Last week's weather made me shy away from a trip to the Aran Islands, so Darren and I postponed the trip to yesterday. I won't go into all of the details about how bad the tour company was (I won't mention their name, Faherty Tours, here), but we could have done a better and more thorough job of it with a couple of bikes and a guidebook.
At any rate, we went, and what we did see what quite beautiful and old and stony and ancient and serene and quiet and peaceful and friendly. We were on Inishmore for the day, one of three islands that make up the Arans. I did not purchase a wool sweater.
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| That's me, probably at the entrance to a church. |
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| That's Darren, probably in some window in some church. |
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| They have cows there. And hillsides. |
Dinner at Buon Appetito near Eyre Square (pronounced "Aire Square"), was a delicious salmon with a double dose of fresh veggies and a glass of wine for €15. A real bargain, and really well made.
Later in the evening I ventured out in search of some trad music. I found it in what looked to be a makeshift pub away from the mainstream...they didn't have a street-facing entrance, and inside it looked like a college-town cafe. A few people were playing nicely, and I stayed for about a half hour.
And I saw a rarity here: a guy with tzitzit hanging out below his shirt. For the non-Tribespeople, tzitzit are the fringes of a tallis worn on the sabbath and on other special occasions, and orthodox Jewish men also wear a day-to-day version under their garments. I wished him "shavuah tov"--a good week--as I left, which is the traditional greeting after the sabbath is over. He did a double-take, not sure he heard what he just heard, and we chatted for a bit with my broken Hebrew. I'm pretty sure he said he's studying at the local university for a year now. I should have switched to English, but I wanted to try keeping it going in Hebrew. I was too tired to keep it going for long, though, and wished him a good evening. I walked back home and fell into bed.
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