Ireland Day 2: Cliffs of Moher, Celtic Crystal and Galway

Tonight we're staying at an awesome hotel in Galway. I think this is the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed in, which isn't saying much since I haven't stayed in many, but it's pretty fancy. And we don't even have the best rooms! My aunt are staying on the top floor and they're room is like a mini-penthouse. Oh well, ours is nice too.

Today we were treated to typical Irish weather, cold and rainy. It was kind of disappointing; the Cliffs of Moher are so much more amazing in sunlight, but I still got some decent photos. And it was cool to actually be there after seeing so many photos of them.

This afternoon we stopped at the Celtic Crystal place and saw how they etch designs into the crystal. It was pretty amazing. It takes a lot of talent and its all done by hand. Mom bought a little dish that's just like the one we saw made.

I've quickly learned that the one stereotype of the Irish that is definitely true is they're love of drinking. There are pubs everywhere. There was one tiny "village" that was basically about 20 houses and 3 or 4 pubs, that was the entire village (that may be a slight exaggeration, but it's pretty close). One night we're going to have dinner in a pub and here the local music. That should be fun.

Tomorrow we go to Connemara and visit the village of Cong, where the movie The Quiet Man (starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara) was filmed. We're taking a tour of the places the movie was filmed. In the afternoon we have some free time to hang out in Galway. I'm hoping the weather is a little better, though I'm not going to get my hopes up, since it rains so much here to begin with.

I know I promised pictures, but once again it's starting to get late (ok, so it's not even 9:30, but I'm still working on making up the sleep lost Saturday night while I was flying) and it'll take me a little while to load them onto my computer, then upload them to the internet. And actually, I have to decide where I'm loading them. I never installed webshots on this computer and I don't know if I really want to. We'll see. How easy is photobucket?

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good time in the states! We're staying in the same hotel tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get my photos uploaded then, I should at least be able to have another blog on tomorrow's activities.