Aran Islands and Dublin

We just left the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland today. We had an amazing time. It is an absolutely beautiful location. Only 14km long a 2 km wide. Population of 800 people. We stayed for two nights in a little bed and breakfast. Very quaint and peaceful. A great way to rest up from all the traveling. When we got there it was rainy and windy and a little miserable, but we settled into a local pub and just relaxed. That night the most AMAZING thing happened. We went to the local hotel where there was live music and the musician sat down with his guitar to begin playing. All of a sudden, he started to play "When You Say Nothing At All." by Alison Krausse, the song that Kat, Suzanne, and Stash played at our wedding ceremony! It was absolutely surreal. It is a pretty obscure song to begin with. I actually had never even heard of it before Suzanne introduced it to me. What are the chances that on an island off of Ireland that a random local musician would begin his set that night with that song? We were in utter shock.

The next day we woke up and our hosts cooked us a hearty Irish breakfast consisting of eggs, sausage, bacon, and some sort of mystery meat pudding. It was fantastic, and I'm not even a big fan of red meat. We rented bikes and spent the day cycling around the island.... literally. It's was more difficult that we thought. We can list a whole bunch of excuses about why the island kicked our butt, but let's face it, we are definitely not the cyclists we once were. We did get to take amazing pictures of the rolling hills, and ancient stone fortresses. Just got into Dublin. We'll try to write again soon.

Mike Spear, if you are reading this, our phone is not working. We are not getting any signal for some reason. We are trying to call you but nothing is going through. Please send us an email if you get this!