ireland

half day of work on friday with a spicy thai food lunch and then off to the zurich airport. about a 2 hour flight to dublin on aer lingus which was actually not bad at all. so glad to hear english the whole way there. landed and hopped into some rented ford fiestas to start the drive over to galway on the west coast of the island. thankfully i didn't have to drive standard on the left side of the road. all worked out in any case, the walkie talkies that we brought were a brilliant idea. got across the island in a couple hours or so. pubs stop serving food at about 9 pm so very unfortunately didn't get a good pub meal. instead got a sub. and then went drinking at the pub. pretty tasty 3 euro pints of guinness. the first place had some ridiculous old guy playing essentially the 90s playlist on my ipod, pretty good and pretty funny actually. moved on to the next pub which had a couple guys playing some old irish folk music which was very cool. after wandering around a bit we found another pub with a live band that was playing kings of leon at the time we went in. shortly after they had to close it down but did play 'all you need is love' by the beatles to end it off. there is this local beer in galway called 'hooker' and it did actually taste pretty good, very strangely like lychees. the night ended by me and chris going to 'supermacs' which is basically after pub heaven. inside there is everything from ice cream to subs to pizza to fried chicken to burgers and fries. needless to say at 2 am 100% of the patrons were intoxicated. so funny but the cheeseburgers were good.

woke up the next day and didn't really get a chance to take a look around galway because the whole cars and parking situation was a bit of a struggle so we made our way out and on the road. beautiful day, green fields and blue sky. driving south along the coastline is beautiful, taking in everything as we drive by. stop at this old castle on a bit of an outcropping in a bay, the tide was out so you could see all that was under it. really cool, nice place, beautiful pictures. further along we stop in the middle of 'the burren' which is basically natural limestone hills of rocks in cool formations. all the walls and fences in ireland seem to be made of stone, probably cause there is so much stone in this place. the farmer's fields are fenced off with stone walls, and obviously along the way we see sheep and cows and some llamas even. and of course some baby lambs frolicking. pretty cool. in any case the burren is quite the sight to see. driving along the coast of the atlantic ocean is one of the most beautiful places that i have seen, absolutely incredible. stopped at the edge of what seemed like the earth, looking out to open sea and scrambling over a few hundred meters of interesting rock formations to get to the water from the road. really cool. hopped back in the car to head to a tiny town called doolin where we were going to spend the night. stopped in to check out the friendliest hostel and most chill hostel i have ever been to, a refurbished 19th century farmhouse or something like that. really cool. walked down the 20 seconds to the nearest pub for some lunch. two pints of guinness, soup and delicious fish and chips later we head out on the road again to the cliffs of moher. driving on some narrow roads on the 'wrong' side of the road is pretty cool. these cliffs are breathtaking, like more that 200 meters straight down for quite a long stretch. walk along them for awhile, and the lay down and peer over the edge - reminiscing about bungee jumping...haha although this time there was no rope attached to my feet. amazing though, really worth seeing. after the cliffs we head back to doolin, check out this ruined church and graveyard with some old celtic crosses on them. see some more sheep on the way. pretty cool. head back to the hostel for a short nap to get ready for another night in the pubs. woke up to a nice picture slideshow from the hostel owner, beautiful pictures of the area in the burren and the cliffs. learned a lot about the area too. lots of ancient burial sites, tombs, history and about the aran islands just off the coast near doolin. these islands hardly see any visitors and the people still strictly speak gaelic. well, most of the people on the west coast speak gaelic as well. went in search for some dinner, unfortunately the two pubs within 30 seconds walk were full to the brim - ireland had just beat england in the six nations so people were getting happy. ended up putting down a few pints and then shoveling down some terrible pasta from the italian take away place. but that's besides the point. returned to the pub and heard some amazing live music, banjo and guitar and tin flute and some other traditional irish instruments. talked to a bunch of irish people who are very friendly. enjoyed many a pint and towards the end some irish whisky and in general had a great night. one of the best experiences i've ever had to tell you the truth, small town pub in ireland with some live music, tasty beer, good friends, happy, friendly people - there really isn't too much more you could ask for.

got a good sleep in and headed out again on the road early in the morning. drove through some more picturesque countryside and then stopped at in some small town to find some breakfast. ended up in spar (a fairly popular grocery store throughout europe (except for switzerland)) to see what there was. apparently, they had a full hot food section where i purchased, for 3 euros, the most awesome 'breakfast roll'. a large sandwich filled with two sausages, grilled bacon/ham, eggs, black and white pudding (blood sausage and some other sausage). so delicious. meat paradise. and apparently, at essentially every store in ireland more or less these breakfast rolls are available. amazing. it was a really good sandwich okay. and then for some reason, out of 12 adults, 50% of them thought that milk would be a good purchase for a road trip beverage. inexplicable, but i did also buy a liter of milk so i don't know. moving on from this breakfast experience, we headed towards limerick, where on the way we stopped at this castle in bun ratty. at first i kinda thought it was a tourist trap with the 10 euro entrance fee, but it's actually quite well repaired and there was a nice man who showed us around the castle as well. pretty well done - i guess i have never been inside a legitimate castle before and this was it. from the outside it didn't seem that big but there was for sure a lot of stuff inside. all the rooms and the halls were decked out in 15th century stuff which was also really cool. climbed up all the towers and saw all the rooms and got a pretty good view from the top. there was also a reconstructed village within the castle walls as well so it was cool to look around for awhile in there as well. saw some chickens and some pigs. and some dogs - on that note, i saw some absolutely beautiful dogs on this trip, the perfect sheepdog/collies/retriever type dogs that i would love to have. can't wait to get myself one. after the castle, we drove south through limerick and then headed east again back to dublin. a short while later, we drop off the cars at the airport and take a bus into the city. settled down and went for a walk into the town in the 'temple bar' area and then to this cafe for dinner. very cool place, apparently been around since 1840. bewley's i think it was. in any case had a really tasty dinner of leek soup and bread, some sort of spicy pasta (100000x better than the horrendous pasta the night before), and some brownie for dessert. really good. headed back to the hostel and picked up a few more beers on the way to watch the GOLD MEDAL HOCKEY GAME. canada and the united states again in the final, and it was a great game to watch, so glad that we could in the hostel common room. iginla to crosby in overtime, just perfect. great olympics too, i've been staying up a few nights to catch a couple hockey games, saw the first states canada game when we lost, then when we beat russia. kinda sucks not being around when the games are so close to home. but made due, following as best as i could on the internet. really great results though, most gold medals! pretty tired from being on the road for the past few days so settled in for the night after that.

woke up next morning nice and early, took a nice walk around the center of town, through the university with the greenest lawns, also all the universities that i have seen in my travels make u of c look just terrible. wish i had more time to hang around dublin but unfortunately we had to catch a flight back to zurich at noon or so. stopped in before leaving at this nice little park, and then to this cafe for some good breakfast and a good coffee too. not too much for the rest of the day, a relaxing afternoon at home and not work, that sure feels good. playing some guitar, watched the movies 'city of god' and 'drag me to hell'. city of god is an amazing movie i thought, really suggest it.

that's it for now, think i'll be heading out to do some x-country skiing this weekend, inspired by the olympics and i'm also curious to try it for the first time. also tonight is a chicken nugget party, somehow a few interns managed to get over 20 people to eat a bunch of nuggets together - we're so weird.