Across the pond... and back again.: June Bank Holiday Weekend..

So.. it's Thursday now.. where the hell did the time go?

So last Friday evening, I saw my flatmate Elaine do a gig at Foxes -- basically a bunch of 60+ year olds drinking overpriced Guinness and Bulmers... still, despite the awkward crowd, Elaine has a beautiful voice..

Saturday morning, I woke up really early to catch a bus to Killarney with Ottawa Joe.. ahh.. Bus Eireann... how I love thee slightly overcrowded and never on-time busses. ;) After a brief bus change in Limerick, we were almost in Killarney.. until loads of traffic delayed us by about 45 minutes.. I guess that's what happens when the most heavily travelled routes are only 2-laners.

We finally arrived in Killarney at about 1pm.. and it was sweltering -- the Irish didn't know what to do. I saw more sun-burned Irish people in an hour than I have in my entire life. Joe and I checked into Neptunes Hostel -- this uber-friendly hostel that I highly recommend if anyone ever makes it to Killarney.. Right away -- before we had even checked in fully -- we met Rebecca (a soon-to-be-med school student from North Carolina) and Michiel (an au-pair in Limerick originally from Austria).. they joined our Killarney crew for ths next two days. .

Killarney. was. gorgeous. Beautiful mountains. Green fields. Pristine lakes. And fantastic weather (but that was all of Ireland this past weekend). We saw everything from Ross Castle.. to Muckross Lake.. to St. Mary's cathedral.. and the Torc waterfall. We biked around Muckross Lake on a seemingly perfect day -- I couldn't have asked for anything better..

Despite some a few whack-jobs living in the hostel -- everyone was grand. The hostel felt more like a UN convention -- sitting at the pub table next to me were two German females on holiday, an Aussie chick named Tonya working at a hospital in Dublin, a group from Montana, an older guy from France, younger guy from Italy, and au pairs from Slovakia and Austria. Good craic. Good craic. Definitely a relaxing weekend.

On Monday, I took an early bus from Killarney to Limerick to check out Ireland's third largest city.. Limerick is also known as 'Stab City' because of its.. ahem.. high crime rate. Maybe it was the Bank Holiday weekend.. but the city was kind of dead (no pun intended). I stopped in the Hunt Museum and looked around for a bit.. I was the only person in the entire museum -- crazy. The staff and security was really friendly -- they even gave me some free food because they were bored! An interesting Museum.. but not sure it was worth the 5 euro to get in.. I finally ate some lunch..and took an over-filled bus back to Galway.. and then crashed..

This week has been relatively uneventful.. besides the lab, I have played some soccer with some mates from the lab.. which has been surprisingly fun. (And, yes, they do call it soccer in Ireland.. football refers to Gaelic football -- the game which inspired American football)... I'm not sure what my plans are this weekend.. but we'll see.

Beautiful Killarney...