Paddy Fingers

Day 7: Hello to family and friends from Ennis, Ireland. Tonight is our last night overseas and I can’t believe it. The trip has flown by.

Today was a beautiful day. We left the hotel this morning for the mountains of Connemara. A few minutes into the drive, we stopped at a marble shop. The marble in Connemara is some of the finest in the world. Most of it is close to 500 million years old! There are multiple kinds; different shades of green, white and red as well as black marble (which you can see fossils the best in) were everywhere in the shop. The owner, Ambrose Joyce, took us back to his workshop and explained all about the different types of marble available. Their shop also mines and works amethyst. We browsed around for a while and then continued on our journey toward our venue.

The snowcapped mountains of Connemara are some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We “oohed” and “ahed” at passing sheep, rainbows and falling snow as we weaved between street after street, slowly climbing toward our destination. The landscape seemed to go on forever, especially after most of the bus started getting carsick. After finally arriving at Kylemore Abbey (our performance site for the afternoon), we changed and then made our way toward the church. The chapel was gorgeous. Stained glass windows and wooden benches made for a quaint scene. If only churches in Ireland had heat, we would be golden. It was absolutely freezing. Chris held my hands between songs so my fingers would warm up a little bit to turn the pages of my music for the next piece. Regardless, it was a fun concert! We walked back to the Abbey in falling snow with mountains behind us. Even though we were wet, it was hard to complain with all of God’s beautiful creation around us.

Making our way back to the gift shop and café, we ate lunch and browsed around. We then made our way here, to Ennis. Dinner was fabulous (as always) and I was able to eat green beans! Pretty much everyone here is happy to go home and eat some vegetables after eating so much fried food over the past week. After eating dinner, we bid farewell to Michael and John, our tour guide and bus driver. We sang them our Irish Blessing and Michael welled up with tears. Mikaela and I did too. I’m really going to miss them. They were so much fun and took such good care of us while we were here. I wish we could bring them home with us; it will be strange waking up and not hopping on the bus in the mornings from now on.

We wake up at 3:30 am to make it to the airport in time for our 8 am flight. I cannot begin to express how much I’m going to miss Ireland. But at the same time, I know I will be back eventually. So instead of saying goodbye to this amazing country, I’ll leave it with more of a… “see you soon!”

Dear loved ones, thank you so much for sharing this journey with our choir. Please keep an eye out for posted pictures in the future on facebook. I also know the choir is setting up some sort of Flickr or Snapfish account; once I have that information I will pass it along here. I hope you will have a chance to come here and experience all this for yourself one day!

May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May the rain fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.