My Irish Adventure: Letterkenny part 2

And here we start my recolletion from Letterkenny again

Are you ready?

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Oh it felt so good to get back into the warm house after our little trip around the Fanad Peninsula. We got the fire going and things were good. 

Brians house is a true treasuretrove and there are fascinating things wherever one look. His lizzard seemed immovable for quite some time, until it suddenly in the middle of our conversation moved....so from time to time we could look at him for quite some time waiting for a little twitch. 

Such a charming creature

Isn't it cool?

 It is kind of hard to describe this place, and even the pictures does not give full credit to the sense of it.

And what a strange sense of humour we got...
Has anybody seen a runover cat? This is the perfect sign for you if you ever meet one...

 I think there was surprisingly little silence when we were with Sam and Brian...it felt like it could never be
Lots of music, amazing discussions, good food and a brilliant time

Every evening we sang and played our instruments and my sister was set to play the orange...until Brian said that she was the worst orangeplayer he had ever heard...(all in good fun ofcourse). So I believe we almost sang every song we knew, and I will never forget when Brian sang Kevin Barry for us...



A very good and inspiring musician

And when Frank, Aimée and Elie had left us, another musical guest arrived: Hope from California!
And what a sweet and funny girl she was, we got along almost immediately. And guess what? She played the ukulele ^^ so our little "orchestra" which now now consisted of piano (Samira), guitar (Brian), cajón (Solveig)  and fiddle (me) got ourselves a new member...and what music we made (you should have been there..)

The start of a very fun evening

Tea! This liquid that tends to appear in your empty cup at the most peculiar times in Ireland. Well, this little story I'm about to tell you is about tea. Not regular black tea, but magical tea. Tea that makes you see, really SEE...

This tea had been nearly forgotten inside Brian's cupboard, so we thought it was time to bring it out again. Originally this tea comes from Alaska where the indians drank it so they could speak to their deities...so without saying to much: we had one hell of a good time...

But did we stay inside all the time we were at Brian's? No, we went exploring.

These pictures are from an 'oh-so-charming' village by the name Rathmullan

Seashells....reminds me of my childhood

Oh beautilful beautiful Donegal...oh, how I miss you

Perfect place for a lonely walk

I want to build these again...

Back home from the beach we made more music and I even made 'raspeballer', a wondrous norwegian potatodish...yummy

The last evening was spent discussing about everything and nothing, and I couldn't believe how fast the days had gone. Next day we would take the bus to another place in Donegal:

Ballyliffin

 

Bye Letterkenny and Brian; I look forward to see you again

My Irish adventure: Letterkenny part 1

Letterkenny. A place where the craic really shines through, and the place where the craziness took another detour through our story.

When we drove into Donegal, the bus was packed...but this didn't stop the busdriver from picking up even more passengers in Bundoran who was going to Derry. One of them fell asleep on Solveig's shoulder, and when we were getting off in Letterkenny, she had to step over him..

We were going to stay at Brian's (Couchsurfing) place, and what a guy this is. Crazy? YES, but oh so fun to be around. When we arrived at his place which was located in a small forest (it felt like a forest, so don't contradict me), there were already 4 other Couchsurfers there: Aimée and Elie who were from France, Frank who came from Germany and Samira from Switzerland

Brian's place was so cool! There was so much to see, it was very cosy and he had certainly put his own touch to it. Samira made us dinner, which was really delicious, and the evening/night got spent talking, joking and singing. My fiddle got put to good use, Brian played some songs for us (he's an amazing guitarplayer) and we had a great time...even if some of us (not me) almost fell asleep...

Aimée and Elie

The next morning Brian cooked us a hearty Irish breakfast, and we bid farewell to Aimée, Elie and Frank who were moving on. Later another couchsurfer would arrive, so Brian stayed in the house while Samira, Solveig and me went on a little sightseeing trip around Donegal.

The hills and loughs of Donegal

Even in rain, the beauty of this place shines through. I felt like I had come home...

BAAAA!

We were heading for Fanad Head, and around each bend of the road, there was a surprise in store for us. Cute sheep, an amazing view or some beautiful flowers.

I miss DONEGAL!

What have my sister found?

The road goes ever on and on

Last summer when I travelled around these parts of the country with my friend Steven, I was stunned by the sheer beauty of the county as a whole. How was it possible that such a treasure was unknown to most people, even the Irish? And when I returned this year, I could once more breath freely in the natural beauty of my favourite place on this earth: Donegal county.
I was home....

Such a peaceful place

Stocker Strand. Another place I could have just sat down and stayed there for hours. Even if it was raining, and the wind made the raindrops feel like ice, the beauty and the peacefulness made the experience of standing there so worth it.

Let me wander here, night and day

But of course we couldn't stay there for an eternity, so we drove on...and then...far from everything...we found Fanad Head

The lighthouse at Fanad Head

And here I found something I had been looking for: DONKEYS
So I stood there, in the pouring rain in my jacket which was anything but waterproof and TALKED to the donkeys...aren't they CUTE?

You gotta love them...

looks like this one is up for some mischief...

Can you see Malin Head?

Dripping wet, but very happy (and smelling like a wet sheep = my amazing Aran sweater), I got back in the car and we drove back to Brian's place where we lit a nice, warm fire and relaxed before the new couchsurfer would arrive.

COSY ^^

What will happen next? Stick around, and you will soon find out....

My Irish adventure: an interlude between Cork and Letterkenny

So after two busy, but fun days in Cork we had to find our maps again and this time we would head north....far north. Our next destination would be Letterkenny and from Cork that is nearly a 10 hour busdrive (!)
But we had brought this on ourselves, and was determined to make the best of the 10 hours....

 The weather was kind of gray'ish, but the bus from Cork to Galway was packed, so we didn't care. I'm impressed by the drivingskills of the busdrivers in this country...even if they are late as hell...
Solveig found an interesting way to keep me awake: by saying 'sheep' and pointing at them EVERY f***ing time we passed a field...
When I got tired of sheep, she started the same routine with the horses and the cows...and there were plenty of them too

 It was kind of foggy, as you might see in the picture and my mind quickly drifted off into stories about fairies and mythical creatures...I have a vivid imagination

LOOK!!!! SHEEP!!

 On our way we kept our eyes open for placenames that we connected to songs we knew...and when we drove through Athy both "Johnny I hardly knew ye" and "Rocky road to Dublin" got sung....

The long and winding road to Donegal and Letterkenny

 I had been to Donegal county last summer and going back there felt...well....almost unbelievable. It felt like going home...

The Green fields of Ireland

 We drove through: Cork, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal

I Galway we had to wait 1 hour for the bus that would take us from Galway to Letterkenny...hope I get a chance to see Galway properly next summer.
I Sligo we changed busdriver and the first thing he tells the passagers is to buckle up...and I'm glad we did. because such extreme driving on such small roads that he proved capable of, was amazing. My sister said a couple of time in awe that "it felt like flying"...

And before we knew it, we were in Letterkenny. And that is a story for our next chapter...TADAH!

My Irish adventure: Cork by night

The Blue Hour

The last evening in Cork before leaving for Letterkenny, I decided to see the city on my own. So I wandered through the city in the fading light, thinking and humming to myself. I really hope to come back one day....I want to see more of Cork, both night and day

The river Lee in the evening light

Reflection from the history

A little treasuretrove...and what a cool name

One of the many bridges...and perhaps the most beautiful one

Red and blue; night and sunset

Much more beautiful by night

Like the city comes alive

They seem to like this kind of architectural style....

Bridge over troubled water?

So yes, I cannot deny it....

I MISS CORK

My Irish adventure: Cobh 2

Finally, the rain stopped and I am ready to continue my story from Cobh...
And I will take you on a journey of the mind, through the history of the place...well, I will at least try.

Cobh. A place people left. Either to look for their fortune in a foreign land like America or Australia, or as this sign says: Cork
The old trainstation has been turned into a museum over the emigration and life in Cork. A museum which also covered the two tragic accidents concerning Titanic's misfortune in 1912 and the sinking of Lusitania in 1915.

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I'll try to let the pictures speak mostly for themselves, but here and there you will see my comments...enjoy...

You feels like you have  been brought back in time...to a time when first class-passengers got to wait in their own room...



A melody to wish the passagers a good journey across the ocean

I this case...not a very pleasant journey....

The population of Ireland decreased sharply in this period as you can see...some say that in 1845 there lived about 8,1 million (!) people on this fair green isle...and then the worst tragedy in Irish history occurred: The Great Famine (An Gorta Mór). More than 1,5 million people either starved to death or died from deceases caused by malnutrition...and people fled the country to seek a better life in America, Canada or anywhere else really. And about 1921 the population had shrunk into about 4 million.....


Dance on board one of the many ships headed for the new world...





People fled the country...




...and this was partly the reason why they fled

 I remember when I started reading about this period. I couldn't stop myself from crying when I read about how people got evicted when they couldn't pay the rent on the small patch of land they had.
Which reminds me of a verse from "Skibbereen":

And  well do I remember the bleak decemberday

the landlord and the sheriff came to drive us all away.

They set my roof on fire with their cursed foreign spleen

and that's another reason why I left old Skibbereen.



no mercy



Can we ever imagine how it must have been?

 

Big, large...largest?

It was cool to be big and strong...but there is nothing like being the FASTEST SHIP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

The last boat to receive the Blue Riband was "United States" in 1952. She crossed the Atlantic in 3 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes---just some curiosa

Yes, Titanic WAS big....

Farewell---forever



Annie Moore---the first person to pass through Long Island emigration centre in New York



More picture than talk this time, but in my next post you will only get pictures, so please don't complain...

See ye soon