"Ya Mon" Bride (via Chicago): Cheers! Honeymoon in Ireland Part 2

After 3 days in Dublin, We rented a car (an experience going 1km from the rental shop to the hotel that Mr. Q will never want to recall again) & after a quick detour for M&S takeaway :), headed west towards Galway. We made a pit stop on the way to visit the oldest licensed distillery in the world , Killbeggan/Locke's Distillery. When in Ireland :)

I was lucky that Mr Q decided to blog while we were in Ireland & I need to give some credit to him for jogging my memory. I was so brain dead from the wedding & jet-lag that I had no desire to write while abroad. So, thanks Mr. Quiche!

Here is his excerpt from Killbeggan:

"Although the plant we toured closed 75 years ago, they have reopened it in close to original conditions. It was an interesting history of the making of whisky. The plant was powered by a waterwheel from a stream that ran under part of the building. Mrs. Quiche dropped her camera lens cap under it. The cap was visible and I thought we should just leave it and buy another, but she was determined to get it back. She went to the reception person and asked if it was OK for us to climb down there.

The nice lady said it would be no problem and that they had a "lad” there who would climb down there for us. We expected some strapping 17 year old farm hand to appear, but instead a 71 year old grandpa made the dangerous journey to retrieve Mrs. Quiche's 75 cent lens cap! He only hit his head once & I don’t think there is any permanent cranial damage. It was fascinating tour and it ended with a shot of their whiskey that was barreled and stored on the premises. Mrs. Quiche gave me hers ;)"

May I add that the lens cap was more that 75 cents? Thanks! :)

Edwina, our GPS, kindly led us to Galway with only a few hiccups. I swear there were times when she wanted to curse us in her proper English accent, but she held her cool and guided us west.

More from Mr. Quiche:

"Galway is Ireland’s second largest city with a population of about 80,000. We chose this city because it is known for having a lively music scene and we intended to use this as our base for the next few days to explore the Burren and the Cliffs of Mohr.

We still didn’t have a reservation and started looking up hotels in our trusty Rick Steve’s Guide to Ireland. We happened across the Park House Hotel, booked a lovely room, dropped our bags off and headed for the part of town full of restaurants and pubs. Tonight we decided on something a bit different for dinner - Indian. We found a nice little Indian restaurant that turned out to have fantastic food.

After chatting with our nice Bangladeshi waiter who has been living in Ireland for 9 years, we headed out looking for a pub with traditional Irish music.

We found one nearby with 2 seats at the bar and waited for the music to start at 9:30. I began chatting with the gent next to me who was fascinated with the sporting match on the telly. Yes, Virginia, Darts are a professional sport! I watched with my new friend as two men (who look like wrestlers) throw darts in a professional tournament. The “dart arena” is a large venue with small tables designed to resemble a pub with the sportiff sitting around drinking beer and yelling at their favorite darter (not sure the technical name of the participants in this sport). The band began playing promptly at 9:30 and at first I didn’t enjoy them much at all until a fellow joined them playing a traditional Irish tin flute. We stayed until the novelty of seeing our first leprechaun wore off and headed out in search of another venue.

On our way back toward our hotel, it began to hail the size of marbles! Between the cold rain and hail we darted into the closest bar - which turned out to be a placed called Coyote. This is an “American” bar! It represented everything bad about our great country, but there was space at the bar and the weather outside sucked so we stayed for one!

I ordered a couple of pints and in my usual friendly manner, began chatting up the local bloke next to me. His name was Matthew & he is taxi driver in Galway. I admit I have had a hard time with the Irish accent, but as this guy clearly had 6-8 pints, I could barely make out a word! Nonetheless, we communicated through grunts and “pardon me's” and developed a bond! I told him about our recent nuptials and he bought us pints of Guinness and then had our bartender bring us a bottle of champagne. I was moved by his generosity - it really made my night! Luckily, Matthew left shortly after they opened the bottle and we didn’t have to drink more than a few sips (let's just say it wasn't Dom Perignon)."