burial cairn was placed on her grave. The cairn is huge but has never been excavated. The whole things looks a little bit like this:

This is exactly what it looks like. 

You are supposed to carry a stone from the bottom of the "hill" and place it on top of the cairn. This requires you to climb on the actual cairn to get on top to place the rock. It seemed very irreverent. Maeve have mercy on my soul...

It was freezing on top and the wind was insane. It took 1/3 of the time to go down as it did to go up. It was very muddy and slippy and I ended up falling and sliding on my bottom. By the time I got back to the bus, my shoes were soaked through, freezing, and muddy, my legs were jelly, and my pants were slick with mud. It was a nightmare. But then we had to sight see so I couldn't even change my sodden, freezing socks. But the view of Sligo was definitely worth the climb. 

We drove to the Carrowmore "Cemetery" after that. It was a series of standing stone dolmens and cairs throughout the area of Carrowmore. The dolmens were spectacular. 

Dolmen.

We also saw Culleenamore Midden which has... a lot of oysters (I don't know about this...by this time I wanted to die).

The white flecks are oyster shells.

After sight seeing came free time. I changed my pants and shoes, and put them in the tub. I'm thinking about throwing the socks away. I had to go with Erin to buy a new pair of pants because she ripped hers today. We had to climb over a gate and through a barbed wire fence to keep yo with Martin (who has no regard for property laws) and she ripped her jeans on both occasions. We then ate dinner in the hotel and went to a traditional music session in Donaghy's Pub. We only stayed about thirty minutes because we were exhausted.

When we got back to the hotel and into bed, we were delirious. We talked and laughed like fools until after one. It was a lot of fun but horribly tiring. Tomorrow morning is going to be sad.