Greetings from Doolin, the best little village in the country,

Lisa and I arrived yesterday evening around 7:00;  it's still difficult to tell what time it is here, because it stayed light out until almost 11:00 yesterday.  We drove out of Waterford, through Tipperary, and made a small side trip to a little town called Cashel.  This side trip was absolutely mandatory, as there is a site, (or sight,) there that Lisa has been dying to see since before we even left the states:  the Rock of Cashel.  Every time she'd spoken of it, I couldn't understand what was so exciting; I mean, wow, a rock. Yippee.  Turns out it's a HUGE church built sometime in the 1100's, visited by St. Patrick, and all that.  But the most impressive thing is that it's located high, high up on a mesa, and it overlooks everything.  It's really quite breathtaking, and we got some great pictures for you to check out.  We had lunch in Cashel at a nice cafe called Henry's.  I'm only mentioning that because almost everything else in the city was closed.  It was 3:00, and the only pub open didn't serve food, and the only restaurant open, Henry's, didn't serve drink.  We must've looked for at least half an hour for a place that did both, but we finally had to concede defeat, and we opted for the more important of the two choices.  Had my first cornish pasty, by the way, but it doesn't quite count as we weren't in Cornwall.  We left, and drove through Limerick, (seems like a decent city, but not really noteworthy,) past Shannon and Bunratty, and on up north to Doolin.  The cliffs we past were stunning, and they weren't even the cliffs of Moher, which we will be visiting this afternoon.  Lisa is almost wetting herself from excitement, and I can't blame her.  I think Doolin is going to be one of the most fun places we've visited.  There are three pubs (it's a very small village)  McGann's, McDermett's, and O'Connor's, and all three have traditional irish music every night!  We checked out all three last night but settled in O'Connor's; 'twas a fine choice.  It's a really great pub, and their music circle had two pipers, two guitars, one drummer, a fiddler, a banjo player, and an accordian player.  Hells yes, my friends, it was freakin' awesome.  We have so much to do here:  see the cliffs (where we want to get married, weather permitting,) visit the caves (which are reputed to be vast in incredible,) see the Burren (I'm not really sure exactly what that is, but Lisa's excited, and she hasn't been wrong yet,) etc., etc.  I'm sorry that my blog is so long, but we accomplished a lot yesterday, and there is much more to come.  I can't wait to share the pictures of today with you; I'm sure they're going to be some of the best so far.  Til then,

Evans