What A Weekend!

I went on two day trips this weekend: one to the town of Waterford near the southern coast of Ireland, and one to Bray which is just a few towns down from Dublin. I'll talk about Waterford at a later time, maybe.

I don't really have time to write a blog post, so for now I'm going to just cut and paste the aim conversation I had with Brandon telling him all about my trip from Bray to Greystone, which was also partially cut-and-pasted from the conversation I had with Lucas, because I talked to Lucas about it first. I have no idea if this will be really obnoxious or really funny or what, but let me know in the comments whether you loved/hated reading in this format. I'm not saying I'm going to do it again, I'm just interested to hear what people thought. I'll add pictures to make it better, and also this will give you all an interesting look into the type of rambling story that Brandon has to listen to on an almost daily basis in this format. :P

Brandon: how are you?
hannah: I'm fantastic!
hannah: mostly
hannah: I feel very sick at the moment
hannah: :(
hannah: and I'm very tired from my exciting, adventurous day
Brandon: tells me....
Brandon: (I will brush my teeth in the meantime)
Brandon: brb                           *author's note: this means 'be right back' in text speech*
hannah: okedoke
hannah: :)
Brandon: but go ahead so I  can read it when i get back
hannah: will do
hannah: I'm going to be lame about it
hannah: I already told Lucas all about it so I'm going to copy and paste what I told him and then embellish
hannah: :)
hannah: Well, it started out like any other day
hannah: I had a long day on the south coast yesterday, so I was going to spend today on hw *author's note: this means homework*
hannah: but when I woke up, everyone was like "we're taking the train to Bray and then walking the cliff path to Greystone!"
hannah: and I was all like "ok, I will rally somehow and do that too!"
hannah: It's supposed to be like a four mile walk
hannah: ...but we saw this little path heading straight up the steep cliffside and we were like "of course we're doing this"

The start of the path

hannah: hiked for a long time and it was awesome (pictures will be up soon)
hannah: ok, here I need to embellish
hannah: We hiked directly up this cliff side and I thought I was going to die at some parts *author's note: this is me being slightly dramatic. Brandon knows to take whatever I say and tone it back a bit to get the real story.*
hannah: it was clear people had gone before us, but we were stepping on rocks and slick grass, and I thought for sure someone was going to slip and take all of us down with them
hannah: Also, I thought my legs and lungs were going to explode

I mean, c'mon, that's pretty steep, right?

Liz, Ian and Sam standing on the steep hill

hannah: We made it (finally) to a flat space and we saw a horse!

A horse! :D

hannah: and then another horse and another and we realized it was a field with a bunch of horses!
hannah: so that was neat

Lots of horses!

hannah: we climbed a little ways past that and decided to stop for lunch because the view was incredible

 
hannah: after lunch there was this big cross a little ways on back towards Bray that we had seen from the bottom, and since it was so close we decided to check it out

hannah: and we were really glad that we did because there was a really cool view from there too!

Cool view, no?

hannah: then we went back and started walking towards Greystone again
hannah: and there came a point where the path went back down and a smaller path continued up
hannah: We, of course, continued up
hannah: Well, it turned out that was a mistake, because after a while we got to this huge boulder on the top of a mountain and the path started going in the wrong direction

Yay! We can see Greystone! :D

Unfortunately, the path goes towards that mountain. D:

 hannah: we were considering heading back to take the lower road, but Liz did some reconnaissance and said she thought the path went back the right way after a time
hannah: She was right!
hannah: and we were all feeling very clever
hannah: When all of a sudden there was a gate!

hannah: and the gate was shut, with barbed wire on the top and a sign on the other side that we couldn't read
hannah: and there was no other way to go unless we wanted to go back
hannah: which we were not going to do
hannah: so we carefully jumped the gate, and found out from the sign that we had been trespassing on some guy's farm for a long time

hannah: oops
hannah: then we were on a road and we had to make a choice, as neither way seemed to be heading towards Greystone
hannah: We went left
hannah: and we came upon all these private houses and a road that ended in another gate
hannah: We had no idea what to do, but there were two guys walking behind us, so we decided to ask them for help
hannah: I approached them and explained that we were a little lost, to which they replied "oh no, we were following you guys! We thought you knew the way back to the path"
hannah: and we were like shit
hannah: so then the older of the two guys was like "alright, I don't effing care if I'm cutting through some guy's garden, I'm going this way"
hannah: so he forced his way past the other gate, and we all shrugged and followed
hannah: the path led to a winding road, but then all of a sudden there was an exclamation
hannah: "aha!"
hannah: We could see people walking! We had found the real path again!
hannah: hooray!
hannah: there was a small stone wall and people beyond
hannah: the older guy decided to go over the wall first
hannah: in the dying light it looked like he just needed to step over the wall onto the path or maybe jump down a little, but as I watched the guy was hanging by his hands
hannah: I looked over the edge and saw that there was actually a six or seven foot drop to the path

hannah: lovely
hannah: one by one we all dropped our stuff and found a way down, each of us using a different method
hannah: then it was Patrick's turn
hannah: and it was hilarious
hannah: and we all maybe laughed a lot
hannah: :)
hannah: he tried once, and then decided to let other people go first
hannah: he tried again, explaining to all of us the route he was planning to take before starting
hannah: "ok, I'm going to swing my leg over and put it right there, I think I can get a foothold. Then I'm going to swing my other leg over, lower myself down and fall."
hannah: ok, Patrick
hannah: what actually happened was this
hannah: he did swing the first leg over, clinging to the wall as though there was hot lava below
hannah: found his foothold
hannah: Lindsey went over and held his leg and ankle to support him
hannah: he swung the other leg over and stretched it down, searching for the ground, still clinging to the wall and now kind of frozen
hannah: "am I close?"
hannah: We are all already laughing at how silly he looks, and then we say "Patrick, you're like three inches off the ground, just drop"
hannah: which he does, ungracefully, and we all have a good laugh about it before continuing on
hannah: after that we were just on the path again, so it was kind of lame
hannah: except we saw sheep!

And look! It's Champ in the background! :)

hannah: and a little puppy
hannah: :)
hannah: and a tree that looked like a hand

Cool tree-hand

hannah: and then we got on the train and came home and now I'm tired because a four mile walk turned into a six or seven mile walk
hannah: and I had to take two of my intense Ibuprofens
hannah: but soooo worth it
hannah: I can't wait to show you the pictures
hannah: :)
Brandon: :D
Brandon: sounds like a hell of a day
Brandon: best so far?
hannah: definitely one of the best
hannah: maybe the best
hannah: yeah
hannah: :D

So clearly I'm not the best storyteller via AIM, and that was a very abridged version of the adventure we had. But I hope it at least gave you an idea of how awesome the day was. Let me know in comments if this format drove you nuts!

Here are a few more pictures of the excursion. :)

Ian giving Liz a heart-shaped rock :)

The cutest old couple ever. :D

Bray from up above

Beware the falling cliff!

A cool gate.

beautiful view :)

Lindsey on top of a huge rock.

We found a smashed coconut, so of course Ian was Patsy and Liz was King Arthur. :)

That's how steep the cliff we climbed was.

Liz with the view.

Well then.

And me