Wind: An Understatement at the Cliffs of Moher

York has nothing on the Cliffs of Moher in terms of wind.  Thankfully, we didn't blow away when visiting Ireland to see the cliffs.  Jeff and I woke up around 3 AM on Saturday to head to Manchester to hop on a plane to do Ireland in less than 48 hours!  Since only being gone for the weekend, Jeff decided to go light on the packing. All he brought was his toiletry bag, filled to the max...think a little bigger than a tissue box. Oh Jeff.

We arrived at the airport, rented a car, and headed towards the cliffs.  Although the car was an automatic, it drove like a manual.  It didn't have a park setting, so every time Jeff stopped the car had had to put on the emergency break.  Not the smoothest car, but it worked.  Driving was exactly the same as driving in the UK, minus a few things.  Jeff thought the roads were better and he radio was 100x better.  Driving around was not only beautiful but interesting.  The houses were the perfect combination of English houses and American houses.  I wish I would have stopped to take a picture, but didn't think to do so at the time.

We arrived at the cliffs, found a small parking lot and started our journey.  As we were walking towards the edge of the land (~702 feet high), the wind began to pick up.  Jeff and I couldn't stop laughing as the wind was pushing us around all over the place.  We couldn't control our bodies at a few points.  Jeff held on to me a few times so I wouldn't blow away!

Our first look over the edge was nothing short of breathtaking.  Definitely one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. And that is saying a lot, considering how much I loved Dubrovnik, Croatia. The waves were huge, and crashing up to the edge of the cliff.  It was constantly white around the edge of the water, because of all the activity.  We headed alongside the cliffs in hopes to make it to the visitor center which a sign said was about a two and half hour walk.  We thought we would try it.

 Our first view of the cliffs

  Fighting the wind

 Definitely one of the most beautiful views

I'm not sure this post is going to do this experience justice as the pictures and the words I'm typing cannot help you completely relive this incredible experience.  As we walked along the edge of the cliff, there were areas where you felt like you were going to just blow right off the side of them.  Although, we should have looked on Saturday, but I did some research on the wind speed while we were there, and the closest point I could find to the cliffs had 31 MPH wind speeds (Gusts up to 62 MPH).  My guess is it was more given we were near the ocean and up so high.  There are many days where they have to close down the cliffs due to the high speed winds.  A week before our arrival, they closed the cliffs.  I also read that about a month ago, they closed down the Cliffs to visitors because of 93 MPH wind gusts! AH!  On top of the wind gusts, at a few points it was sleeting...so we had that hitting our faces.  I remember yelling, "It feels like little pieces of glass hitting my face."  It hurt really bad!

This video does not do the amount of wind justice, although the audio does!  You can see I am struggling to stand next to Jeff, and it definitely looks like I'm faking it, but I can assure you I'm not!

 Inside the Moher Tower

Jeff was braver than I...he explored the edges a little more closely than I would have liked him to! Doesn't surprise me, as he did the same thing in Edinburgh.

Although it was super windy (super = obviously an understatement), we were really lucky that it was so clear that day.  I have heard, seen, and read about people who have visited on fairly overcast days and their pictures look nothing like the clearness of our pictures.  We were really lucky!  It was really difficult choosing pictures, as each one had its own piece of character and beauty.  So I did my best picking the best pictures.

 Dressing like Eskimos!

 Part of the paths had a rock lining

You can see the craziness of the water here

 Our sad attempts to get the cliffs in the background

Only walked past two other people on the cliffs. We definitely were in the spot that not many tourists go.

Dark clouds were coming in, along with the sleet so we decided to abandon our plan of making it to the visitor's center and head back to the car. I think we spent over 2 hours enjoying the scenery and hike.  By the time we got into our car the sleet had picked up, although the sky didn't look as bad. Great timing. Our Ireland adventure didn't end there, as we had another day and a half to enjoy some new cities.  Look for that post soon!

On to the next adventure...

Busy, Busy, Bumblebees!

The last few weeks have really flown by! I can't believe it is already Tuesday night (well here, anyway) and I haven't updated the blog from this previous weekend. Things have been going really well for us over here. I think we both feel completely comfortable and living normal, daily lives.  I've been finishing up my online course for my 4th graders, and soon I'm going to start being a student again as I take a few classes to add to my educational license.  Jeff is busy, busy at work! Have you noticed he has yet to write his V.I.P blog post? I'll get him to do one, although I only have 10 more months to do so! 

As for this past weekend, we were planning on going to an outdoor cinema at one of the local historical spots...but the weather wasn't cooperating.  We did learn that the UK is being hit hard by Hurricane Bertha, so we've been getting a crazy amount of rain here in the last week or so.  The newscasters say "It is monsoon-like." ha! It makes me laugh, but we have had some hard rain. 

Jeff and I just chilled on Friday, and on Saturday we woke up to drive to Cambridge (just north of London) to visit our very good friends, Andrew & Julie.  Now if this isn't a small world, I'm not sure what is...they are on a job relocation assignment for the next year. So we are lucky enough to have some close friends to hang out with from America for the rest of our time over here. Crazy, right? So I'm sure you'll hear a lot more about the two of them and our travels together.  In Cambridge we walked the city, stopped at a few local pubs, and basically just spent some quality time with everyone.  We played some frisbee and had a nice dinner. 

 The boys are reunited...

 

Julie & Andrew

We stayed the night in Cambridge, but woke up early to head to Newbury where we visited the Highclere Castle.  Doesn't ring a bell? This is where the famous PBS show, Downton Abbey is filmed.  The exterior of the house and the grounds were amazing. We did go inside the castle, and I hate to burst many of your bubbles...but it was a letdown.  The house is currently owned and lived in by a family, so we were unable to take any photographs.  Along with the "No photography" rule, we were disappointed as the rooms were so much smaller than T.V. makes them seem.  We also realized that the show is not 100% filmed there so we were only able to see the library, entry way, Lady Sybil's bedroom, Lady Grantham's bedroom, and the dining room.  The rest of the interior is filmed off the grounds on a set.  We definitely do not regret going there, as this was on our bucket list. I am thinking we may have just put a little too much excitement on the visit. 

I was laughing pretty hard in the car when the road's name was "Road". 

Selfie. 

Part of the gardens. There was a sign that said not to touch any of the plants, as some of them are poisonous. 

Love this artsy shot Jeff got in the weeds because it reminds me of the intro to the show. 

Off I go, short post this week! It is fajita night, and some friends are coming over...so I need to get to preparing! Woohoo...Mexican food!

Different Decade. Different Century.

Jeff and I enjoyed a "lazy" weekend. After our trip to Rome and our lovely visitor [That post to come soon], we were pretty tired and still recovering from the trip. We grabbed some Domino's, watched some Dexter, and hung around our flat. On Saturday we went to our local library to sign up for library cards. They looked as us pretty funny when we brought mail to prove our address. If only we could have read their minds...I'm sure they thought we were crazy. We also have a higher appreciation for our amazing libraries back in the States. We were in awe thinking about the Indianapolis Central Library, not only because it is beautiful, but how many book options available. We weren't overly impressed with the facility and book selection. Of the 9 books I was looking for, I only found 1. I guess one is better than none! Jeff said the facility reminded him of his hometown library...when he was a kid. If that gives you any idea of what we're talking about. Decade: 90's.

Yesterday was an odd day. We looked out our window to see massive lines of people outside of the Nottingham Playhouse. We immediately thought we were missing out on an event we needed to be a part of. Little did we know, it was "Em Con" aka "Gen Con". It was insane how many people were standing in line, definitely hundreds. Most of which were in some sort of costume. Not sure if you can truly tell in the picture below, but I tried! The cars from transformers were outside the playhouse, and we were able to see them later on once everyone was gone.

  

Later in the day, we ventured out to Hardwick Hall which was only about 20-30 minutes away. This was a great afternoon trip to see a beautiful mansion built in the late 1500's. We were able to listen to an extremely boring speech from this lady. We were hoping to learn about the features and uses of the house, instead we were given a long lecture on who lived in the house. Names were brought up that we "should know" according to the speaker. Twenty-five minutes later we were able to explore the house and gardens. I really enjoyed this visit because the rooms were still set up as if someone lived there. All ~9 bedrooms still had the beds with the canopies above them. Each room was decorated extremely well, ritzy, and posh (Here's your newest English vocabulary word...use it!) The dining room was my favorite. I just can't imagine having dinner parties like this, or at all.

  

And you just can't forget the sheep...they are everywhere! We pulled over as we were driving out of the estate and this sheep was super close to the road. Within the field there were hundreds of sheep, including the babies! So cute.

Watch out world...Jeff has started Tweeting about our adventures!