Ramblings...

Jack-o-lantern evening

Neighbors yard was AWESOME!

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Ireland - Dublin to Galway

YAY! Today I finished up my work stuff. Training is over! Woo hoo!
I was very pleased with how today went. I was teaching material that I am pretty vaguely familiar with, but I totally pulled it off. Class seemed interested and learned something. Very good.

So after that, I caught taxi with Dave and one of the customers, Robert, to the airport. From there I picked up my rental car. It's a tiny little bugger. I'll get some pictures tomorrow.
So, driving on the left hand side actually has turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. The hardest thing is when I walk up to the car to get in it, I still walk up the the left hand side.

Hehehe. The whole time I am driving I just keep thinking left left left left. It works :)
So I drove clear across Ireland today. Seriously. I drove from Dublin to Galway. It took me about 2.5-3 hours. Pretty uneventful drive and really nothing much to see either. But I got to Galway, and I set the GPS unit in the car (yeah, I HAD to have it. so glad I did) for Eyre Square in Galway. It is a REALLY cool area. Lots of shops (most were closed tonight) and bars and stuff.

I ended up walking into this record store called Red Light Records. Me and the owner, Des, totally hit it off. He just got back from a 6 week trip across the USA. New York to San Fransisco I believe he said. He went through Austin even! But didn't get much time to spare there. Too bad. Completely cool guy. We chatted for I dunno maybe close to two hours.

Turns out we have very similar music tastes and he played a ton of Irish acts for me. I ended up walking out with 9 CDs! HAHAHA it was a load of fun though. Shot the shit for a while.. then I was STARVING! I walked around trying to find an Italian place, but they were all closed. I ended up at this Chinese place and it was SOOOOOO good. They had this homemade hot chili sauce and I loaded up on it. I was running out of my nose and eyes. That is always a good sign.
After that I strolled around for a while, down the shop/bar district.

Very cool. I went to check out this one club where Ryan Adams is playing next week. Tonight there was no more music by the time I got there. Got a recommendation from the door guy and headed over to another place. The music there was eh.. it was traditional Irish, but the band was a bunch of old farts and quite honestly, not very good. I did enjoy a Guiness there though.
Finally grabbed my car and headed out to find a hotel. I just found one. It's 1am.
Tomorrow I will check out Galway in the daylight in the morning. Then I will head out for Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher. Hopefully make it out there by early afternoon. I will check that out tomorrow, and then possibly drive down to the Ring Of Kerry. Just playing it by ear.
I have a hotel booked in Dublin for Friday night. Then I fly back out for home on Saturday.

Lots to pack into a couple days. Should be fun!

Dave! My coworker that I did training with.

I saw this on my drive to Galway. Looked cool. I didn't have time to stop so I just took this quickly while I got stopped in traffic. It came out ok for a quick shot.

I ate dinner at this Chinese place and they had this cool painting on the wall.

The old fart band.

A bar.

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Dublin - Day 2

The day started off here at a nice coffeeshop called "LemonJellys". I had a great egg, cheddar, and tomato bagel for breakfast.

I was in the Temple Bar district...

And this is the famous Temple Bar.

Late that day it was off the Guiness

The brewery

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The toucan!

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At the top is a bar, surrounded by 360 degrees of windows. The Gravity Bar. Here you get a free pint of Guiness.

Amazing views from up here

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And then on the walk home, I passed by Christchurch Cathedral.

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Really gorgeous.

Past a pub

I ate dinner at this place. It was very nice and homey feeling.

Some cool sculpture

And back to the hotel.

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Fresh shaven, in Dublin

These guys were jamming!

Cowboy in Dublin. This guy played "Blue Suede Shoes" both times I walked by. People were screaming for Johnny Cash.

You see the strangest things in Temple Bar.

Drumming on a box.

This guy would pope into scary poses whenever someone threw money in his jar, and then freeze in that position until the next person threw some change. Scary! I think his pointy ears are real (he had them made that way), and he was wearing freaky contacts.

There was this huge group of people dancing. The girls were dancing "Irish style" in heels! Crazy! The guy on the right approached me afterwards and told me "Don't take my photo, I'm Irish." I didn't even realize he was there!