The Emerald Isle

Greetings from Galway!
It has been a crazy trip around Ireland so far, we have crammed in a couple of cool castles, some beautiful stately houses and gardens, a monastic village, where parts Braveheart were filmed, we Kissed the Blarney stone yesterday, saw the cliffs of Moher, drove the Ring of Kerry, and stayed in Galway last night (for those heading this way, I strongly recommend 'Sleepzone' Hostel, really well set up, with free internet!:).

We travelled from Dublin on the first day, then to Kilkenny, Cork, and then Galway. We are off to Westport tonight, then to Donegal, and then up to Northern Ireland.
The scenery is just breathtaking, and consistently so, to the point where you want to see something ugly just for something different! Towns and cities are like pictures from chocolate boxes, with all the shopfronts and pubs well preserved and maintained. It is very different from Australia, in that more modern architecture is quite rare; even all the new housing estates (which seem quite numerous) are being built in the same style as the much older buildings - semidetatched, rendered and whitewashed or brick with slate coloured rooves. It makes the overall effect quite neat, but there is no individuality to the buildings at all, there are streets of exactly identical houses, that are just having the finishing touches put to them.
The people are so friendly - we were at a red light in the middle of Dublin and had the map out, and a guy in a suit walked up to us and asked if we were lost, and wanted any help! Unfortunately that was in stark contrast to a passing guy in Cork who told us to @~&k off back to our own country (he was obviously enebriated, but I realised at that moment that I was a fully fledged tourist - not sure how I feel about that!).

We are off to Connemara today, then up to Donegal, where I might even have my first surfing lesson if the spectacular weather holds up - it is well and truly summer, with sunny days, temps in the early 20s and hardly a cloud to be seen!