Day 1 Paddywagon Tour

Once again 4 am is WAY too early to get out of bed. This time I caved and called a taxi rather than haul my butt and luggage down to the bus station. I got on the Belfast to Dublin bus, I remember the first stop and arriving in Dublin out of the almost 3 hour trip. I was tired
Our tour started almost an hour late due to traffic, but we got to see a bit of Dublin; the "Stiffy on the Liffey" aka the Dublin Spire as well as many bridges and random buildings.
First stop was the Dublin park where the Pope had preached and we saw the wild deer in the trees. I had a laugh when one of the Australians asked if they were reindeer.
Clonmacnoise was the second stop, where a saint began his ministery. It was a gorgeous and sacred place. I must admit I had a mantra of "I'm sorry" going through my head as I wandered through the cemetary to the different buildings, I hope I didn't step on anyone. There again we saw one of the places the Pope had preached. This monastry was were the original large celtic crosses where found, so it was humbling to see those. So after seeing some ruins, we had lunch with a begging dog. He was such a sweet mutt, his body was almost as long as his tail while his legs where about half that length. He definitely knew about tourists and got the food and petting he was looking for.
After Clonmacnoise, we were taught some Irish drinking/traditional songs, can't remember a word but do plan on downloading them later, while we travel until we reached Galway and Cladagh. Gorgeous town, a lot smaller than I'm used to living in Belfast. After a bit of wandering around with Storm, a girl from Brisbane (over half of the group was from Australia but there was never more than a group of 2 or 3 traveling together), we ate at a pub and had amazing Irish stew made with Guiness. I don't think I've been so full in my life. While we ate, a couple girls packed away 4 bottles of wine and we had a bit of a laugh at their drunkeness. After the pub we found a place that had Irish music, it was amazing, I'm downloading some later. Then it was bed time.