Cliffs of Moher & Galway

So I've been loving the countryside here in Ireland.

Riding in the car is a real anxiety provoking activity, but I'm learning to cope.

All the fear for my life is worth it to be able to look out the window at green & yellow pastures with sheep grazing.

Oh Ireland is such a little oasis.

Back to cars though. We got to ride on a car ferry.

Yeah, drove the car onto a boat.

SO awesome!!

After the boat ride we stopped for lunch, I had a burrito.

Not the best, but not like Mexico.

Then we finally made it to our destination for the day.

The Cliffs of Moher!

Incredible!

Breathtaking!

Amazing!

Unimaginable!

Exceptional!

I could go on all day if I pulled a thesaurus out.

At first I was just thinking, yeah these are really awesome, I've never seen anything like them before, wow, big deal.

THEN we approached this sign and memorial:

 And suddenly I was pondering the worst.

I couldn't help but picture myself tumbling down the edge to my death.

I decided that if I was to have some sort of untimely death, diving off the Cliffs of Moher would be the way to have it.

 But I decided to just sit on the edge instead.

I was REALLY scared the whole time, but fear is meant to be faced, right?

 I neared the edge for a few fancy photos, but that was all I could handle.

Unlike my friend Ashley who was being so risky I was literally breaking a sweat for her.

Served her right too...

Just kidding. That was posed.

I tried to get one of myself, but I was too scared to even pretend to be falling off.

I did it later when we were in a big grassy field that felt safer.

I had a nice grip on that grass to hold myself up with.

 

After I was done risking my life we all just had a nice sit on the edge as I let my heart rate slow down and enjoyed the beautiful view.

9 km of cliffs I believe.

 As a group we drove down the road a bit from the actual tourist site and snuck through a few gates, jumped a couple fences, and did what we had to do to enjoy the view in solitude.

Here are Jesslin, Hilary, & I.

Really these cliffs are something a picture absolutely can't do justice for.

The wind in my hair, the rush of the blood pulsing through my veins, barely being able to catch my breath standing near the edge.

None of that comes with a photo.

That evening we went to Galway.

It was a really fun city. Lots of people out and about.

We went to a pub to watch some big soccer game.

The Euro Cup Final I believe.

An English team (Chelsea) was playing a German team (Bayern München)

I only came for the last half of the game, but that was fine because I saw both teams score a goal and then the overtime that turned into a shootout.

It was a really great game and I'm not even into soccer.

I now have favorite players on Chelsea: Drogba and Torres

The game was way intense, but Drogba came through in the end and won the game for Chelsea!

We celebrated with gelato!

One more highlight of Galway.

This man:

 Hilary & I were enjoying a nice evening out and he stopped us and began asking where we were from and telling us his life story. Eventually it turned into him lecturing us about always believing in ourselves and never letting go of our dreams.

"If you have a dream then do everything you can to reach it. I never thought my life would turn out the way it did. You work hard and you can make anything happen."

The Irish are so friendly.