We said our goodbyes this morning and waited for the farmer to move his holsteins into the yard before setting off. We went north to Lahinch, where we took a walk on the promenade and watched the wannabe surfers take to the waves. It was a freezing cold, cloudy day. The surf was filled with different surf schools; it didn’t seem like anyone actually knew what they were doing.

The Cliffs of Moher were magnificent! We parked a little ways away and walked along part of the Burren Way, a trail that runs along the cliffs. At the highest point, they are 700ft from the water.

The clouds kept threatening to dump on us. We watched a big, dark rain cloud move in ahead of us, but it kept getting pushed further north, so we didn’t get wet at all. It was incredibly windy at the ledge, as we were leaving we saw a couple GoPro equipped bikers start along the path.

 

 

Some cow love

Galway was the only place we ever ran into any traffic. It really wasn’t that bad. We drove around until we found a BnB just off the water to stay at. We rang the doorbell, and a small, older woman answered it. We enquired about a room and she said, “well I’ll show you what I’ve got.” She turned around and walked 4 feet to the left and opened the door to a small room with a double bed and an en suite with a sloped ceiling. She said the price was good at only 60 euro a night. We gladly took it! Her name was Margaret and she’d be serving us breakfast in the morning between 8 and 930.

Margaret asked where we had come from, to which we answered Labasheeda. “Ooh that sounds exotic!” she exclaimed. “You must be saying it with an accent, I’ve never heard of there.”

She set us up with an extra towel, and offered Rachel some porridge for breakfast since she’s not an egg eater.

We mosied into town and found Shop Street. Starving, we tried to get food at the Front Door, but after sitting at the only available table for a good while, I approached the bartender and he said they can’t serve food down there. Well, great buddy, thanks. It was a beautiful pub though. We walked around and checked out the upstairs.

We ended up down the street at The Skeff. I got a delicious steak sandwich and Rachel ordered the daily special, beef ribs with mashed potatoes and gravy. Drool. It was delicious.

I was messaging Janette again, and she told us that servers make about 9 euro an hour. After looking at prices though, that doesnt’ seem like that much. If you are making 9 euro an hour and the price of a steak sandwich with fries at the pub costs you 14 euros, that’s about the same ratio between income and cost of a meal as in Canada. The difference is that in Canada they get $9 an hour as the server minimum wage, plus tips. I don’t get it. I would never serve anywhere outside of North America, it doesn’t seem worth it. Mind you, service ends up being a bit different when the servers are not quite as invested in providing good service. 

Rachel seems to have finally caught the flu that I had when we left Toronto, and I’m finally feeling better! On our walk back home we ran into a great trio that was busking on the street. There was a violinist, accordian and a percussionist who was sitting on this drum box thing.

We’ve noted that we haven’t seen any openly gay people walking about in Ireland. We’re the only ones! We get lots of looks when we’re walking down the street, it’s funny.