The Burren

This week I have been in Ballyvaughan at the Burren College of art. The school is a tiny fine art school that is basically a place for people from wherever, mostly the United States, to come to Ireland to study abroad. They also have graduate programs, but again the majority of the people are from the United States. All week my group worked on redesigning a drawing donkey. Our main things that we worked on were making it stackable and infinitely adjustable. We solved both of those problems by the end of the day Friday and had three built and the parts for a fourth.

This week was fun outside of school as well. Wednesday night we went to a pub called Logues and ran into some of the students from the college. There was some Irish set dancing going on in the pub that night and when we got there they were clearing out tables to make room. We knew that we were going to take part in something like this the next night so I was a little nervous.

Thursday night we went to a pub called Vaughan's for dinner in Kilfenora. After eating one of the best burgers I have ever had we had a set dancing lesson. I just had to laugh at myself and everyone else because we had no idea what we were doing. After the lesson we went down to the barn where the main dancing event took place. There were all these older locals there who actually knew what they were doing and then there were all the art students and us. We just hopped around and if you were lucky enough you got in a set with some of the locals who would just move you into place.

Friday night, after going through a few pubs, I eventually ended up where I wanted to be at the beginning of the night, which was a pub called Monks listening to an Irish band. I only heard a few song but I loved every second of them. There were about five old men sitting around a table playing music and they looked like they were having so much fun.

On Saturday a group of about ten or so hiked up one of the mountains. We left around eleven and stopped at the store to get some sandwiches and then hit the trail. The path took us through some enchanted looking forest areas and we eventually ended up behind the school. After that we headed up. It was a little difficult at times because it was hard to see where the rocks were underneath the grass. There was a little bit of climbing involved and eventually we ended up at the top where we took a break for lunch. We had a nice panoramic view of the small cities surrounding us. After lunch we split into smaller groups and headed back down. My group went down basically the same way we went up. The plan was to go to Logues afterward and it was kind of a competition to see who got there first. We stopped briefly to look at the baby sheep on the way and I have decided that I want sheep now. My group ended up at Logues first and I rewarded myself with coffee and tiramisu. After that I just walked around a little bit and then ate dinner. I later went back to Logues (it is basically the main pub there) with some of the guys. A lot of the art students were there hanging out and it was fun to talk with them since most of them have been here since January and kind of knew their way around.

Today we woke up and cleaned up the cottages and took a bus back to Galway. We did take a short stop to look at a castle and to grab a sandwich for lunch. After that we got on a train headed to Dublin. I read for a little bit but eventually feel asleep. By the time I woke back up we were about thirty minutes from Dublin. We got off the train and on a bus and eventually to the Kinlay House Hostel. Our room is much better this time, we have a very large window which will be nice for the St. Patrick's day parade on Wednesday.