We Take Ourselves With Us

One thing we had learned on our Switzerland trip was the benefit of staying near the airport the night before the flight, so our travels on our last full day would take us from Galway back to Switzerland by train, then to an airport hotel, and then--whatever. Three of us grabbed breakfast again at Esquires, where our server--the older gentleman from our first breakfast--remembered us and was happy to share that they were fully staffed that morning! Breakfast was again delicious. Ned went back to the hotel to ensure we'd all be packed and ready to go, while Harper and I ran off in search of Hazel Mountain Chocolates in the Latin Quarter. It was right next to the kinf_olk store (of course, how did we not see it?). We were plied with chocolates by the gracious HMC staff, learned that everything was gf, and bought a bunch. Another big up for Galway, the staff in every shop we visited were super nice, welcoming, and helpful--plus they had gorgeous accents! After chocolating-up, we grabb...

I woke up very early and started to rethink our plans.  As this blog documents, we always do a lot  on our vacations, thinking that we won't be back so we need to see as much as possible while still enjoying the culture and little nooks and crannies of the places we visit. But, I began to wonder if we were trying to do too much in Ireland: catching four cities and the cliffs in seven days, thinking about driving on the wrong side of the very narrow roads around a country where it got dark around 4:30--especially given our increasingly differing waking schedules. And, I was back in the boot.  So, I started to think it through in the dark of an early Dublin morning. What if we just focused on Galway rather than adding in two more cities? What if we ditched the car and took the train instead? Then, we could just take a bus tour from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher, so we wouldn't miss this amazing site. We might lose a couple nights hotel deposit, but it would be worth it to h...

Note: the formatting on this page is really odd for some reason--let's just say it's leprechauns. We met up in our musically-themed lobby to walk over to Jay Kay's for our last Dublin breakfast.   The manager recognized us from our first visit and asked how our vacation was going--again, Dublin has a nice kinda-small town vibe. We told him how much we loved our breakfast the first time, so we wanted to return. (I was very partial to their shakshouka eggs and amazing fresh squeezed orange juice!) We had a full day ahead, starting at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland (which is somehow both Anglican and Catholic), which has roots going back to about 1190. The rough stones in the interior wall date to the cathedral's inception, when it was Roman Catholic. Over the centuries, it has changed denominations a number of times, and it also fell into considerable disrepair and was saved by several members of the Guinness family--so maybe ...