28 November 2011

My Irish adventure: Ballyliffin

Things take time, and my everlasting story about last summer seem to have no end...well, we are slowly closening up to the big finale...but don't just yet. It's time for Ballyliffin.

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It felt weird to leave Letterkenny behind, but we wouldn't leave Donegal county just yet. We got all our stuff (we looked pack asses...) unto the bus that would take us through the landscape of beautiful Donegal to one of her little villages on the Fanad Peninsula: Ballyliffin, where we would stay with a couch-surfer called Michael. The sun graced our travel and it felt good to sit back and just relax and talk about what we had experienced so far. When the bus passed through Buncrana, the memories from last summer returned to me and I couldn't stop smiling. 
Ireland and the western parts of Norway (where I'm from) has much of the same unstable weather, so one minute sun and the next we could see dark skies in the horizon. But suddenly; there it was: Ballyliffin. Michael met us at the bus-stop and showed us his home. He's a really busy guy, so we were settling in while he was working.

Double luck? A shoe from a horse and the cross of St Brigid; the latter a strong Irish tradition

We accidentally found Michael's piano...and when we did so we couldn't leave it alone (but believe me it was VERY out of tune)

Michael's adorable, very cosy dog; Levi....don't wear black around him, because he will shed hair everywhere

His home was very cosy, but what was striking about the place was the surroundings, the nature. I went straight down to the beach while my sister went on a lookout for an ATM, and OH MY GOD.

This is something I really love about all of Ireland: how you can see so far and watch the clouds drift across the sky


I sat and watched the waves roll in for almost an hour for this picture...just to get it at its most fierce moment

One day I actually ended up with taking off my shoes (but not my socks) and walked the line the waves made as they rolled in....seems like Donegal brings out the child in me

It is hard to describe the feeling of calmness this place poured into my soul...a place for thought and relaxation. I could have sat on that beach until my dying day, just breathing if it wasn't for the fact that Michael would  be taking us to a trad-session that very evening...