Weekend

Friday, I took a bus from Derry to Galway, and then from Galway to this little village on Galway Bay called Ballyvaughan.  A long bus ride with a guitar between your legs and a backpack on your lap.  I listened to William Elliot Whitmore for the majority of it.  "You're a rainstorm, a fire and a train wreck, all wrapped up in ribbons and lace..."

A little about Ballyvaughan:

It sits on the Atlantic Ocean.  I literally had a cup of tea every morning watching little Atlantic waves roll in.  You can't beat that.  We stayed in rustic little thatched roof cottages, where we kept ourselves warm by burning sod bricks, singing songs, and drinking wine.

I hiked a big hill.  We checked out an old cave.  Saw the Cliffs of Moher.  They were big and pretty and rocky and there was some ocean.  We saw a "Birds of Prey" show.  I had a hawk land on my arm, which was pretty cool.

We walked a lot of backroads.  This was, by far, the most surreal experience of the trip.  We were surrounded by rolling green hills, and old abandoned stone homes from the famine, and we walked by one currently inhabited home that had the smell of cinnamon and apples wafting out of the driveway.  It was like I was living in a goddamn Yankee Candle Company candle called, "Pie on the Windowsill of a Secluded Irish Cottage."  Seriously.  Ask anyone on the trip.  I was losing my shit.

On Sunday night, we saw a French band called Txutxukan.  They were like some crazy gypsies rocking the hell out of some random Irish village.  Check them out.  Fantastic, booty-shakin' gypsy party tunes.

Good times.