Adventures in the Motherland(s): Isle of Man, Day 1
We were up at the crack-o-dawn to get to the airport in Dublin and catch our flight to the Isle of Man. Everything went smoothly and our flight was nice and boring, clocking in at about 25 minutes long (crazy, right?) Random fact: for both of our local flights on Aer Lingus (heh, yes, I know, the unfortunately named Irish airline) they played U2 as we were boarding and disembarking. I bet those flight attendants want to bash the speakers in…
When we arrived in the Isle of Man, the weather was cloudy and really foggy. We learned later that the fog is a trick of the mythical sea god Manannan—the story is that he would wrap the island in fog to protect it and hide it from Vikings and other ne’er-do-wells who were out for pillaging adventures. The fog made it hard to see much of the island at all, so we didn’t really know what the terrain looked like. We could also actually see the fog moving in around us and getting thicker by the second, which is something I’d never seen before and was mesmerizing to watch. Small wonder the phenomenon was chalked up to the sea god!
Once we got to our cottage rental, we did a little exploring and found that we were surrounded by farm lands filled with lambies. There were so many sheep and frolicking lambs all over the island, the cute overload was nonstop.
We also encountered, time and again, that Europe was built for short people. Of course, this made me feel right at home.
Later that day, we went to the Manx Museum. It seemed like a quaint little museum when we started the tour, but the longer we were there (another room of artifacts? Well, ok then) we began to realize it’s VERY thorough and full of all kinds of ancient and modern history, art, natural history, specialized exhibits, artwork and archives. I'd like to say I gave each exhibit the attention it deserved, but I'd be lying. After a while, I lost steam and headed to the gift shop. One can always find amusement in the gift shop.
The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful, aside from Scott ordering little lambie's uncle for dinner. Don't you just love his creepy smile? In his defense, we hadn't eaten lunch.
Coming up in the next installment: pony trekking through Middle Earth! (I guess that would make me the hobbit...)
If you missed part of our vacation recap and want to catch up:
