So do we just wait for the cow to move?

After the prior day's events, this day was just for taking it easy. We didn't rush to get up early, or anything like that, and owing to the size of the giant meal the night before, it was nearly impossible. However, when staying in hotels and like, there's only a limited amount of time to take advantage of the breakfast you've already paid for. We held off as long as possible, but eventually we would miss the whole thing. So ready or not, it was time to eat again. For this is the way of things when traveling in Ireland. Plus, let's be honest, the dinner was pretty fantastic, so it would be a shame to miss out on good food right?

It was pretty much more of the same Irish breakfast stuff, but notched up a little in the quality department. The jam was ridiculously good actually, and I ate what some might call too much toast. Plus they had good juice that was perhaps as fresh as one could expect citrus to be in that part of the world.

After that, we trundled back up the 3 flights of stairs spiraling up the middle of the hotel to our room, and feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the level of manservantude, we carried our own bags down, rather than ringing for the bellman. By the way, it should be noted, that it was the same bellman from yesterday. He was clearly there until at least midnight, and now he was there in the morning. Several of the servers and busboys from the late dinner were also on breakfast duties. I realize you pay a lot for the luxury of this experience, but there's a little part of me that thinks, "if I was that guy, working his face off, I'd hate me for enjoying myself in his midst." Apparently, that's some working class angst I'll have to work out before I can truly live the life of the wealthy bon vivant. Of course, that's likely some time from now. It may also be likely that I never get over that. Maybe that's a good thing.

The other great thing about Ballynahinch is not just that there's a hotel, but these beautiful grounds, along side the loch and a couple of streams. This place is all about fishing, which we're not so much into, but it makes for beautiful scenery. We left the stuff in the car, and took one of their walks along the loch. It's not a whole lot different from Maine, and the lakes and woods I was used to growing up, except that there are no mosquitos, and the greens are all just a little brighter. Nearly every direction you turn, there's something else that's beautiful. I've said the same about the rest of Ireland, but it was never more true than it was in the Connemara area.

The whole time we were walking, the rain would start up and mist us, and then go away. For some reason, you just sort of ignore it. There wasn't the blind panic that the sky was about to open up and drench you, but you just sort of knew it would pass. We annoyed some fly fishermen (who wear far more equipment than I understand the need for), and were shooed away from their fishing spot, and just enjoyed a walk through the woods, which we don't get to do very often. In fact, I'm fairly certain Lindsay and I could count the number of times we've walked in woods on one, maybe two hands at most. This is just wrong.

We hopped back in our car, which was starting to get quite a crusty exterior at this point, and took off through the streams and bogs. Just outside of the gates of the hotel, we slowed quickly to a crawl when there were numerous sheep in the road. We got past them, went another short stretch, and encountered a large number of lumbering cows, and there's really no way to get them out of the road. I can tell you that beeping doesn't work. It's even possible that they're deaf, because there was no recognition. They finally moved out of the way, but Lindsay made me drive through them slowly so she could take pictures of them. There's something about the way they drive in Ireland that made me want always want to be going as fast as possible when on the road and driving. So on the one hand, I was terrified that someone would come up behind us at the speed of sound, and on the other hand, I was picturing a very slow moving cow atrocity. In the end, there were no such events.


At this point, it was fairly late in the day. We were headed for Sligo, which can be pronounced Sleego or Slygo, depending on who you are talking to. But we had no real plans for the day, so we basically drove up along the coast some more, and looked at really pretty views, over and over. I'll just show you some of what we saw that day, because I'm basically out of ways to describe things at this point. I realize this is no way for a writer to be, but there you are.


Around four in the afternoon, we decided to stop at Kylemore Abbey, which is basically the former castle/retreat of a rich English family from the late 1800's, which was later donated to an order of benedictine nuns, who now run a boarding school for girls, as well as a tourist trap/beautiful building for passersby. When I saw this place on a brochure, I immediately said, "We should go there," because it was so picturesque. Then I could say I was a little disappointed, because A) it's not really that old, relatively speaking B) It's sort of a symbol of rich English people living in enormous splendor among who knows how many poor Irish people, and C) It was sort of expensive, and we didn't realize that we didn't really have to pay for looking and taking pictures until after we did so. But then I read about it a bit, and the literature, which could certainly be biased, suggested that the family who built the place weren't horrible people, and created lots of local jobs by building the place.

There were these Victorian gardens you had to take a shuttle over to see, and for some reason, I decided that we should go see them, since we paid I guess, despite the fact that I had no real desire to see the gardens, and Lindsay repeatedly suggested as much. As such, we took the shuttle over, got out, looked around, and got back on the bus ten minutes later. Now, this isn't to say that they weren't nice gardens. They certainly were, if you're into that sort of thing. Oddly enough, the thing we found the most interesting was the vegetable garden, where we looked at the plants of such things as peas, tomatoes, various herbs, and other completely run of the mill vegetation. I realize we could see this almost anywhere, but we were here. But not for very long.

Then you go into the castle/museum, which actually only had 3 rooms open to peruse. This is because the place is an operating International girls boarding school, as mentioned previously. That meant there were these really stark signs around every corner expressly forbidding entrance to anywhere. It was like a military compound, protecting nuclear missiles, except it was a bunch of nuns protecting a bunch of 13 year old girls. Of course, I understand that, but it was still odd to see some of the girls outside, looking like normal kids. I figured they would keep them under lock and key, exposing them to as little light as possible.

On the way out, there's a small hill, with like 3 sheep just chomping away at the grass. This was easily the closest Lindsay had gotten to one so far, and she got as close as she could for pictures. I would say they're a little ugly close up, as well as being an animal devoid of almost any personality. There's some merit to the idea of calling people who just go along as sheep. But then, sheep don't really go along with anything, unless that thing is eating grass. Constantly.

Sligo was perhaps the first place where we got lost. In every other place, we just followed the signs and drove the roundabouts towards the "city centre," which we did in Sligo, but it didn't get us any closer. Or so we thought. We were looking for a place called Pearse Lodge, located on Pearse road. It may sound odd, but we hadn't had to deal with street names and addresses in almost a week. And for good reason, because there certainly weren't any street signs, or numbers on anything. We turned around a couple times, thanking god that I'd gotten used to the left-hand driving by this point, and saw the word Pearse a couple times, but eventually, I had to stop and ask at a local mini-mart place. He had no idea what the place was, but asked me if I knew her name, which I didn't. But he pointed to the road in front of me, and said, "well, that's Pearse road, so it should be right there." It turns out we were pretty much there already, and just didn't know it. So once again, we found it without really trying, but we just weren't quite aware of it. So I'm adding to our tally as a win.

Mary and her husband Kieran run the Pearse Lodge, which is basically just another Bed and Breakfast, but if you look them up on the web, you'll find glowing reviews of their place from all sorts of people. There was a good reason for that. They're very nice, and they run a nice place. This might have been the first time in the whole trip where someone was genuinely above and beyond nice and helpful to us. Don't get me wrong, the others were nice, but Mary was really invested in talking with us, and making sure we were OK, and she talked to us, and I hate talking to strangers, but I liked her a great deal. She told us all these places we could go in town and all kinds of different restaurants, and had maps and all sorts of stuff. Plus, they had a huge number of things to choose from for breakfast.

For dinner we learned that, no matter what it looks like, for the most part, the best Italian food in Ireland is going be less than you'd expect in America. The servers were very friendly, and they tried their damnedest, but really, it was just kind of average. But it's funny, where in the rest of the world, had I converted the money to dollars and known how much I spent for average food, I might have been unhappy, at this point, Lindsay and I were having so much fun together that we really weren't disappointed with average food. It might sound cheesy, but for once, I sort of knew what it was like to not be picky, and just be happy with the experience. We then had some chocolate cake that was not really anything special either, but we were having a good time, so it was pretty good all the same.

Sligo at night felt a little more rowdy and raw than many of the places we'd been . That's perhaps because it wasn't a town so focused on tourists, but rather it was more of a regular place where working people lived. So it was a little more shady walking around at night than most of where we'd been. That's not a bad thing at all, we walked with a little more alertness that we'd been using. We decided to call it a night though, and went back to our brightly painted room, and got to bed. Not exciting no, but it was a big day.

In the morning, we'd make the final leg of the trip in a northerly direction, and be off to Donegal. We did not know that waiting for us would be, perhaps the most spectacular view we'd ever seen. Or course, what Lindsay will always remember will be the sheep.

Fog, Drizzle, Rain, Bit of Sun, Rain, Drizzle, and Done

We got up nice and early, because today, we'd be taking the ferry to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. There was a boat leaving for the islands every hour, so we wanted to get there to catch the 9 AM ride, so we would have time to see as much as possible.

Long story short, for reasons unknown, the boat didn't leave until past 10. I guess they wait until it's full. I did learn that Australians are fun people. There were a group of what I assume were students, and they would be damned if they weren't going to have a good time. I also learned that Japanese tourists (and there were many) do not generally dress appropriately for this sort of activity.

Did I mention the weather? Other than our time at the Cliffs of Moher, we'd been lucky so far in that every day was very nearly perfect weather. So, we'd made the choice to go to the Aran Islands on this day, rather than the one previous, which you know we spent strolling around Galway City, and playing in tide pools. But we were troopers, and a little fog and rain wouldn't stop us. It was make us slightly uncomfortable, sure, but stop? No.

We piled off the boat and were assailed by people offering various modes of transport around the island, which is about 9 miles long. There were small buses, and some coach and horses, and bike rentals. Our original plan was to rent bikes, but I will admit that the other options looked pretty tempting as the sky was a dull grey, and the rain spit at us intermittently. But our indecision basically lead us past that, and ended up getting a couple of bikes. I think the idea of the bike was burned into my head, and the practicality of actually riding on in the rain hadn't sunk in. For one thing, you get that line of mud up the middle of your back. Who wants that?

Once on our not-quite-the-right-size-or-in-great-shape-bikes, we began to experience just how out of shape we were. Right off there's a hill that curved up and around. Plus the caravans full of people who accepted the warm, dry, drive-around tour were passing us on the narrow roads. There was a hotel, and a couple pubs, and the knick knack shops, but almost immediately the stone walls started up, and the big stretches of desolate looking farm and grazing land took over. Right off, we were next to a little red house, with chickens all over the place. It's funny, because you think you see chickens a lot, but in reality, you don't see them in real life very often if you live in New York or Los Angeles. So Lindsay and I are taking pictures of the chickens, feeling very touristy, I might add, when a slightly slovenly man comes out with a slop bucket, and shoos them all away from us, seemly vaguely annoyed. At least we got one great shot from it. I have to admit it, the chickens were kind of interesting, and I can't really explain that.

Leaving the chickens, we noticed that we were heading up hill, almost exclusively. Along with that, the rain was coming on a bit harder, and we found out that our layering was causing some overheating. Within 20 minutes, I was down to a t-shirt, and had given up wearing my glasses. I could barely see anyway. We'd pedal up the hill for a while, and stop. Then repeat. There were supposedly beautiful views and vistas to be had, but we couldn't really see them, so we just had to take the brochure's word for it. We were trading the lead with a group of 3 Japanese girls wearing (I kid you not) mini skirts and heels, and riding bikes that looked comically small for them. At one point, I noticed them chucking garbage over the wall into the field. At first I wasn't sure, then I saw her open a new water bottle, drink about a gulp, and toss the whole thing over into the field. So I yelled at them. Of course it did no good, because they didn't speak English. I guess I just hoped my scowl communicated something, but they probably just thought I was insane. What can I say, I really dislike littering. Especially in a place like this, where there's so much history, which can get get buried in garbage a lot easier than you'd think.

There were ruins of old stone houses everywhere. You sort of stopped pointing them out after a while, because, "look, it's another one."

Our goal became the fort Dún Aengus, which was about halfway across the island. It's a stone fort that dates back to about 1000 B.C. I can't tell you how long it took to get there, but I can tell you how glad we were to get off the bikes. I'm guessing it was about an hour or so, raining the whole time, and getting fairly heavy here and there. At least point, I've got to give credit to my wife, who in the past has commented on discomfort or fatigue perhaps earlier than I would have, yet on this day, there was not a single complaint from her. I know, because I was preparing or it, because I was the one who said we should take the bikes. I went for the bikes, even though, deep down, I knew it was perhaps not the best idea. But to my surprise, and of course to her inestimable credit, she assured me over and over that she was, in fact, having fun. It truly was a wonderous land.

After parking our bikes next to 50 other identical bikes, we paid our 2 euros each (or $235, still the cheapest thing in Ireland) and spent as long as we could in the visitors center, before heading out to the fort. I really can't tell you how fantastic it was to get off that bike, especially since the way back would be mostly downhill.

We also weren't really aware, because of the fog, just how far away and uphill the fort was. It was still raining as well, but it's a funny thing about the rain in Ireland. It's never really that bad. The temperature didn't make you any colder, and while it was incessant, it wasn't really that heavy, and just when you'd had enough, it would hold off for a bit. Or course, it would inevitably start up again. But either way, it didn't really bug as much as you'd think it should. Maybe that's because we went to Ireland expecting crap weather, so we were fine. So we trudged up a rocky and quite slippery path to the stone fort. We couldn't really see how far away it was, nor could we really appreciate the size of it, because we could basically only see what was in front of us. It really makes you appreciate, at least a bit, how living here thousands of years ago would either produce extremely tough, if not extremely depressed people.

The fort consists of several semi-circle stone walls, the other edge being a huge sea cliff. The good people in charge of the spot decided to go with a laissez-faire attitude concerning safety, because there's nothing to stop you going over the side. Lindsay had read in the book that a good number of tourists had indeed gone over the edge and died from a sudden gust of wind. I took that in stride, and of strolled over to the side, where a little protective mound had been built up, to peer over the side of the cliff. The sea was angry that day my friends. On a clear day, the view is supposed to be quite spectacular. A little after that, I got about 5-10 feet from the edge, felt a gust of wind, and decided I'd seen quite enough. Truthfully, that was a bit scary.

After a little bit, we saw enough of the stone wall, and took the seemingly shorter trail back down the hill. Then we hopped on the bikes and started down the hills, along the northern side of the island. This was a considerably easier trip than the way up. We cruised along a narrow road, surrounded mostly by stone walls, with the occasional group of grazing cows. Oddly enough, on an island famed for its wool sweaters, we didn't see one sheep. That's like finding an area of New York City devoid of assholes. It just doesn't happen. But there was a distinct lack of sheep. We stopped along the way and fed some roadside flowers to a wet, tired looking horse, wary of course from our earlier encounter with the unfriendly chicken farmer, and a previous roadside horse who actually ate a part of Lindsay's bike handle. He tried to take the whole bike, but we managed to get away in time. That kind of thing makes an impact. If he'll eat bike, can human flesh and bone be far off? It's best not to chance it.

About halfway back, there was a supposed to be a colony of seals or sea lions (I can't remember which), which, if you know my wife, excited her a great deal. Yet it turned out that the weren't in, and the spot where you would watch them was rather empty. Regardless, it was far away and foggy, so we'd just have to do without them.

A few more cows, and a largely unsatisfying lunch at the Irish equivalent of McDonalds (Supermacs!), and we had just enough time to explore the tourist haven of the Aran Islands Sweater Market and Museum. As far as I can tell, the museum part consisted of a video on how wool is made, and some old photos of men in the sweaters. We spent a good amount of time in the sweater market, and while I certainly like the idea of the Aran Islands sweater, I can safely say that being a slightly fashion conscious man, living in 2007 in New York City, I just can't pull it off. I'm sure they're warm, and historically interesting, and had I boat, and spent a lot of time at sea, I'd be all over it. But the the truth is, I pretty much looked like a weenie. Lindsay tried on a couple hundred sweaters are well, and while there were some cashmere varieties that were OK, they weren't really worth buying in Ireland. I've mentioned the exchange rates, I assume. We ended up with a not terrible half zip sweater for me, to be worn only on the coldest of days, and a wool blanket that, by the smell of things, was only recently attached to the sheep. But it's certainly warm.

We got back on the boat for the 40 minute ride back to dry land, noting that the offensive littering Japanese tourists hadn't reappeared. I'm hoping they met with some sort of donkey based accident, but it might be too much to hope for. We had to hurry back, because tonight we'd book accommodation at the Ballynahinch Castle Hotel, and we had to get there in time to make the most of it. It was only about 40 minutes from where we were.

As we drove towards the Castle, we were entering Connemara, which had a completely different sort of landscape than the others places we'd been. There were lakes and mountains, peat bogs, and windy streams along the road. It was all at once, lush and barren, depending on the rise of the road. Approaching the hotel, the trees got more dense, and we started seeing fishing cottages cropping up. We're not big into fishing, or at all really, but you can imagine how nice it was there. By this time, the weather from Inishmore was history, and long behind us, and things were looking up.

We turned into the gate, and drove through dense trees, and pulled up to the secluded castle with a little trepidation that we were in the right place. Next to reception, a huge fire crackled next to some leather sofas. A man so similar to Fawlty's Manuel that I feel bad making the comparison, took our bags (heavy bags!) up 4 flights of stairs, where we discovered that we had no bills smaller than 50 euros ($38,000 US dollars), and couldn't tip him. We promised him that we would take care of him later, which he most certainly doubted, but showed no sign.

This room...this room was ridiculous. I almost made Lindsay go back down and make sure they hadn't upgraded us to some room we'd have to take a mortgage out to pay for. But no, this was the room you get, and at this point, we couldn't have been happier. We're talking a huge room, the first with climate control, a 4 poster bed, a flat screen TV (with 3 channels....), huge closets, a couch, a bathroom with a dual shower in addition to a bathtub with a TV embedded in the wall, complete with waterproof remote control, and just a whole lot of niceness.

The whole place seemed like it used to be a the hunting retreat of some very rich people, and the decor backed up that theory. This was for people who liked hunting and fishing. While we really weren't part of that group, we made do.

Soon it was time for our fancy dinner. The restaurant served a 5 course meal that was probably the best eating we had in the whole country. There was a salad, and a starter, and another thing, and the main course, and then the desert. I think we both had filet mignon, because sometimes, fancy can get scary and unknowable, where some of the other choices were a bit too exotic for us. I don't even think the meal came with any chips, but I'm not sure. They may have sncuk some in there amongst the truffles and such. I had some sort of lamb salad and a currant sorbet, and Lindsay ate something from the sea that she liked a great deal as well. For dessert, we each got this strange assortment of chocolates. I couldn't tell you what they were, because the waiter wasn't exactly sure. But what I can tell you was that they were all excellent, in completely different ways.

At the end of the whole thing, we were both near collapse from rich food intake. At that point, they offered us tea and chocolates by the fire in the other room. Neither of us had room for oxygen, much less any other food or drink, but honestly, how could we say no? Being served tea in a room like that, surrounded by wealthy foreign people on holiday is a strange thing. On the wall opposite the fire was a painting showing a pack of dogs taking down a wild boar. It was no small painting either. It pretty much went from floor to ceiling. Where the hell were we?

As you can guess, after eating like that, and walking around all day in the rain, that was about all we had in us, and we passed out, hoping to have some time to enjoy the hotel grounds a bit more in the morning.

And we finally had a whole lot of pillows too. Clearly, it was worth the money.

Tomorrow: Sligo.

No English

It was morning in Galway City. We went down to the hotel breakfast, which was more of the Irish breakfast variety, where I saw people just loading up on black and white pudding, which was obviously perplexing. At the same time, I was developing a disturbing dependency on Irish butter. I'm somewhat grateful that poverty made it less likely my ancestors could overdo it on that stuff. Then again, it's possible that centuries of poverty and starvation was more unhealthy than a bit of butter in the morning. It's hard to say really.

We played a rousing game of "what country are they from" as we ate breakfast, and we were hitting at about 50%, but mostly because you can spot an American from a mile away in foreign countries. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

We then went and spent some time in the rooftop jacuzzi, a feature that made the less than stellar room a distant memory. Honestly, there's not much to say, but I firmly believe that any vacation that doesn't include at least a little hot tub is probably a failure.

We left our stuff with the hotel, and went off to explore Galway City while it was actually open. It turns out that it's a really nice place to walk around, shop, and eat. In that respect, it was actually a little better than Dublin. There was a mall right next to the hotel, which I decided we must walk through, since I am inexplicably drawn to malls. I have no idea why. Inside, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a small mall, but the thing is this: in the middle of the place, just off the food court, is a medieval wall, from the old town wall, which they built the mall around. Where else does that happen?! Certainly not in the shopping malls of southern California. It happened that there was a Flanagan's shoe store in the mall. Lindsay made me take a picture. You can see what a good actor I am from my nonchalance.

There were actually several more Flanagan owned establishments we started to see from this point on, including a Pharmacy, some sort of accountants, a quite large real estate firm, and an auto dealer. All of them spelled my name the way I spell my name, proving what I've been saying my whole life, that I spell it the correct way. Why people want to put in extra "n's" I'll never know. As we went north, it got more common, which makes sense, since we were basically in the area where the Flanagan's come from at this point. Some day I hope to use this knowledge to borrow money, but I haven't worked out the details yet.

We also stopped briefly in a comic shop in the mall, and I must say that if you're reading comics in Ireland, you're a trooper, because that stuff was not only in euros, which probably doesn't seem as expensive if you're actually Irish, but all the books were marked way up, even if it was charged in dollars. I mean, I love comics, but there's a limit. But then, maybe the economy is just that good. Still, to have to take out a mortgage just to read all of Preacher is a stretch.

It was about 8-12 minutes before we tired of the wacky Irish mall, and we sauntered out to the area with the shopping, restaurants, and bars that were not in the mall. In fact, the whole area was blocked off from traffic and situated in old medieval lanes, all cobblestones, and stone walls and such. It was there that we stumbled into a jewelry store (Lindsay almost can't not go into them), and Lindsay got a new ring to add to her wedding finger. It's a sort of claddagh ring, but very subtly so. I wasn't going to deny her the pleasure of Irishing up her hand, so we made that happen, and I even picked up a ring, which makes me a ring wearer now. I'll admit, it's a role I'm not entirely comfortable with yet, but I'm working on it.

At lunch, we figured, now that we're in Ireland, what a fantastic place to get some pizza! So we went into Fat Freddy's, and had what was not at all bad pizza, followed by not at all bad chocolate cake. There was a bit more "where are they from," where we were thrown off by an American guy who looked like he was very much from England. Our ability to judge people was starting to end up in doubt, a little more wandering, and it was time to get out of Dodge. After all, we had about 30-40 minutes of driving ahead of us.

Then about 5 minutes into that drive, a bottle of Diet 7-Up started spraying all over the passenger side of the vehicle, and I made the mistake of laughing at my wife's misfortune. But here's the thing, if a soda is going to blow up on you, I can't recommend Diet 7-Up more, because there's no sugar, and it doesn't get sticky, and there's no color, so it doesn't stain. Plus, if it's a rental car, you're golden. But we ended up pulling over to a large beach area, or what passes for a beach in Ireland. It wasn't soft sand, or particularly nice water, but it was quite sunny, and there were the people of Ireland, out there, desperately pale, but enjoying themselves.

At this point it was about 4:30, so we stopped only a couple towns outside of Galway City in a place called Spiddal, where we found a place a bed and breakfast just outside of town, on the coast. After we dropped our stuff in the room, we started off down the road to go to the edge of the water. We traveled down a little road with what looked like little vacation homes, and then through some tall grass, down to a rocky coast, that wasn't much different from Maine. I kept coaxing Lindsay out a little further and a little further until we were scampering on the rocks like little kids having a lot of fun. We played in tidepools and grabbed little hermit crabs who desperately wanted to be returned to their spots in the cool water. Then I did what I always do, which is to go out almost as far as it is possible to without putting myself in real danger.

But it had been a while since we'd had pub food, and nearly 24 hours since we'd had chips. Yes, time to go eat dinner. We actually had a really nice dinner, except for the fact that the food wasn't all that good. I don't know what that pork tenderloin did to the cook, but he certainly made up for it, by cooking the living hell out of it. But for some reason I didn't mind, because I was having fun. There were actually some vegetables served with the chips this time, and it's possible those actually saved us from malnutrition, but we'll never know for sure. What I do know, is that there were 3 german men who walked in, and two of them had matching coveralls, and didn't know how to ask me for the salt. But we sorted it out, and we worked out a deal for the salt after some rough translation.

When we were looking for a place to eat (there were three choices: takeaway pub food, nicer pub food, and the dreaded Irish/Chinese food), we noticed that Spiddal was Gaeltacht, or native Irish speaking. The road signs had no English translations, nor did the restaurant signs. Sure everyone spoke English, and the menus weren't in Gaelic, but it was a bit strange. Not a bad way.

But I don't think that was why we couldn't understand the man who kept speaking to us at the bar. At least I don't think so. This was our first, and unfortunately only experience with absolutely shitfaced old Irish men. I got Linds and I 2 pints of Guinness, and he just kept talking, but we didn't understand one word. At one point, he asked if we were Fins, which was an indicator that he was out in space, since, as I said, Americans stand out like, well, Americans. But he was harmless if not altogether eloquent, and other than the fact that Lindsay wouldn't let me leave her when I wanted to go to the bathroom, we had a nice time. The town was small and quiet, and there weren't many tourists, so we just hung out, and then walked back to sleep for the night. After all, the following day, we were off to the Aran Islands, where it would be raining.