Ireland Day 2: An Irish Sabbath

On Sunday morning, we had our first Irish breakfast. It was, in fact, not a "full" Irish breakfast though--it "only" had eggs, bacon, toast, muesli, and fruit. We checked out of our B&B and drove to the seaside town of Bray, which is just south of Dublin, where we were planning on attending the local branch of our church [the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. In Dublin there are actual Wards [full-sized congregations], but the rest of Ireland only has a few scattered Branches [smaller congregations].

We took the "ring road" around Dublin so we didn't have to drive through the city (this is also why we chose the Branch in Bray rather than entering Dublin city to attend a Ward). I had printed out google map directions, but once we got off the freeway, we found them woefully inadequate. If only I'd been willing to fork over the $10 or so extra per day for a GPS! I definitely would have done that differently if I had it to do over. You see, in Ireland, people don't really believe in these silly things like "street signs" or "addresses." And with all the crazy winding roads, it was VERY hard to navigate. We knew the address of the church building, but it didn't help much.

Finally, when we were pretty sure we had to be somewhere close, we decided to just park and walk around and hopefully we'd find some address or street sign or something letting us know where we were or where to go. Just as we pulled over, we noticed a couple getting out of a car in front of us, all dressed up in Sunday clothes. The husband opened up the trunk and pulled out a Gospel Doctrine manual, which we of course recognized! We hurried to catch up and asked them to lead us to the church. We were very grateful, because there is NO way we would have found it on our own--it was back a ways from the street, and you had to go through this gate to get there. There was a sign, but it was hard to see.

We had a nice time at church. The numbers were sparse, but the people were very full strong of faith. There were several people from Romania in that congregation, for some reason, and the parents of a girl I know here in Champaign! Small world when you're Mormon.

After church, we drove further south towards the next historical site we wanted to see the following day, which was a place called Glendalough. We took the scenic route through the mountains (more like hills, really) and saw lots of beautiful country-side and LOTS of sheep. The roads were of course very winding, and also very narrow--but Kevin actually found that exciting and fun rather than nerve-wracking and stressful as I would have felt--good thing he was the driver! We also passed some areas of peat bogs full of heather. They didn't look very "bog-like" to me--from a distance, it looked like grassland, but if you got out and walked around, your feet would sink into spongey ground. You could also see places where people had cut away the peat (they burn it for fuel after it dries.)

We passed a waterfall on the way, which we decided to stop at. My guidebook said there was a path "near" the parking pull-out that lead to the top of the waterfall. Imagining this as a nice leisurely Sunday stroll, we decided we would do the walk. In fact, it was quite a long ways to the waterfall along this stream, which we had to cross several times. The ground around the stream was pretty boggy, and my feet sunk down in the sponge-earth until my shoes were SOAKING. (Somehow, Kevin managed to keep his feet dry.) It was a fairly rugged hike, too. AND, it was raining--we thought it was letting up when we started, but it actually got a lot heavier once we were about half way there. Not exactly as Sabbath-appropriate as I had imagined...But it was a pretty waterfall, and it opened up into a lovely valley.

Once we made it back to the car, we drove the rest of the way to the B&B near Glendalough. When we first arrived, no one was there to let us in, and no one answered the phone. We were about to go find a different B&B to check into when they finally called us back. They let us in to our room, which was cute but VERY tiny, even by European standards. It was also very cold, and we couldn't figure out how to work the heater. But, they did have internet access, which made Kevin happy.

We ate dinner at one of the few restaurants in that tiny village--it was nice, but pretty pricey yet again. The waiter tried to get us to drink some wine--"It's on the house!" he kept insisting, but we just had to keep explaining that we don't drink alcohol. I guess its hard for Irish people to understand.