Galway or Another (Part 2 of 7)

The second leg of my trip was from Dublin to Galway.  It was tough leaving Dublin after having so much fun there.  The night before I went to Galway, I went to Dublin Airport to pick up the rental car and was nervous about the driving part.  And the being on the road part.  Basically, all of it.  A lot of people said it would be easy to get used to, but this wasn't the case.  Driving in Dublin is scary, since it's a busier city area, so it was a chaotic introduction to reverse driving (other side of the road, other side of the car).  There was also a lot of road construction, so that made it worse.  Once I left Dublin, though, it was easier to acclimate.

A few things about my driving experience:
-My left arm wanted somewhere to rest - it was strange to not know where to put it.
-Also, it was weird to use my left hand when reversing or parking.  Any time I'd need to reverse, my right hand would instinctively start moving, trying to reach for the gear shift.
-It's tricky to stay in the middle of the lane.  I either tended to be closer to the left (American instinct) or overcompensate and be too far on the right side.
-The roundabouts weren't too tough, but remembering that left turns were easy and right turns were more complicated was a bit tough to remember.
-Many of the streets were so narrow that when cars were parked on the side, there wasn't enough space for traffic to go each way.  So I had to pass carefully - it was scary every time!

Here's a sign I saw at the rental car company:

I took this picture for my own reminder.

I loved driving on the highway - I wish I could have taken pictures of what I saw, but of course, it wasn't safe.  (But I did see sheep that were spray painted - I guess each farmer has a specific color code/pattern so they use the spray paint to mark their sheep.)  I drove a Nissan Micra, which they don't sell in the US, but it looks like a Versa hatchback.

From Dublin, I went to the Cliffs of Moher, which was awesome.  To be honest, I didn't have plans to go there and didn't do much prep for it, so I had no expectations.  I only decided to go after hearing a lot of people at the hostel were talking about it, but I'm glad I did.

This is inside the visitor's center.

Here's four pictures of pretty much the same thing, but I couldn't decide on just one, so you get four.








There was a viewing tower you could visit (for a couple Euro).  I didn't expect it to be so small and narrow but it provided an awesome perspective of the cliffs.




















Then I drove off and had to stop when I saw these donkeys.  You can tell I'm a city girl.

Look how pretty it is.

After that, I made my way to Galway, which I wanted to visit because it's known as "the most Irish city".  I was disappointed, as it didn't look like there was much in the city, other than a shopping area.  I did hear some great street musicians, though.  I was good - although I was tempted to go on a pub crawl, I didn't want to relive the "waking up at noon and not getting anything done" experience.  I also met a girl in my hostel who'd be in Edinburgh, staying in the same hostel at the same time as me, so that was neat - this situation actually happened twice during the trip.  That's all for this leg of the trip - some days were a bit more boring than others.. sorry!