Day 5

Today I had cornflakes and toast with butter and blackberry jelly. When I was finished, I went to wash my dishes and proceeded to get splashed with water by an Irish boy also staying at the Hostel. I forgave him when he said sorry because he had an accent! We took our bags out to the bus, loaded them and were on our way. Our bus driver, Owen, turned on a road and told us that we were on the way to Hollywood. We were very confused. We drove through gorgeous mountains for a good hour and somewhere along the way, Alex turned to me and said “Welcome to Gilder.” (He was referencing the fact that we were in the place where The Princess Bride was filmed.) I proceeded to take more pictures than I should have, oops! When we arrived in Hollywood, Owen pulled over and told us we needed to take a picture with the Hollywood sign. We quickly awoke from our deep slumber, as usual, and moseyed over to the sign. It was nothing like the one in LA by the way.

Hollywood sign 

                Owen woke us up again a little later when we reached Solas Bhride, Centre and Hermitages (Brigid’s light/flame). We were greeted by Sister Mary, a Brigidine Sister, who gave us a warm welcome and showed us around the centre. She took us into their prayer room and showed us THE light of St. Brigid which was intriguing. She told us about how her light was lit from the fifth century to 1993 and re-lit in 1993 and is still lit today. After a brief history lesson, moments of prayer and song, Sister Mary took us to the small labyrinth and we raced to complete it. Also there were three hermitages, faith, hope, and love. A hermitage is a small space where people can go to spend some time alone with God without distractions. Claire and I tried all of the doors and JC got nervous because he thought someone was in the home. The centre won the 2015 green award for being the most environmentally friendly building in Ireland. The building is also in the shape of St. Brigid’s Cross. Next we went to St. Brigid’s well. There were multiple prayer rocks and her statue was there, too. On the surrounding trees, there were things people had left such has jewelry and ribbons. There were also some candles lit above the donation box. Then Owen took us to an exclusive well, the healing well. We filled up our bottles and stared to drink the water when Owen yelled at us not to drink it. Then he talked about how clean the water was because it was from a spring—we were all confused and drank it anyway.

Statue of St. Brigid at the Centre 

Statue of St. Brigid at the well

For lunch, we ate at the Irish version of McDonalds, Supermac. I had a veggie burger and it. was. delicious. After lunch, Owen informed us that we had a two-hour bus ride ahead of us. So of course, we were all out immediately.  Next we stopped at an Irish grocery store because we are staying in cottages the next three nights and we have to provide our own breakfast and lunch. It was an experience. I felt I was being judged by the natives. We then arrived at our cottages and settled in before going to dinner. Dinner was salmon, broccoli, vegetables, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes and chips (French fries). We played a little table tennis, played on the playground and walked to the “beach” (there isn’t much sand, just rocks). We are looking forward to our bike ride tomorrow!

-Bella

P.S. – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!! I LOVE YOU!!!