So far we haven’t had any major problems navigating or communicating in these foreign lands, but it’s clear that is all about the change very shortly. Today we took a 3-hour bus ride from Dublin to Galway on the west coast of Ireland. The street signs are slowly morphing from English to Gaelic, and the Irish accents are getting much thicker. It’s only going to become much more challenging from here on out. At least until mid-December that is when we anticipate touching down in Australia.
Today we picked up another rental car, this time in downtown Galway. This car however had a manual transmission… just imagine for a second shifting with your left hand. Let me tell you, it only adds to the excitements of driving on narrow windy roads in the rain with crappy windshield wipers with bad directions and no street signs, and large tractor trailers coming at you head on. Weeeeeeee!
Oh well, we somehow managed to survive another day and made it to our first hostel on the trip. Check out the view from Clare’s Rock Hostel. So picturesque!
Here’s a little panorama for your viewing pleasure.
After escaping from prison, we needed a drink. So we walked down to the Guinness Storehouse for a self guided tour inside the worlds largest pint glass. ‘Just how big is the worlds largest pint glass?’ you may be asking yourself. It’s 7 stories tall, and sits on nearly 60 acres of land! That land by the way has a 9000 year lease!! I guess ol Arthur lived by the mantra of ‘go big or go home’ even way back in the early 18th century.
At the top of the giant pint glass, at the Gravity Bar, we ran into a couple of fellow Californian ladies who didn’t like beer. I guess they got on the wrong tour bus or something, cuz why else would you come to Guinness!?!? So we inherited their free beers.
And despite splitting 5 pints, I still think we were some of the more sober people in all the land.
Well England was a blast, but the time had come to explore other lands. Ireland to be more specific. And we just barely made it to the airport in time too! Apparently there was a fire in Shepherds Bush (not our fault), which caused a massive traffic snarl. We got two totally different sets of directions, from two different people, which set us back a good 30 minutes. So we did what any frustrated American would do… we broke a few traffic laws and quickly fled the country.
Ireland looked like a good place to put er down, so we landed…
and made our way across the Liffey River…
Apparently, word of our flight spread quickly through the UK and the Irish Garda we’re on to us. So they captured us and threw us in Kilmainham Gaol.
Luckily however, before throwing us in shackles, they let us have one for the road (which by the way means your last drink before being strung up to die). So we opted to have that “one” at the Guinness Storehouse.
