Limerick Ireland was a very small town which I actually thought would be much bigger since it is close to Shannon- one of 2 major stopping points in Ireland where the cheap Dublin/Shannon flights are. On this stretch of our voyage, we had a B&B to stay at which was somewhat of a relief as we have been staying in either youth hostels or, like in Dublin a ´normal´backpacker hostel. The hostel experience hasn´t been bad at all. I´m accustomed to sleeping with a bunch of people. :-) And I guess Alan can attest, they´re accustomed to sleeping with my snoring. haha.
Limerick is a pretty area with lots of houses with yards and driveways. The houses were very big too, which made me wonder what the income range was. I mean, my house in Maryland was much smaller than these.
We arrived in the late afternoon, so after purchasing our tickets for the Cliffs of Moher, we stopped by a local pub outside of the train station. Alan had mentioned earlier that a woman at his work once told him that in Ireland there are 2 types of pubs- one that anyone can drink in and one that only the locals can drink in. When we walked into this pub (Charlie St. George), it looked like it was a local´s only pub, but Eva, the lovely, warm-hearted bartender immediately greeted us and made us feel quite welcome. After our 2nd pint, she asked where we were from and when she found out we were from DC, she immediately grabbed her ledger from behind the counter and mentioned of another Lad from DC who had an Irish bar and that she got him to give her his info so she could send him a postcard. We tried to look for it in her book, but didn´t see anything and we gave her suggestions to Irish Pubs in DC, but nothing seemed to ring a bell. None-the-less, we signed her register and she promised to send us a card every now and again and we promised to send her a picture of our travels (she was in awe of what we were doing). It was a fun experience watching the locals interact as well as a chap named Paddy. He was a true Irish older man, very small in size and didn´t have any teeth. No one apparently understood him- I know I didn´t, but I thought it was because he was talking Gaelic (?) Irish, but Eva said she´d give us a gold coin if we could figure out what he was saying. They´d banter back and forth and it was fun to watch. Another guy sitting next to me (William) started chatting us up and telling us stories of him and his flight attendant girlfriend with ATA and how he´s moving to Ohio in March of next year to live with her, but he doesn´t know how he can handle the US with his need for pints. haha. Later after several pints more and some type of whisky and red bull (is red bull everywhere??) shots from him and his friends, he told us of lepprachauns (sorry for my spelling) and fairy areas. I know what you think... fairy areas?... but it was interesting what he told. He said that there are places in Ireland where machinery doesn´t work when they try to clear the land for development because they are protected by fairies. I think of tinkerbell or something like that. haha. After a while Paddy and William started breaking out in Irish songs. It was the best night we´ve had with the locals! We left the pub so that we could get up in time to go to the Cliffs, and stopped by Eddie Rockets- Ireland´s version of Johnny Rockets. The food was pretty decent for what I can remember.
The Cliffs of Moher. It is hard to describe them other than to say it is stunning and spectactuar. The bus ride to the cliffs showed Ireland´s beauty- this is what I have waited for in our travels- scenery other than city scapes. The view of the cliffs is not very vast from the visitor´s area, unless you break the law somewhat and go beyond a rather large DANGER, DO NOT ENTER sign and hike along the edge at your own risk, which is exactly what we did! haha. I know! It was scary! My fear of heights concerned me, but I did it and am happy that I did as the views were so awsome. The day was as awsome as it could get- sun and hardly any wind, which is good as the wind is what kills people from the cliffs. There were a few parts of the path where the foot path was about 2 feet from the edge and there is only a rock wall to hold onto. We hiked for about 1 hour and a half down to this old castle tower on this section that was almost the most western tip of Ireland. Again- breath-taking. If you´ve seen the pictures from my gmail Picasa you´ll see the beauty. I´d say we spent about a good 5 1/2 hours at the cliffs. One cool thing I forgot to mention was that when we hopped the Danger sign, there was a bunch of photographers taking pictures of a model posing at the edge. I snapped a few pics myself!
