A Week in my Life: Wednesday - Everyone Deserves a Day Off

Now I know what you're saying. Why on earth would I ever need a day off? A vacation? Every DAY is a vacation for me, right? Well. Yes. Mostly, you are right. I am selfish for even writing this absurd blog post. But, the work, however exotic and incredible it is on a daily basis, it's still work. And it's hard work, at that! Lots of physical labor and not a lot of "me" time. Usually this is...

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A Week in my Life: Tuesday - I get Paid to Ride Horses on the Beach!

Tuesday begins the same way as Monday, only I get to sleep in for an extra 15 minutes as we have less to do this morning. We only tack up 10 horses today, and Rachel stays home with her 4 year old daughter Charlie so Vinnie can come out with us on his bike to take pictures of the guests. By the time we’re finished tacking up today, I’m officially awake and notice that Mitch, one of the forest...

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A Week in my Life: Monday - The Reason Sunday doesn't bother me

Today my alarm started buzzing at 7:30 AM. Under any other circumstances, this is the part of the day where I would scream and hide dreading the day ahead of me and incapable of doing anything productive. But it’s a Monday, and that means we have a lot to do today to get ready for the ride as all of the saddles have to be put back together. I roll out of bed at 8 still wearing the t-shirt I wore to the bar last night and not...

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A Week in my Life: Sunday - My "Monday" in the office

Sundays for me are both the beginning and the end of my work week. This morning, at 8, I said goodbye to 8 amazing guests who I had a fantastic week riding with last week. We hugged, made promises to keep in touch via facebook and waved furiously as Andrew drove the van out of the driveway and off to the airport in Malaga. As soon as the car was out of site, Rhiannon and I exchanged the look of "here we go again" and...

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A Week in my Life

Alright guys. Whether you wanted it or not, I'm going to be bothering you with my writing again. And to kick-start off that effort, I'm going to spend a week talking about what I do on a day-to-day basis out in el campo for Los Alamos in San Ambrosio, Spain. So for the next SEVEN days I will be dissecting every aspect of my life for your pleasure (as well as mine, nostalgically). I will try and remember to link to each other day...

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A Drive up the West Coast of Ireland - Day 3

Another day of driving.  It’s starting to sound incredibly redundant.  And now the scenery is somewhat redundant as well.  It’s another day of green sloping hills.  Another day of driving along the coast on the wrong side of the road, in a car I generally disagree with, on roads that are way too narrow.  County Mayo was… well… not as exciting as mayo should be. At the end of the day, the roads start to straighten out a bit and I experience the 5^th gear for the first time on this trip.  I won’t bore you with the rest of the details because, well, I honestly don’t remember them.

We have lunch at a really cute little café in Dromore West.  The place was incredibly charming and we dined with a police man, a priest and a woman who may or may not have been alive.  After a couple of hours, we arrived in Donegal.

The most exciting part of the day was when we pulled into Donegal into a hostel parking lot and I make the HUGE mistake of parking facing down a hill towards a 2 foot stone curb and the road below.  In order to back the car out of this space (after 3 or 4 failed attemps) I had to maneuver some sort of emergency break jump into reverse which was, for all intensive purposes, a complete mess.  However, after the e-break back up dance, I finally get the car in the right direction (not without having a minor heart attack first) and we end up at the most amazing hostel I have experienced yet.  It was basically a HUGE old manor home that had been converted into a hostel run by the cutest and nicest little family. 

The hostel dad built us a nice fire when we arrived and we cooked some dinner before heading to bed early, after having a LONG chat about Ireland, the Irish language and our lives with the hostel mom.  I ran into a friend from Inishmore (small freaking world) and we chat about what we’ve been up to since that fateful night at the American Bar a couple of weeks prior. 

Marde and I walk into town to check out Donegal but are rather unimpressed.  We walk to the Donegal Castle which looks nice, but was closed (at 3 PM?!).  We asked around for a pub showing the Liverpool Game (of which there was only one) and after that tried to find a place to sit down and connect to the wifi and have a pint (no such luck).  I go to bed early, as we have a decently long day of driving ahead of us (even on American standards, a full 8 hours likely) especially since hostel mom convinced us to take a rather large detour to the cliffs at Slieve League. 

A Drive up the West Coast of Ireland - Day 1

After my driving fiasco on the first morning of my drive, I really thought I was in for it.  Marde and I drove up and out of town a bit and then did some practicing.  I pulled into an old parking lot and practiced starting and stopping, then we found a nice hill where I could practice the same again.  From a driving perspective, the rest of the trip went on without a hitch.  I still had the occasional stall, but it was less panicked.  I got through several towns without losing any hair and I managed to pull into Belfast on the 3^rd day in rush hour traffic without killing anyone or causing any major traffic jams.

Thankfully, this allowed us to really spend some time marveling at the amazing scenery that is Western Ireland. 

After we left Galway, we headed west along the coast.  The weather was beautiful and the scenery even more amazing.  We drove past hundreds of houses all lined up nice and neat on the hillside and passed miles and miles of green luscious sloping hills.  We drove up through a cute town called Oughterard and then onwards towards Clifden.  We knew we were “close” to Kylemore and thought it would be nice to take a detour off to see the Kylemore Abbey.  Turns out we weren’t as close as we thought and when I saw a sign saying to turn right for the Kylemore Abbey, we embarked on an hour long detour in a redundant loop we would pass again the next day.

On the way to the Abbey, we passed through miles and miles of untouched farmland.  The scenery was beautiful and exactly what I pictured rural Ireland to feel like (only not as green – the one downside to the amazingly perfect weather I’ve had since I’ve been here).  The roads were terrible – incredibly narrow and littered with potholes.  We had to stop about every 50 yards or so to let sheep cross the road – many of which were apparently not aware that cars can kill them as they leaped gracefully in my direct path.  After about 45 minutes of this weaving and stopping, we rounded the corner at the Abbey. 

The Kylemore Abbey was absolutely spectacular.  It’s a large Abbey that sits on this little lake with a rather large mountain behind it.  The building was originally called Kylemore Castle and was a private residence before being handed over to some Benedictan nuns who fled Belgium during World War I. It has since been turned into an all-girl's boarding school run by the nuns, but Marde informed me that they will be shutting the school down at the end of this term.  Not sure what will happen to the site after that.

After we had our fix at the Abbey, we turned right back around where we had come from and down towards Roundstone which we were told was a place we HAD to stop at.  Unfortunately, I found it completely unremarkable so we breezed through, through Ballyconnelly and finally up to our destination for Day 1, Clifden. 

Clifden is a modest town with not a lot seemingly going on.  The hostel we were staying at was nice, cheap and has hot showers, so I was happy.  After a cleanup and a walk around town, we settled at a pub called EJ King’s and watched a great American cover band before retiring relatively early.

I am a terrible driver

I’ve been told that you can’t see the “real” Ireland without leaving the comfort of public transportation and the big cities and really get out and drive in the countryside.  Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do just that as I needed to rent a car to go pick up Brian, Emily and Diana in Dublin on the 16^th anyway. I had tried with no success to ask around friends to “borrow” a car for the week, but most people in Galway, come to find, don’t have cars – or at least the ones I was asking didn’t.

So I dragged Mr. G up to Budget with me to pick up my new little friend and start the journey cross country.  Now, those of you who follow me regularly have already heard my horror stories of driving a car with a manual transmission.  Last time I drove a stick, it was Dan’s lovely Wanda and it was on the open roads of the northern Midwest of America on some LOVELY wide interstates with relatively no traffic. When I picked up the car with Mr. G, I knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty event, but I was confident that I could figure it out and that at this point, the only thing that will improve my driving is practice.  We made it back to the house with relatively no incident (only a couple of stalls, but nothing major and not in any major area, considering it was 6 o’clock rush hour traffic when I picked the thing up, I was pretty impressed). 

I was accompanied on my drive by the lovely Marde, a couchsurfer from Melbourne I picked up who was looking for a ride out of Galway and a much welcomed companion.  Marde met me at the house before noon on Saturday and we casually packed the car up with all of our gear and got ready to get out of town.  Marde didn’t know how to drive a stick, so it looked like I really was going to have to make this work, but at this point I was pretty confident everything would be ok.  So we pull down the hill in Salthill down towards the main ocean road and I start some idle chatter about how great the trip is going to be.  We arrive at the bottom of the hill to take a right turn (our left turn, since I’m driving on the left side of the road… so I have to cross traffic). 

Stall.

Ok.  Calm down, Hesser.  You can do it.

Stall. Stall. Stall. Stall. Stall. 

by Jim LinwoodUhh…. Wtf do I do now? I’m blocking both lanes of traffic.  People are honking.  Pedestrians on the strand are staring and laughing.  I am stuck.  I keep starting the car up, shoving it in first gear, moving about 4 feet and stalling again.  Again.  And Again.  At this point I am having a full on panic attack.  I have no effing idea how I’m going to keep going. 

A knock on the window and I jump 100 feet.  A man opens the door, asks Marde to step out and he gets in the passenger seat.  Blah blah blah… I don’t know what he’s saying, I can’t even see straight.

“I’m a driving instructor.” Wait what? My ears perk up.  “Do you know how to do this?” he asks me calmly.  Yes, yes, I do. I realize I haven’t said anything, I’m just thinking to myself.  “Yes, I can. I’m just panicking,” I sputter out, “I can’t concentrate.”

For the next 5 minutes, the man sits there by Robert Couse-Bakerand talks to me.  Not about what I’m doing wrong.  Not about how terrible I’m driving.  He talks to me about America and his first time to visit.  He turns on the AC full blast . He tells me about his son who is doing a year study abroad in Boston.  He chats me up about the upcoming journey and takes my map to show me some castles I must see along the way.  All the while, we’re sitting blocking half of the left lane of traffic, but not so much that people can’t pass me.  Suddenly, I’m not shaking as much.  My face gets some color back and my arms feel a little less like Jell-O. 

“Well, best of luck to you, Abbey.  This is sure to be an epic journey for you! Are you alright now?” Strangely enough, I was. He got out of the car and let Marde back in.  He walked to the back of my car and stopped traffic behind me.  I let out the parking break.  Foot on the clutch and the break.  Slowly release and give it some gas and… well looky there.  I got the damn thing to go all by myself after all.

See you later Mr. Good Samaritan Driving Instructor Man.  You saved many lives today.