Advertisement
The Black Stuff
Our first pints of the weekend at the Guinness Factory After 4 days back at work from my last holiday, I was back in the air again as Ben and I went off to explore Ireland. We flew into an overcast morning in Dublin and after finding our hostel, I played tour guide as Ben had never been to Dublin, or Ireland before. We walked through the streets and explored the main sights before the inevitable happened and we wandered over to the Guiness factory to take the tour (me for the second time). The tour was brilliant once again and we spent an hour or so at the bar on top of the factory, looking out over the city as we enjoyed our free pints. Following that, we wandered the Medieval and Viking Quarter before finding a pub to settle down and watch some football. After a pub dinner, we spent the night hopping around a few pubs in the Temple area, before eventually calling it a night.
The next morning we started the right way with an big greasy Irish breakfast and wandered along the Liffey before making our way to the train station where we journeyed west out to Galway, somewhere new for both of us. It
View over Dublin
Towards the heart of Dublin is a University town and from walking the streets to the hostel, we could tell that there was a lot more happening than in Dublin. We had a bit of a look around before starting our search for a couple of Hookers (a type of beer made locally. Not that you were thinking of anything else I am sure). Unfortunately we didn't find any pubs that stocked it, so we just had to settle for our usuals.
We jumped around several pubs and it was here we started making our enquiries for a husband for Leah, but despite one distinguished gentleman who Leah rejected idea of, we came up empty handed. The standard just wasn't good enough for Leah, which was shown perfectly the next morning by the four Irish guys in our hostel room. It wasn't until you left the room and came back in that the smell hit you. We had to hold our breathe it was that bad - they smelled like they were 8 days dead. They weren't moving a whole lot so it was a possibility. But by the time we got back in the evening, the 'bodies' had been disposed of/checked out and
St James Gate
Where the magic happens we had fresh air in there for a change.
With the prospect of a free day, and not a whole lot to see in Galway, we jumped on a tour out to the Cliffs of Moher and we also got very lucky with the weather. The skies were clear and there was even some heat in the sun and I got plenty of pictures around one of the more beautiful regions of the Emerald Isle - several really good ones as we perched on the very edge of the cliffs. A completely different scenario to what Hannah told me of her trip where it was so windy, most people actually had difficulty walking!
Then it was back to Galway and one of the main reasons for our trip. Over the course of his life, Ben has made it a goal to see football in as many stadiums and grounds as he can, regardless of the teams playing. And that night was his 250th ground as we went and saw Mervue United play Monaghan United at Terryland Park. The game finished 1-1, with the most exciting moment occuring with a collision between the Monaghan defender and goalkeeper allowing the
Remembrance
The haunting statues remembering victims from the Great Famine, which forced many people looking like this to flee to other parts of the world in search of jobs and food. ball to trickle over the goal line to give Mervue an early lead - fantastic humour to start the game! We finished off the last night of our trip the way we started it, with a couple of pints.
The next day, we made our way nervously back to Dublin as we were not sure if the ash clouds were going to affect our flight back, but we were lucky once again and managed to squeeze in the window the airspace was open and made it back to London without any further dramas. So now summer is definitely on it's way in Europe, I have plenty of plans and travel over the next several weeks - Leeds last home game as they attempt to secure promotion, a Flight of the Conchord's gig, Jono's 30th in Madrid, meeting up with Cam and Arevik in Amsterdam and AC/DC in Paris, all before the Football World Cup and my Dad arrives over from New Zealand. My last few months in London promise to be fairly busy....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 23; qc: 88; dbt: 0.1564s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb