The timing was amazing – They’d actually arrived while we were in Bulgaria, and had originally planned on leaving the day before we got back… but, with many thanks to their flexibility, were able to reorganize some flights to stay an extra few days, so we could catch up and spend some time together!
What better way than via a simple, but lovely, hike out to Howth? A nice train ride to chat, some good views and ocean-side hiking, and then food (and beautiful birds!) afterward?
Yeah. It was a really nice day out, and a very welcome callback to my lovely time in Oregon.
Dear lord it’s been a minute since I’d gotten to go on a hike.
Time to rectify that!
I had a day off, I had the option to rent a car and escape the city, and I’d put together a list of hikes to check out. I pulled the list up, picked an option that wasn’t so far away, and headed out of the city and toward the “wilderness”.
I’ll say – for a short near-city hike? This was solid! I took a slightly non-standard route, taking the long way around via a big old loop, and that extra milage made all the difference.
A quiet parking spot, a calm walk in, some good solitude and quiet as I made my looping way toward the summit.
Then, a relaxed lunch up top, some good views of the ocean and Dublin itself… yeah. This was the escape from papers and classes and city insanity that I needed.
I’m still getting my Irish hiking legs under me – I don’t know the areas, the rules, or the systems nearly as well as I’d gotten to know New Hampshire, or Oregon, and so adventures are a bit more challenging to put together.
Thankfully, the MBA program comes pre-equipped with friends who are in the same boat as me, and are interested in getting adventures in!
This time, we headed to a spot that I’d gotten to know earlier in the year – Glendalough, a beautiful circuit hike around a lake down South of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains. I met up with my friends in the morning, we grabbed a rental car, and took to the road on our way to adventure!
The drive was lovely – I’d gotten comfortably used to driving on the left side of the road by this point, though I did still need to keep one part of my brain focused on it, and so was able to chat pretty easily while we ground out the miles (kilometers) to our adventure. We talked, we listed to music, we enjoyed the escape from the city.
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We hiked, I flew the drone a bit, we said hi to the natives (deer!), and enjoyed the clear air and lovely weather. We snacked, we got some food from the nacho truck at the parking lot, and reveled in the fact that we were in Ireland!
