Sept 4 - Dublin to Galway

We left Dublin at 8:30 this morning. Our first stop of the day was the Guinness Factory to learn how Guinness is made and have a pint. It was a self tour, which was nice because we could go at our own pace and then afterwards we all ended up at the top of the factory (7th floor) to have a pint in the 360 degree bar. It was really cool. I managed to get down half of my pint, which I thought was pretty good because it was only 10am. I had to pace myself you know. ;) I did some much needed souvenir shopping in the ridiculously huge gift shop and then back on the bus.

Our next stop was at Kilmainham jail. It was the first jail open in Ireland in the 1700's. The tour itself was a little boring but the jail was kind of neat to see as it was dark and creepy. After an hour we ran back to our bus in the pouring rain and headed to Galway.

The new group that joined us yesterday seems very quiet and reserved right now. Not sure what to think about that. Hopefully they will come out of there shells a little. Kim did start playing The Galway Girl which is a song by Steve Earl and most people know it from the movie P.S. I love you. What a great song. This was the first of many many times we heard this song over the next 6 days. The newbies livened up a bit once hearing the song. :)

We made it into Galway by 5pm. Liz and I ran around for a couple of hours doing more much needed souvenir shopping. Is anyone seeing a trend here?!? lol I also bought a claddagh ring. A claddagh ring is ring that is worn by men and women, single or taken. The meaning behind it is Love/Loyalty/Friendship. They are pretty famous throughout the UK but people all over the world know what they mean.

We had our own walk about supper again tonight and then everyone met a local pub for a few drinks. I ended up sitting with one of the girls and a bunch of random guys who I later found out were on a stag night. There was only about 6 of them though and they were all married but they kept buying us drinks so we stuck around. ;) About an hour later though the group was leaving and I decided to leave Erica behind with the guys and head on with the group. We stopped at another local pub that had a band starting up soon. I grabbed another drink and turned around to talk to the group. Luck be to me though a guy was standing there and we started chatting. The first thing he asked me was about my claddagh ring. Anyway, long story short (because there isn't really much to tell here), we talked the whole night. Then when it was time for everyone to leave (which was our usual time of 12pm, lol) he gave me a hug, said he really liked my name because it sounded Irish and gave me a kiss. So there I was, my second night in Ireland with my claddagh ring on and I had a kiss from an Irish boy. I was pretty happy with myself. ;)