WE MADE IT!!!
After two flight cancellations, a 2 hour wait for our pilot to arrive from Orlando, and a sleepless flight, my group and I finally landed down in Shannon, Ireland, and boy, I'll tell you; just the first day was worth the whole mess.
As we were landing, I got a little glimpse of Ireland from above. The sun was bright and shining at the perfect angle, revealing the rolling hills, the green landscape, and the tiny white speckles of sheep scattered everywhere. Immediately after we went through customs and claimed our luggage, we were greeted by our jolly tour guide, Terry, and were promptly off to begin our sightseeing for the day. We toured a lot of the rural area on our way to Galway by a motor coach, and the views were spectacular. Most of our first day included a visit to the shops in the town of Galway. A lot of the shops were similar to gift shops, selling mainly tourist gifts, but some of them sold some nice clothing, shoes, and crafts. For lunch, I actually ate at the Quizno's chain sandwich shop found in the U.S., but it was my first time eating a Quizno's to begin with!
On our way to our hotel, we saw some beautiful scenery. Here in Ireland, there is a lot of open, hilly land. The land is not ideal for farming because it is typically rocky; however, there is some beautiful vegetation that sort of seems to cover the land like a green blanket. Since it is winter time, many of the plants cannot carry out their photosynthesis, so in turn there is not as much green as there usually would be; however, as you can see below there still is quite a large amount of growth. The grass is still somewhat green in most areas, but there are also areas where it isn't as vibrant. If this is what this place looks like in winter, I really don't know what would happen to my eyes in the spring/summer!
Note the two sheep!Another thing that I found very interesting about the land was the large amount of biodiversity. The climate here is cold but also mild, allowing a large variety of growth. There is a particular tree growing here called a Monkey Puzzle which actually is not native to Ireland, but rather it was brought over from South America. To me it looks like a tree made out of pipe-cleaners, but you can have a look here yourself:
The Monkey Puzzle tree is dark green, and though it's hard to see in the picture it has little spikes coming off of the branches. Another invasive species to this island is a type of palm tree. It was something very unusual to me as I would never expect to see a palm tree in Ireland! The mild and wet climate allows for these two types of South American plants to grow easily.
Here are also some of the spectacular views and sights seen throughout this day:
An Irish thatched roof home with a stone wall
An old beautiful Irish castle
I have found that the beauty of this country is unbelievable. I find myself repeating over, and over again, "These pictures do not come close ONE bit to capturing what I really am seeing!" The views are absolutely breathtaking, and I have much more to come!
