What Larks.

I am typing this blog in my bed, thanks to the extra long internet cord Karver brought me over from the States. Did you know, young readers, that some people in the late 90s and early 00s did not have wireless internet on their college campuses and thus used really long internet cords as to move about their dorms? Anywho, while I am in bed blogging thanks to my extra-long cord, Kar, Em and Greg are in the air headed back to the land of red, white and blue ('merica, love it or leave it).

We had so much fun. Why don't I tell you about it?

Karver came into Galway Tuesday at noon. After a blissful reuniting in the form of a back-pack hug in the town square, we ate some lunch in a little Galway pub and got on a bus for a town two hours north of Galway called Westport.

The town is, as Sally Dunlap would say, cutesy-tootsy. It has a river running through the middle of it, several little bridges and lots of charming shops and pubs. Our first day in Westport was not too crazy because it gets dark at around 4 pm and because Kar had been traveling all day. We gave ourself a guided walking tour and tried to figure out how to trespass into what we thought was a castle. We stopped in the public library instead of the castle and then had dinner in a pub (Kar went Ireland style -- fish and chips and a Guinness). We headed back to the hostel with big plans to take a nap and then rally and go out to a pub. We failed to rally. We slept the night away. And an old man a few beds over boofed the night away.

Maybe it was for the best that we had like 14 hours of sleep that night because the next day involved more cardiovascular exercise than I ever hope to do in one day again. I don't know what I was thinking when I planned our adventure. Maybe I was just planning things that I knew my brother would enjoy and forgot to factor myslef into the equation. Or maybe I was temporarily unable to distinguish how athletic I wish I was to how athletic I am am in reality. I don't know. Regardless, we rented bikes, biked to a mountain, climbed it, then biked back. Yeah. Ummm....
It ended up being really fun and did not even cry. To Karver, the cardio was no problem, he probably could have kayaked the river afterwards. We biked along the coast, until we made it to Croagh Patrick. It's a pretty famous mountain in Ireland. It's where St. Patrick "supposebly" drove out all of the snakes from Ireland. People take pilgrimages there and walk the mountain seven times barefooted. Karver and I did not even make it all the way up with our shoes on.

The views of the ocean, the towns, the mountains, the fields and islands from Croagh Patrick were some of Ireland's finest. As we approached the top of the mountain it began to get intensely windy and rainy (as it does in high altitudes in late November Ireland) so we headed down to have a cup of tea and bike back. I almost died on the bike ride back.
We ended our time in Westport with a night of style -- a few dark pints, a fireplace, dim pub with old people, a lute, and two accordions (no worries, we were not the ones playing the accordions). After another night in the old mill house hostel with Boofy McBoofster we woke up and ran (literally) to catch a bus back to Galway so we could meet Greg and Emily in Galway.

It was so exciting to see Em and Greg! After another backpack-hugging reuniting in the square, we talked over plans for our next few days-o-fun. Karver had researched and was an advocate for renting a car for a day. We ended up doing it and it ended up being a great idea... keep reading for more details about Karver and Greg driving on the left side of the road.

Ok, time with Greg and Em was divided up between three (or as the Irish would say, "tree") locations -- Galway, Connemara, and Dublin (oh, and there was a forth semi-spontaneous location that you will read about later... more incentive to keep reading...).

On Thursday we had lunch at a cool pub and talked about how we wished Anna were with us (see picture below). Then we did your basic Molly-guided Galway tour, including the university, the downtown, some old churches, a walk along the river, my apartment, and much witty, yet surprisingly uninformative commentary on each location. That night we had your classic Thanksgiving meal -- Asian fusion in Ireland. The food was really, really delish and was ever-so-kindly sponsored by Dad (THANKS!). We ended the night with a pint and live music. It was your classic Irish folk music -- you know a little Van Morrison, a little Bob Marley. Friday was the day of driving around and exploring a beautiful region in Galway County called Connemara. This, as Karver would say, was OW-some. Our trusty drivers, Greg and Karver, took us all around the bays, the mountains, the rocks, and the mist. It was a really good call to rent a car so we could hop whenever for a photo-op, a pint, a picnic or a potty break. Our drivers were on top of it. If the worse thing to happen in a day of driving on the other side of the road is Karver rocking the curb pretty hard several times, then I call it a success. To be fair, Kar did redeem himself with a sweet parallel parking job. Ask him to do the parallel parking victory dance for you the next time you see him.First, we explored around an old castle that was closed for the off season. Karver would have totally jumped the fence if a man wasn't working on the castle. Greg went under the bridge like the troll bill goat gruff. Emily and I wondered how we were got so lucky to be related to people so awesome. Below is a picture of them "storming the castle". Then we drove through some more rad landscape and we stopped at a place called Kylemore Abbey. I'll spare you the history and just say that nuns live there now and it is a girl's baording school. Greg and Emily are gonna send their children there. Tuition is probably pretty inexpensive (see picture below).We went to the little chapel past the abbey. It had lots of kinds on marble in it and was pretty. It made me think that I might want to be a nun, but then I thought that liking a chapel by a lake and a mountain with pretty marble is probably the wrong motivation to become a sister. Speaking of sister, below is a picture of Em and me being cute in front of the chapel door, we can't help it. Anna, we will find a cute three sister picture opportunity during Christmas time -- maybe in my bunk bed?? Ok, I might get the last part of the Connemara trip out of order. All of it was so fun and beautiful that it is kind of a blur. Fam, feel free to straighten me out in comments or whatever. All I know is that we were in the town of Clifdon at some point, we drove some more, there were lots of rocks, sheep do not like to be approached, we went to Dog something beach and it was shweeeet (y'all, what was it called? All I remember is that it had "dog" in the name yet no dogs were allowed on the beach because they would scare the sheep), Greg and Karver played darts at some point, Emily and I went down a zip line on a playground by the water at some time or another, there was a bit of freezing rain, we had a picnic with in an empty national park parking lot with some gutsy birds, and we made it home having made some plans for the morning . So the trip probably already seems pretty crazy to you readers out there. Let me tell you. Hold onto your hats because we have an extra can of crazy stored in the back of the pantry and we just found a can opener. As previously stated, we rented a car for twenty-four hours. MEANING that we did not have to turn it in until morning Saturday at 9:30. MEANING that we had enough time for another road trip on Saturday morning.

Over dinner in Galway on Friday night we devised the plan of how we would get up at 5:30, drive an hour and a half to the Cliffs of Moher, see them just as the sun was rising, drive the hour and a half back (this time in daylight), drop Emily off in time to tell Mary in the bed and breakfast that they wanted the full Irish breakfast (this part was very important to Karver), fill up the car with gas, return the car by 9:30, I would go to the market while they were eating to get good for the trip to Dublin (and hummus for myself -- obvi), then we would meet at the bus station in time for the 10:30 bus to Dublin.

All of this somehow happened. Some may call it a miracle, others may call it luck, other may chalk it up to excellent planning. The world may never know. Below is what the Cliffs of Moher look like at sunrise, in case you were wondering.
This blog entry is getting embarrassingly long, so I will speed through our time in Dublin (we sped through our time Dublin in real life, so that works out nicely). Here part of a conversation that took place on the four hour bus ride from Galway to Dublin:

Emily: Karver, you can use my Sudoku book if you want.
Karver: Cool, so you don't mind me dominating all of the hard ones?
(later there were all sorts of crossed out numbers and scribbles all over the "challenger" puzzle page.)

We checked into our hotel. The hotel was very purple and looked like something from Alice in Wonderland. Needless to say, I loved it. I will tell you more about out sleeping situation later. We walked Trinity College and a park. It was cold. We walked to the Old Jameson Whiskey distillery. The distillery was very bling bling and we went on a guided tour to learn about the history and process of making one of the world's most famous and smoothest whiskeys. We had some Whiskey at the end of the tour. I would really love to try a Jameson hot chocolate sometime -- maybe a Christmas treat? Below is a classic couples' shot.
For dinner we went to Greg and Emily's friend's apartment for a Thanksgiving party. Lauren and John had about thirty friends, both American and Irish, over to celebrate. They were great hosts and we had so much fun talking with folks. This is crazy -- the speaker from the CU conference that I went to is the interim pastor at Lauren and John's church and was at the party. It was cool to see him again and great to talk to him. Small world! I believe we had some more small world connections from that dinner party -- you'll have to ask the various sibs about that.

We caught a lift back to the purple hotel with some nice people from the party (all four of us in the back of a little car -- nothing that Boltons haven't experienced before). When we got back to our room we tried various ways to figure out how four people were going to sleep in a hotel with only three single beds in it. Below is a picture of one solution we came up with.
This morning Kar, Em, and Greg caught a bus to the Dublin airport to fly home and I hopped on a bus back to Galway. I can't speak for my bros and sis, but I myself personally had lots and lots of fun.

PS: Once I create online photo albums of this trip I will post the link on the blog for your viewing pleasure.

PS for my family members: As to prevent shock when we gloriously reunite in the Charlotte (or is it Raleigh?) airport on December 20th, I would like to inform y'all that I have the world's tiniest stud in my left nostril. Karver said that he was going to start a blog entirely dedicated to my nose stud if I did not mention it on my blog. So I have mentioned it. Just to let you know, I will take it out if it could possibly hinder me in something like a job interview and I will not have it for my whole life. Feel free to email me any questions or concerns. Love you guys a lot and cannot wait until that reuniting takes place!

ALSO -- shout out to the Reas and their advetures! Cannot WAIT to hear about what larks. Or should I say -- que larquos.