Let the journey BEGIN! Part 4

Today Jen reccommends everyone go see He's Just Not That Into You, either for a great viewing or to actually learn something. Who knows, you may even be inspired as Jen was to do something a little out of the box and publicly attempt those dance machines where you jump on the arrows to get points. By yourself. But a word to the wise, don't over-pay the machine in euros then have to go ask for a hopeful refund. I think I got one better though. I made the ice-cream man laugh at me and the general manager said I could have a free ice cream as a refund for the dance machine. (Then the ice-cream man tells me he's gonna go use my machine credit to do the dance machine..!) So there I am, walking down the winter streets of Dublin, wearing coat, hat and scarf, and eating ice-cream. Crazy foreigners indeed. But it wasn't just any ice-cream. It was a full-on sundae, with a chocolate flavour called Phish Food that had little chocolate fishies throughout it.
I was missing Brisbane a little yesterday, and the ease of familiar young company. It takes effort to be a full-time random!
With regards to recent au pairing, we had great success this week, with me having first experience of showering/ washing hair of the little girls. Shampoo + little girls usually = lots of screaming and tears. Somehow I convinved them that the shampoo was 'magic dust' though, and as long as they were covering the whole shower glass with the stuff, they seemed content to let me lather them up as well. Woohoo - Mary Poppins point!
Man, I'm looking forward to when the antics of 1st travel week are all blogged up and I don't have to keep confusing everyone with extreme date-skipping.

Friday, 23rd January: Limerick - Galway

Our early morn drive through Limerick with Grandad's courageous and go-for-it driving attitude. We missed our turnoff at the roundabout so were just starting to do a bit of a National Lampoon and go around it again, maybe not completely in the lines though.. . Then there come the 2 policeppl. 'Are yew aware of the traffic offairnses you're committin?' we got. Then comes the gush about being Australian and an innocent naivety about the roads. The policelady exclaims, and calls over her collegue. 'They're Australian!' Colleague happens to be an Irishman obsessed with Australia and has applied to work in the perth policeforce. Score!

After leaving Limerick in all its morning glory, we first stopped off at Bunratty Castle, with a theatrical murder of crows to greet us. Quick visit to the Blarney Wool Mills to end up picking some fragments of the Blarney Stone (well we can only believe). A little further on, more castles abound, including a particular stubborn snob of a horse who refused to respond to my equine paparrazzi attentions. Fine, filly.

One of the big sites of the day, albeit the whole trip, was a visit to the beautiful wild and raw Cliffs of Moher. This is real raw western Eire here, on the very brink of lashing Atlantic sea spirit. O MAN the WIND! Scarlett O'Hara would certainly be gone here. Check out the spray leaping up from the cliff base.

At the tourist office each little window of a room poked out from its seat wedged deep in the hillside. Pretty cool. And of course there was gaelic on all the signs to try pronouncing.

Voila couple of random arty shots of another castle location. Heeh, had enough yet?!

Too bad!, cos here we are at a castle I can't remember the name of, but with outstanding regal presence. I keep taking way too many photos, so if you think this is photographic overkill already, bear in mind this has been culled like 90%..

And besides, how can you have too many castles?

Continuation of graveyards, historical homesteads and road signs in awesome natural light.

Arriving at the Cathair Chonaill stone fort (which was closed for the winter) we found this little bit of Irish optimism.

Pretty much just across the road though was Poulnabrone, the Tomb of the Burren, dated back to the new stone age. Not only was there a mini version of Stonehenge here, there was also a precariously sitting rock, and a nifty run of stone wall that cast dappled light through its gaps.

Too many signs!

Searching for our next historical sighting, Glenlo Abbey, we completely missed it, as it was a very un-historically-ruined currently running hotel. I was quite taken with the old black wrought-iron gate and its close knit neighbours of ivy. Wouldn't anyone??

In Galway city! Wandering through the cobble-stoned mall feeling very cultured by influence. For dinner we went to Monroe's Tavern, where my Irish friend Aisling worked before the good old Brisbane Irish Club days. Great beef and guinness pie!

On return to the church carpark where our little rent-a-car sat, we discovered, as the lady who was approaching us had moments ago, that the carpark closes at 7pm and we were trapped. And it cost 20 euros to get out!! All 4 of us had to wait for the clamping police to come. We watched as he seemingly made her pay the fine to get out. When he gets to us, we gush once more about being Australian, being told to park here, (which we were) and having no idea about the curfew. He gives us an exascerbated Aaagh, and a flick of the hand and we take that for a let-off. Woohoo!