Happy Australia Day

Ok, well we had Australia Day half a day late, but better late than never.

A few of the pubs around here decided to have a bit of an Oz Day bash, serving up VB, burgers and bbq - so who were we to argue. A guy we know works at the Skeff pub and was in charge of the barbie, so we headed there for a few stubbies. Ah..... VB!



Met up with a few mates, met a few other Aussies (we really haven't met very many over here, and to tell you the truth the Aussies we had met previously were knobs...) and had a good night. I didn't think I drank that much, but my day at work today told me otherwise.

For Kelly, here's John cooking the 'BBQ' - or a grate on the fireplace... Still, the end result was perfect, so who's complaining.


The DJ played heaps of aussie tunes (even playing a bit of John Farnham... everyone looked sideways when that one came on) and played bits of the JJJ Hottest 100 as well (jeez we are way out of touch - most of the songs I've never heard of... since when has Bernard Fanning been going solo?!?!?

So... aussies tunes, VB and a few snags - lovely.


But now... back to the Guinness!

Bye Kimmy!

We had dinner last night with my cousin Kim and her galway-man Peadar. They're heading back to Oz this weekend. A shame to see them go, they were only here for a few weeks. So, i guess we'll see them at home later this year...

Undies In Ireland

Undies, the Flying Talking Donkey, was nice enough to come over from his new home in NYC to say hi to us.
Undies is a mate of mine from my old job at Hitwise, who got a transfer to New York a year or so ago - and decided to spend a long weekend in Ireland.

I would post a photo or two from our drinking sessions on Saturday, but there aren't any good ones... we were all very drunken and had a good night... that's all i remember.

Then on sunday we decided we should probably do something touristy and go somewhere, so we headed up to Connemara, a region of Galway that is great for a drive (and for walking etc, but we had rain most of the day so mainly looked out the window).
We stopped for lunch in Clifden, the main town in Connemara, before heading off to Kylemore Abbey. This is one of the places that we still hadn't made it to, even though there are busloads of tours heading there every day... From the postcards and pictures and all that we'd seen I didn't have much interest in going to it, but considering we were fairly close, and were driving (well, Undies was driving, we still haven't driven a car in over a year) we went there.



We got there just before closing (and just before sunset) which was a good thing as there was nobody there. And it was quite stunning - the postcards don't really capture the atmosphere. Basically, it's an old castle that some rich English guy built a few hundred years ago, before it was then sold to the Irish Benedictine Nuns (whatever that means) and became an abbey. The castle is situated at the base of a mountain, right on top of a lake, with woodlands surrounding it. It's very peaceful and with the clouds covering the mountains was fantastic to look at.
Inside only a few rooms are open to the public due to the fact that nuns still use it and it's a boarding school as well.

A short walk away we came to a small church (the original guy built it for his wife when she died suddenly, what a nice man) which although very small was quite detailed and very nice.




So it's good to have another tourist site ticked off. Most of my photos didn't come out at all due to the setting sun (no idea how to take digital photos in poor light...)

Galway at Xmas

Here's a few snaps I took at night around town. Very hard with the digital camera to get the look and feel of walking through the streets but should give an idea anyway.

Quay St.

The Quays pub on Quay St, just around the corner from our flat.



Our laneway.


A couple more photos, taken further up the street from Quay St.

New Years Eve

New years eve. We had nothing planned, because around here you either get in early to go to a pub and be jammed in with a pack of hammered people, or you crash someone's house party. We were pretty much advised to crash a party, so we left it up to the housemates to do the right thing and get us to latch on to a crashing...


Anyway, it didn't happen, and we started new years eve with a few quiet bevvies in the flat, ready to head out at a moment's notice. A few hours later, we were still drinking some not-so-quiet ales in the flat, with a flat-full of people (our place, being in the middle of town, just seems to attract people, very handy when you really can't be bothered making an effort to do anything!)
So, by about 11:30 we figured that we really should at least go out to a nearby pub, so accordingly we ventured the 10 metres up the laneway to the nearest pub, Busker Brownes, which is always a good option anyway. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as packed as most pubs in town (apparently) and we got in no worries, made our way to the bar, stocked up on booze and merrily sang in the new year, then headed back to the flat to drink the rest of whatever grog we had hanging around the flat... Ever heard of Buckfast?


Here are a couple of photos of the crew in action.








Kim and Peadar's last weekend in Ireland, so we're all heading out for a big one tomorrow night, could get messy...