Yeats, Giants, and Bloody Sundy

After spending a great weekend in Chicago celebrating my friend Dr. Bartos' graduation at the Lederman's house.  I set out on Euro trip 2013.  Recieving an  email the day of my departure that I should pick up our rental car at the airport in Dublin and meet my friends at the hostel they were staying in, in downtown Dublin.  I quickly looked their hostel on the world wide web and took at screen shot of how to get there. 
After a flight to Paris and a prop plane trip to Dublin, on the bumpy trip I scribbled the directions on the plane's barf bag and scoured the map from the LP.  After the plane landed I lined up for immigration.  After several questions I headed for the rental car line.  An hour and a half later I was in my VW right hand drive left hand shift headed to Dublin.  Of course right out of the car park there was a freaking roundabout, as if it isn't bad enough to be on the wrong side of the road driving stick!!!!!  I survived and didn't even stall.  As I exited the freeway I scoured for street signs (chanting in my head STAY LEFT)  that several minutes later I found were tiny small signs located up on the buildings.  After a hour search  I abandoned the car in an area that I knew was close to the hostel and headed out on foot.  I quickly found the hostel and meet my friends Laura and Cory who had been traveling the world for the past 10 months.  I had missed her soooooo much so it was great to see her.

Car Feery

After we reunited we packed up the car and headed up north to a former priest's bachelor pad.  Four hours later after a grocery store stop to grab a chocolate bar to bribe the neighbor to give us the keys.  We headed into a cute cottage with a view of the ocean and the sound of the cows mooing.  First on the order was a visit to the local pub where of course our barkeep

 knew our host. We talked about life in Ireland and then retired back to the cottage.

Signage near Bloody Sunday Memorial

Murder of young adults standing up for their counties rights.  We then walked around the walled city and retired to a pub to listen to some Irish tunes.  We headed back to our cottage (STAY LEFT) and went to sleep. 

Beverage of Bushmills

The next morning we headed to the west coast where the road ended on the beach we drove across the beach to the connecting road and drove along the cliffs in the shadows of abandoned castles and churches while sheep scampered across the road.  We had lunch at Yeats Memorial Building and then headed out to the largest rock grave (which is really a 1.5 km uphill that is an inspiration for some Yeats poem).
We are now at an old mansion on the island of Acell that has a full pub and tons of working wood fire places.