Ireland Day 6 and 7

We arrived in Clifden at around 1pm after a beautiful bus ride through the western Irish countryside during which I spent most of my time chatting with the two Australian girls sitting behind me. When we got there I began my quest for the perfect Irish wool sweater, which I eventually acquired the next morning (see below).

After checking into our hostel with a man who was exceptionally strange we decided to begin what turned out to be a 15 mile walk around the irish coast. 

We started out along the Clifden harbor and progressively ventured closer to the Atlantic

As we went along and got farther away we eventually got so far that it made more sense to make a loop back to Clifden instead of turning around. 

We had originally been searching for this, what seemed at times mythical, viewing area where I eventually sat down for a few minutes before continuing onwards along the coast. 

After a long bit of walking and a few shortcuts, which had me really questioning whether or not I knew where I was, we made it back into Clifden. Upon arrival I got what was one of the tastiest seafood meals I've had in years at this great restaurant called Mitchell's where most of the other diners seemed to be french for some reason. I carefully devoured the haddock and mussels trying not to let my hunger, the cold, or how tired I was from walking ruin the quality of the meal that was in front of me. 

We ended the evening in a nice pub in Clifden (after leaving the first place we walked into where someone was playing a Green Day cover to a mostly empty bar). There were a few teenage guys playing an irish drum, a fiddle, and this strange accordion like instrument that you had to blow into. The music was great and there was this excellent old fellow who on various occasions stopped the music to give a speech about the glory of Guinness or to begin dancing. 

The next morning we woke up and had a traditional Irish breakfast at Walsh's cafe next door to the hostel. The view was incredible and the black pudding wasn't too bad either. 

After breakfast and perusing a few art galleries (it was the week of the Clifden arts festival) we bid Clifden farewell and got on a bus back to Galway. In Galway we got a chance to go to the Galway museum and grab a last sandwich for the road at McCambridges before catching our train to Dublin. 

By the time we got off the train at Hueston station Dublin was starting to feel familiar. We rode the tram back to the Globetrotters hostel where we had been a week before. After depositing our bags we wandered our way down south of Temple Bar to a pub called the Stags Head. I had a really lively and fun conversation about Irish history with the bartender and he also gave me some recommendations for clubs in London. 

After a last pint of Guinness in Ireland we wandered through the Dublin twilight one last time back to the hostel.