Sighs of Disappearing Sparrows: Last day in Dublin... probably.

Hello, faithful readers! I had another lovely Irish day today. This morning I woke up early and ventured out across the River Liffey and past the Spire to the tourist office where I hopped on a bus for an all day tour of Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains. It was awesome. My tour guide was named Martin (another one!). We drove south (past a store called Knobs and Knockers... for those of you dirty-minded readers, it wasn't a sex shop, it was a door shop).

Martin put Irish music on the speakers as we drove through Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dunn Leery) and into Glendalough (pronounced Glenn-duh-lock). The Gaelic name for Glendalough is Gleann Da Loch and translates into English as "The Valley of the Two Lakes," as it is home to... yes, you guessed it... two lakes. As we were driving it was actually snowing! We stopped in Glendalough for two hours where I set off by myself and hiked through the reserve. I was happy I had my hiking boots on... some of the other girls on the tour wore heels. Luckily, I have no need to impress anyone.

It was so nice just enjoying nature again, something I haven't done in a long time. I remembered being a kid and spending hours exploring the woods in the back of my house. This was much better, though... the woods in the back of my house did not have lakes, mountains, and waterfalls. It was incredible. Just look at the pictures. There was only me and nature, only the whispering of the falls, the crunch of my boots, the hiss of my breath, and the click of my camera shutter.

After hiking in Glendalough we stopped for lunch at a pub where I had traditional Irish beef and Guinness stew which I expected to be kind of gross but is now my new favorite food, especially after spending two hours hiking in the cold.

Then after lunch we drove up through the Wicklow Mountains... beautiful. It was here, though, that I realized that my camera battery, which had supposedly been full just this morning, had died. So I had to take the rest of my photos by putting my memory card into one of the other ladies on the tour's camera. You can definitely tell the difference, but at least I could take them, and there weren't that many more photo opportunities after that.

A few things I've been happy to have had with me in Ireland:
1) MY CAMERA
2) My camera
3) My camera
4) Self-timer
5) Telephoto lens
6) Hiking boots
7) Gloves
8) Knee-high socks
9) Myself :-)

It's only 7:00pm my time now, but I'll most likely be going to bed early so I wanted to blog early. I think I'm catching an early bus to Wexford tomorrow. Another scary day figuring out bus schedules and transfers almost makes me want to stay in Dublin, but I'm wayyyy too adventurous for that now. ;-)

Photos!