Doolin

We arrived in Doolin around 3pm yesterday (after having gotten lost only a little!). Driving in Ireland has certainly been an experience! Not only do I have to drive on the wrong side of the car while shifting with the wrong hand, but I have to drive on the wrong side of the wrong around crazy Irish drivers. And they are CRAZY DRIVERS! These roads are horribly narrow (even in the cities, but its much worse in the country I learned yesterday). People driving right through the center of town at full speed! Scary! They all park wherever they want, including on the street (in either direction, so cars are often facing each other while parked on the side of the road). Anyway, I am getting the hang of it, but it will be nice to get back home to my Chicago-style drivers!

We arrived at our B&B (Roadford House Restaurant), got settled in our room and then decided to do some wandering before dinner. Shawn was desperate to go see the ocean, so that's where we headed.

We drove through down in the direction of the Doolin Dock and we discovered a little town area with shops and pubs. We didn't really stop, but we're planning on heading there tonight after our day. We discovered a little putt putt course right on the edge of the cliff! Amazing! We were completely blown away by the views...and I don't usually get blown away by looking at scenery. It is amazing!

Here is the Cliffs of Moher in the distance. We'll be taking a ferry ride today along the cliffs.

All along these cliffs and rocks you can walk and enjoy the view. We saw some people out sunbathing on the rocks! There isn't one sign that says Caution or anything about Your Own Risk. The Irish just expect their visitors not to be idiots I guess! We loved our first few hours in Doolin and can't wait to head to the Aran Islands today!

We headed back to the hotel for dinner and it was amazing! Our B&B has like a 4 star restaurant! It was so delicious! Everything was! My appetizer looked like art and then we had the most delicious potatoes I have every had with our entrees. We got a Bailey's Bread & Butter Pudding for dessert and it was so YUMMY! Coffee after dinner (which we have noticed is a staple after every meal here - or tea) was the best we've had. Overall, we were very pleased with dinner. Our B&B knows how to do food!

After dinner we headed to a pub down the street called McGann's. They have live music every night so we thought we'd catch a bit of music before we went to bed. The music got started late but oh was it worth the wait! Amazing! The guy playing the banjo had his fingers moving so fast it was all a blur and I've never seen anyone play the accordian in real life! That was so cool! It was just an amazing performance. We didn't stay long but we plan to head out tonight again and hear some more music and one of the other pubs.

We headed back to our B&B only to find a fox at our back door! It scared us to death! It was so cute though! I guess they feed it every night to it always comes back. We tried to get a picture then Shawn was going to try to video it, but we had no luck. We're going to try again tonight. When we decided to head to bed we noticed that there are some very loud cows that live across the street from our B&B. I don't know what their problem was last night but I hope it was a freak noisy night! I think I slept maybe 3 hours....and we have a long day ahead of us. Shawn just woke up and his first words were, "I'm gonna shoot that f*#king cow and eat it for breakfast!". That about sums up my feeling about the noisy cow as well!

Well, we are off to the Aran Islands today! Yay!