Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Ireland: Galway, Dublin, Guinness and Finnstown Castle Hotel

Since my hotel room in Galways was so nice, I decided to have breakfast and then lounge around for a little while. It was a glorious start to the morning. 

Then I drove 2 hours to Dublin and decided to take the Guinness brewery tour, which honestly put me in a bad mood. I'm all for there being too many tourists in a place, but you've got to handle it better. There were 7 floors and the flow of traffic was out of control. The "tour" was self-guided and the audio we were supposed to listen to was so quiet, it couldn't be heard. Not only that, but I did most of it backwards, so if I tried to brew a beer...it would end up being hops floating in sludge, I'm pretty sure. But still. Guinness in Dublin Ireland. That's pretty cool.





Then I put my last hotel in Ireland in the GPS. First of all, in Ireland nothing has a street number. At least none of the hotels I've booked. Just get on the street and start looking.

The Finnstown Castle Hotel was supposed to be 7 minutes from the brewery but due to "rush hour" traffic, it took about 20. Totally worth it once I turned onto the grounds of the place. It felt like that scene in Bridesmaids where Kristin Wiig shows up to the bridal shower at Helen's. There was a LONG driveway with impeccable lawns on both sides. 


This being Ireland, there were cows on my right, which immediately made me happy. And THEN on my left, an ostrich and two llamas!

My room is also fab, but they won me over with the ostrich. 






And the adorable llamas


Ehr ma gehrd, so cute!
Even cuter when scratching his face

Ok, and the cows. 



Cow's milk...it's for baby cows
I am much happier now. What a great way to end my trip to Ireland! Tomorrow I fly Ryan Air (God help me) to Berlin where I will spend two nights and then rent a car and push on driving for about 10 days. I'll also catch up with some German relatives, most of whom I've never met. Should be a great trip. I'm really looking forward to it.