The Burren & the rocky road to Galway

Off to the cliffs of Moher. The sun was shining, sky was blue, and the wind blew strong and cold. After a walk from the parking lot across the street, we dashed into the gift shop straight off. I was getting a cold headache just in that short walk. Time to buy a ridiculous but cool furry Guinness hat with flaps on the sides. Guess it was a good time to look like a tourist. Comfort over coolness sometimes eh? The cliffs were grand and filled with squeaking sea birds like puffins, guillemots, gannets and more. The pathway was a bit short and lined with strange signs with symbols indicating "don't fall off the cliff", "don't crawl over the wall", and another one that I just plain could not understand. It looked like a person, fire or water, and a bird...? We decided to make up our own meanings for the signs just for amusement. Into the visitor center we went for some French lemonade (I don't know the difference) and checked out the virtual cliffs exhibit which was very Imax like. The weather warmed up a bit now that I had my silly Guinness hat. This is about what I expected, but hey, another souvenir. We headed up the coast past Doolin into the burren. This monolithic area was stark and intense in history and landscape. Limestone rising up out of the grass in shapes and patterns with sheep and cattle scattered through the almost "Badlands" looking fields. Approaching the Poulnabrone that influenced Tolkien in some of his writings was a spiritual and amazing experience. One might look at the stones as...well, a bunch of cool looking rocks they called the "Portal Tomb", but taking a step back one could feel a sense of ceremonial ancient life. There were tour buses and groups of people everywhere but the 7,000 year old site was still magnetic.
Down the road... and further down...and a few turns later... down a very small road we found the Burren Perfumery. It is a comfortable, scenic, and sweet smelling place in the middle of nowhere. Some scones (which I'm eating every day), fresh tea (handpicked), and scents in hand... we were off to Galway... or as I call it " The rocky road to Galway". The road was great and twisting surrounded by ruins of abbeys, towers, and walls. Once we entered the city, it took a bit of stressful driving to find The Bayberry House due to road construction and confusing signs and maps. We found something like an American WalMart down the road, with directions from the proprietors, where we could buy some Guinness and pharmaceuticals in the same run. I was able to do a bit of writing in the outdoor garden for a bit as well.  Tom and Maeve were very accomodating and allowed us to charge up my now completely dead video camera. Tom suggested that we hit the Quay St. area so we took his advice. He even drove us over! We traversed the extremely busy college kid filled Saturday night crowd to eventually find an Italian place. Well, frozen margarita with cheddar might not be traditional, or I don't know what it is, but it was good in a strange way. Having enough of the crowded streets and filled pubs of Galway, we hired a taxi to a place, that according to our driver, we could find a seat and hear some great music. O'Connor's was like a trip back to Tombstone. Look this one up online to see what I'm talking about.It turned out to be really cool yet really packed... and yeah, the band was incredible. They were a three piece with acoustic guitar, stand up bass, and old piano, and some distortion on the vocals. They were laying down some rockabilly versions of popular songs and were easily the best band I've seen in the country. This being what it is, we left after another pint due to the time of night and gigantic crowd packed inside this room.  It was back to the Inn for some Irish tele and some sleep...