September 16th - ???

Elle, my roommate in Dublin, and I were once again sharing a room. She already knew I was NOT a morning person - not really an awake person in general! - so when I woke up and sat without moving for a good 5 minutes afterwards, she just ignored me. Once dressed, we went downstairs to breakfast. Again brown bread with butter and jam, tea and water were on the table. Moira was bringing out one plate at a time, filled with each of our specifications: 1 egg, 2 sausages or 2 eggs, no sausages (mine), 2 eggs, 2 sausages, etc. Unfortunately, my plate was forgotten, which ended up working out, because one of the girls said she didn't want her eggs since, in addition to the bread, eggs and sausages, Moira had also prepared a full plate of bacon, which, like everything else, she fully expected us to finish. We all were drinking a ton of tea, which meant that before leaving to go explore, turns had to be take at the bathroom the 6 girls staying upstairs shared.

For those of you who haven't experienced the wonders of Irish plumbing, allow me to fill you in. Flushing a toilet is no easy matter - many of the handles/buttons/whatever are stiff and difficult to depress. Furthermore, some toilets, like the one at Moira's, won't flush until the tank has refilled itself from the last flushing. Like the other eccentricities about Moira's home (I will say that both Elle and I were glad that we had ended up in the only room without either a picture of the Virgin Mary or Jesus looking down at us, since we're both Jewish. Sophie ended up in a room with a holographic Jesus and it definitely creeped her and us out when we went to see it.), we quickly accepted this and moved on.

At breakfast, everyone had expressed a desire to walk around the whole island, a task which Mary had said would take 2.5 hours. Knowing Mary, we asked her daughter, who was on the trip with us, who said it would more likely take 4+ hours. (In case I haven't mentioned this yet, Mary is what Jacob would call a "beast." She works out twice a day every day. Barely a week before we left she'd been out on a bike ride of "about 20km" when she was hit by a car and fractured 3 ribs. Needless to say, she was not allowed to carry her backpack, but she insisted on walking with us to Moira's house so we wouldn't get lost. Remember, uphill, 30 minutes, 3 fractured ribs.) The 7 girls split up into two groups. I went with Sophie and Elle. We didn't have time to circumnavigate the island before lunch, so we just picked a direction and started walking.

First, we went to the chapel, which was right across the road from Moira's. It was very small, but charming: whitewashed walls with stained glass windows and wooden pews. In the courtyard outside was a little outbuilding with a thatched roof. We had learned from Mary that all the buildings on island used to be thatched but that it had no longer been feasible or worthwhile to have to re-thatch all the roofs every 5-6 years so they had switched to slate.

From the chapel, we continued on the road, which eventually led us up the hill to the "top" of the island. We saw cows and sheep and even a horse who tried to eat my jacket, but more than anything else, we saw lots and lots of stone walls. Inis Meaín in completely covered in these walls, which give the illusion of the island being a giant patchwork quilt. The walls were built by famine relief projects, much in the same way that schools in LA were build during the Great Depression. we picked a path to follow, which eventually led us (after slipping through some gaps in the walls) to where we could see the three windmills. Wandering around, we found a mini-Stonehenge, amazing views and lots of black and white dogs. The only dog we saw while we were there that wasn't black and white, in fact, was Moira's little beagle-mix, who was white and brown. On our way back to the house, one of the dogs we passed decided to adopt us. Although I didn't see it, Sophie said that the owner popped their head out, saw us and the dog, and went back in their house.

The dog, which we named Dog in a stroke of creativity, refused to stay at his house. We all tried to convince him. We tried to lead him back home more than once, but to no avail. Like it or not, Dog was coming with us. Now, the very idea that a dog could follow us home is nearly foreign. Dogs aren't allowed off-leash without their owners and even with their owners are almost always kept on leash out of fear of lawsuits or who-knows-what. This is NOT the case in Ireland. Almost every dog I've seen has been off-leash and on Inis Meain particularly, it's not like the dogs could wander too far from home - there simply wasn't enough space! Anyways, so now Dog was following us home, but Dog was a fairly doggy dog and so when we passed another house with a black and white dog, Dog tried to go over and make friends. The other dog clearly wasn't as friendly as Dog, who got seriously growled at for his attempt at friendliness. After that incident, the three of us definitely made an effort to keep Dog from irritating any of the other neighborhood canines.

With Dog following us, we continued on towards the house, but now we had a problem. What were we to do with Dog when we got to Moira's? She already had a dog of her own and none of us could really describe where Dog lived, because even though Sophie had seen someone, we had no real way of knowing if that was Dog's house or if he'd been out wandering the island before we came across him. Luckily, just as we arrived at Moira's, a car pulled up. The driver, a woman, leaned out and said something along the lines of, so there he is! She then drove the car away, as the three of us looked at each other confused. Since she hadn't seemed worried and hadn't even opened the car door to let Dog in, we left Dog outside the front gate, assuming he could find his own way home and that his owner at least knew approximately where he'd be if he didn't turn up. We went inside and washed up, then headed to the table to meet up with the other group.

After only two meals, we each had "our" seat no longer questioned the mismatched silverware, mugs, and dishes. We knew that the napkins were either on top of the cabinet behind my chair or in the first drawer and that I had somehow gotten myself elected tea-pourer and cake-cutter (thanks to my early training carefully dividing dessert between Jacob and me). Lunch consisted of brown bread and white bread, jam and butter, leftover chicken, smoked salmon (!!! - I love Ireland!), and cream cheese, plus tea and another of the chocolate tea cakes (We had had one at dinner the night before, hence the cake-cutting job. Mom, you should be proud. :P ). Again, we all ate as much as we could and still could not satisfy our host, who could not believe that we STILL hadn't finished the chickens. Immediately prior to lunch, I had seen that right across the way was a large chicken coop, which probably had housed the chickens we were eating.

After lunch came the inevitable line at the bathroom and then Sophie, Elle and I ventured out again. Our first stop was at the general store on the island. My camera had died that morning and I needed batteries, everyone wanted postcards - and we all wanted junk food. Why this sudden urge for a candy bar, I have no idea, probably because it wasn't immediately available. Regardless, we were all craving our own particular weaknesses - soda, chocolate, chips, whatever.

From there, we continued to wander in that direction. We quickly came to a gate that looked like the connecting passages behind it led to one of the forts on the island. We wanted to go investigate, but weren't keen to get in trouble for trespassing on someone's pastures, so we continued on our way. The road we were on eventually devolved into a path between two walls. Like all the roads there, it wound its way around, so we were all taken aback when we rounded a corner to find ourselves suddenly confronted by half a dozen goats staring straight at us. We burst out laughing. It was so completely unexpected and strange that we simply couldn't help ourselves.

Once we had recovered, we continued on our way. I fell further back, mainly because I'd get distracted by this flower or that blackberry bush or decide I had to take a picture of the goats one more time, etc. I can be... easily distracted, to say the least. In fact, I've been so distracted that it's past my bedtime, so I will write more tomorrow! Goodnight!