Day 2

There are four types of weather in Ireland. Windy, Cold, Rainy and All of The Above. But I am bundling, layering and surviving...

Today was our first real shopping day! We bought the famous Aran sweaters at a little shop in Galway, and I bought a coat at the department store -- which I was VERY excited about -- until we got to Ashford Castle (never to return to Galway) and discovered it still had security tags on it! Fortunately Dunne's is a chain so we'll try to figure out how to come across another one... Anyway we made our way to Ashford Castle, where we are now. This is our big splurge expensive hotel and we had really high expectations, plus Joan Baez has stayed here, so I was excited. It's nice, but I don't think worth what we paid for it as compared to other, not even as expensive hotels.

Anyway, we went to dinner at a random restaurant we found which was nice and had delicious desserts. So far I'm managing to do well on the big breakfast/big dinner meal plan -- not my usual little snacks all day eating -- but I'm managing. Then it was back to the castle to deal with the luggage drama. I don't really want to relive that but all I'll say is Marianne and Kimsey's luggage was finally delivered... and we have had to do some major shuffling and shifting to get all this crap in the car... Everything in Ireland is too small -- it's all like, miniature, tiny-sized -- and that's ME saying that, I don't know how larger people function here -- the cars are small, the elevators are small, the roads are small -- everything Ann told us about driving in Ireland is true, and then some. This is INSANE. Seriously. But we're having fun and tomorrow's a big driving day, up to Northern Ireland so I should have lots to tell... all for now.

PS -- Photos are up! Click on the photos link to start looking at them -- don't have time to label them all yet, I'll do that when I get back -- but at least there's some fun stuff to look at!