finishing off ireland

its been about two weeks since we left dingle. our next stop was doolin. the hostel there seemed a little cold in atmosphere but was also cold temperature wise too. it had a bit of "the shining" feel to it... and seemed like we were the only ones staying there. while in doolin we rented bikes and after finally getting one that was road worthy for erica, her back tire burst as we were riding away, we were off to the cliffs of moher, or as all the rest of the world knows them, the cliffs of insanity from the princess bride. the bike ride was only 8km, but it was uphill the whole way, but then that means that its downhill all the way back!

next on the schedule was galway. after arriving around mid-day we decided to try a hop-on hop-off bus tour to get ourselves familiar with the city. it was a little lame, especially compared to the one we took in berlin last summer, but it did the trick and we were officially oriented. that night we played games in the dining room and ended up meeting twins, cute twins, over a game of uno. the next morning, to our surprise and pleasure, the weather was holding up and it let us have an undisturbed day on the beach in a suburb of galway called salthill. we walked along the promenade and "kicked the wall" just like all the locals do. while at the beach julia found a new friend for the day, a black shepherd-lab cross that loved to play in the water and fetch. we weren't quite sure who's dog it was or even if it belonged to anyone, but that didn't really matter as long as we didn't have to prove to the garda the it wasn't our dog. our last day we went to the museum of galway, found lynch castle, which is now a bank in the middle of town, and just hung out in eyre square.

off to derry now, as we say goodbye to ireland and hello to northern ireland

until next time