Too much Guinness is a good thing.

First of all, I took a couple hours to hike for a bit. I revisited a couple places I’d been when I was here a few years ago. One was a castle turned super expensive hotel. I found this in the parking lot:


And this in the woods around the castle:


Next, I went to a trail to see St. Patrick oratory, one of a couple places St. Patrick allegedly banished the snakes from Ireland. This is where I previously found the army of giant mutant slugs. They were nowhere to be found this time around. How peculiar. How could a mass of unique slugs so large and disgusting disappear? I figured they were on the move and probably watching me, so I got my wits about me and continued moving. The path I was on connects to Ireland’s longest and most spectacular hiking route. I saw it trail off into the distant mountains and yearned for the time, equipment and proper hiking companion to set off on this lonely path through the glorious west. Alas, I walked along it for a while and then turned back. If you ever want to take on the hiking trails of Ireland in the future, let me know. If you look at the picture, you can see the thin dirt trail on the left-middle going off into the distance. That's the Western Way.


So last night…
I set a personal record for the most Guinness consumed in a night. You can look at my tallies and guesstimate the math. It’s all because of Sarah. Sorry, not you, Smoran, though you were most definitely part a lot of my drinking over the past year. This Sarah (I’m probably spelling it wrong—who ever knows if the H is there or not?) is a fantastic girl from Switzerland who was staying in my hostel for the night (yeah, lots of Swiss people traveling around here). The hostel allows you to pay a deposit to get a late key if you’re staying out past midnight. I didn’t get one, but then I ran into Sarah at a bar. It soon passed midnight, which meant I had to stay with her because she was my only way back to my bed for the night. Long story short, she’s really fun and drinks a lot. We found one bar where all the old local people were getting trashed. Wasted old men! It was hilarious. This one old guy who was really funny kept making fun of me because I was wearing flip-flops and he expects Texans to wear the whole cowboy getup of boots, hat, belt buckle, etc. Also, I decided to give Molly, my LG editor, a phone call. Sarah talked to her for a bit in her funny broken English. This is going to embarrass her, but I’m telling the story anyway. Earlier in the day, Sarah wanted a light for her cigarette (yeah, that shit will kill you, but Europeans haven’t caught on to the anti-smoking thing yet), so she asked this guy for “fire.” He was confused, but eventually got her some logs to make a fire with.

Also, perhaps I’ll bring it up later, but there are considerably more immigrants in Ireland than there were last time I was here. This whole thriving economy and the EU has attracted a lot of Easter Europeans and even a bunch of French people. The Irish aren’t used to multiculturalism like we are.

There are sheep outside my window.

Oh, and I can’t speak or read Gaelic any better than I could 2 weeks ago. I hope I didn’t miss anything important:


I also realized I'm spending a bit more than I'm making. Everything is so expensive! Whatever, it'll count as a graduation present to myself.

Day: 16
Guinness: 28 (it's detox time)