I’m sitting on the Trinity College rugby pitch. (Well at one of the benches surrounding it.) And yea this’ll be a long one since I haven’t posted in several days. Actually I’m going to separate my Irish adventures into two posts for convenience and length’s sake.

And oops. The students sharing my bench just informed me it’s a cricket field. The rugby pitch is behind me. While I’ve been sitting here, groundskeepers have put up barriers and started digging up the field. I guess I’ve been sitting here too long?! I’m told they tear up and replant this part of the cricket field every year once the season is over. Who knew cricket fields required such rigorous maintenance. Oh well it’s beautiful and I’m enjoying some sun. What a difference a day or two makes. I arrived Friday, two hours delayed, because of wind and rain over Dublin — aftereffects of Hurricane Michael. Even Edinburgh was windy; I stopped at the castle on my way to the airport bus. Can you see the woman’s hair and the flag blowing?? (Also, the castle is worth seeing even if I didn’t go inside this trip.) I stopped taking photos because I thought the phone was going to blow out of my hand. Anyway I’m in Dublin because my NY friend Joy was here to help celebrate another friend’s 50th. Here we are at the Cliffs of Moher but more on that later. When I went to book my flight to Slovenia, It was cheaper to fly to Dublin and spend the weekend here than fly out of Scotland. And it was great to catch up with Joy, not to mention have company on some of this trip! That said, Ireland was not on my original travel radar and I didn’t do much research (such as it is — I’m not doing much for anything but this was particularly bad). Anyway obviously this blog will focus on events with Joy. Part II will be Joy-less. Of course it was wet out but we went to a few pubs the first night— the first one proudly (or defiantly?) declaring it does NOT serve Guinness. A bit sacrilegious here! We heard later it’s known as being a hipster craft beer place. But fine by me — they had several porters and stouts that sounded good (and I only had one!).

We went to the popular Temple Bar area afterwards to try to find live music. We did — seemingly all American tunes though they were playing Rolling Stones when we walked in. The bartenders and owner were great so shout out to Riot if you’re here. The owner (Conor? Colin?) wrote out a lovely itinerary of a place to go outside Dublin (Howth) to see a bit of the country and sea without renting a car. Although he didn’t bother to mention the castle or other sights. Just good places to eat and drink. Of course we didn’t follow anything he gave us to do. Oh and I see it’s Conor!

Anyway, we decided to rent a car for Sunday, the one day we had together that wasn’t pouring. I saw photos of the Cliffs of Moher which had me fixated to go there … I was torn about seeing the Giants Causeway, to sort of complete my trip to Staffa and Fingal’s Cave by seeing the other side. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out my Isle of Staffa blog.) But I looked at photos and thought — if you’ve seen one set of hexagonal, basaltic columns, you’ve seen them all! Apparently they aren’t THAT unique?! OK, they are amazing but supposedly aren’t as impressive on this side and the very helpful young man at the info centre agreed it’d be more representative of Ireland to check out the Galway area if I’m willing to drive 3.5 hours/way.

So we did. Yup seven hours in one day but it wasn’t that bad. I drove since we got a manual car and many Americans freak out at driving on the other side — not to mention managing roundabouts. It was great to have Joy help navigate. Of course I made several wrong turns or google tried to send me down a one way street once but she got us on the right route pretty quickly whenever I screwed up. We stopped in Galway city for lunch. It’s a cute town but we were ready for the countryside. And the Cliffs of Moher. It’s really hard to see in the photos because it’s actually too bright!! (Scotland always looked great in those misty foggy rainy pictures, didn’t it?! No sun glare!) By the way the drive from Galway to the Cliffs was lovely. Sea views. Castles on occasion. A few cute towns. Lots of green pastures. Rock walls. Horses. Goats. Some sheep. Mountains and valleys. Oh and curvy, not overly wide roads. I of course have no pictures since I was driving and didn’t even see that much because every time I tried to look I guess I swerved a bit and Joy was convinced I’d hit an aforementioned rock wall. Or a biker (there were several). Or an oncoming bus that didn’t even try to hug left so we could easily pass. It wasn’t as harrowing a drive as the Loch Lomond one with flooded roads but I got a little tense at times. But it was well worth it. A note on the Cliffs. And walking in the area. Yes I was freaking out a bit. They have a sign indicating they’re not responsible if you walk past a certain spot (I should’ve taken a photo) — you can walk close to the edge or there’s sort of a rock wall that’s been erected and you can walk inside it. Guess where I usually chose to walk?!

But there’s a tower and views to the other side (it was built apparently for the enjoyment of people who wanted to view the Cliffs). And to get these I had to go closer to the edge (just not THAT close). Now in the last photo — both Joy and I clearly saw a face profile outlined in this “sea stack.” Can you see it? We wondered if it was carved on purpose but as we got closer to the front, it no longer looked like a face. Kinda cool though.

We were also thinking we’d see the famous “Burren” that are in that area — the Cliffs are part of it. But um, I just looked up what it is and I think we missed it. (Oops! Joy, I guess we should’ve researched a tad before the trip.) I mean we were driving all around the area but admittedly I didn’t turn at the many brown signs that said The Burren. It’s very craggy rocky ground apparently. Nonetheless the landscape — these were taken of the areas oppposite those amazing Cliffs — was interesting to me. Green but rocky and watery and everything.

You can’t really see but in the second picture there’s big rock drop offs near the beach.

And finally, funny stories. We asked a random guy to take a photo of us with the Cliffs in the background. And we got this.

And this.I was wondering why it was taking so long for him to take the picture — he was taking himself (!) and his friend photo-bombed him. Or us? Meantime I couldn’t place their language — wasn’t a Romance language I could recognize nor German. Who knows. Quite silly but sort of amusing.

Second semi-amusing stories are just about drunken people (at like 6 pm on a Saturday and 8 pm on a Sunday). One guy (40s?), wasted on a very crowded tram, was spilling his drink and being quite incomprehensible (I literally could only understand about 1 in 10 words and Joy got nothing) although I think the locals on the tram could understand him. But of course he’s striking up a conversation with everyone on the tram.

Then on the drive back to Dublin from the Cliffs, we stopped at a place off the motorway (Moate) to grab some food — and caffeine for me. First of all, I swear in this small one-road town I saw maybe 1 grocery store, 1 hardware store, a gas station, 2 Chinese restaurants, 3 other restaurants, and like 10 pubs. No wonder people drink so much here. There’s a pub on every corner. Anyway we went in one to get my Diet Coke (and use their toilet) and an actual drink for Joy — it was kind of sad looking outside but very cute inside with a whole back area, and had a nice chat with a few old timers. Nice life that Sunday at 8 they’re in the pub and their families are nowhere to be seen?! And then we went back to the restaurant to get the food (oh I blame Joy — she was craving Asian noodles and it was a takeout with a few tables if you want to eat there). And several wasted younger guys sat down near us after ordering their food. Once again we could barely understand them (I got maybe 50% this time and Joy 10%). Only 1/3 was wasted and we could understand the other guys so apparently we just can’t understand wasted Irish accents. Perhaps it’s a good thing.

That’s the Joy report! We had some lovely meals and Joy’s friend’s birthday celebration was fine (I left early) but it’s too much stuff.

And I have more on Dublin solo later.