Caves, Cliffs, and Chips Oh My!

Today was exhilarating despite its rocky start. Which means I overslept. I woke up at 6:00 am because of an unfortunately overlooked alarm, and then I proceeded to fall back asleep, by-passing my intended wake-up alarm of 8:00, missing breakfast, and being awoken by my fellow choir mates knocking. But, regardless of this unfortunate start, amazing events followed.

Our first stop was at the Poulnabrone portal tomb which was constructed nearly 5000 years ago. Over 30 human remains have been found at this site which is located in the Burren; the Burren is a national park with a karst landscape. The ground was composed of mostly rock with some soil situated in deep cracks. Though this might make it seem barren, it was beautiful. But then our coach driver said something that stuck out: at one time, people being punished were sent to live in this part Ireland which made it difficult to live because crop farming is not an option and livestock would find difficulty grazing. It made me think about how much history is everywhere we seem to go. That landscape was used as a punishment by someone nearly 400 years ago, and I get to see where it happened. This also makes it clearer to me to understand just how many hands have a say in making Ireland what it is today. Those who were sending people to starve their sheep in the karst landscape were not the first to be in charge. For that reason, the traditional culture here is a mixture of influences which is eerily similar to the story of the United States though Ireland's process has been on-going since the 12th century.

Among the many exciting things that happened today, I got to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. And I got to play in it! Just running around in my bare feet, but it was enough. Before that was hike on the cliffs of Moher which are these gigantic cliffs on the west coast of Ireland. GIGANTIC! Doesn't do them justice, so you'll have to wait until I post pictures.

We also went to the Aillwee Cave. Being from the Cave State prepared me for the awesome cave experience, but what surprised me was at the very end of the tour when our cave tour guide asked us to sing a song in the cave. We looked at each other, and our director informed us that we were going to sing our closer MLK which is by the Irish rock group U2 (I don't really know if they are Irish, but our director says so in order to make ok to use that piece in our set over here). Our tour guide was genuinely impressed and astounded once finished a snippet of it and completely sweet. It was rewarding to have someone genuinely feel happy because of what we do, and it made me realize today, again, that people are people no matter what country.

That's all for tonight. I cannot even try describe everything that has happened so far because I wouldn't be able to do it justice. Pictures will come soon to this page, but I'm going to sleep now. Tomorrow is our first official concert of the tour!