"I'm Gonna Drink My Face Off"

Where Are We
Our weekend in Ireland began with a quick flight over to the Belfast Airport on Friday afternoon. We rented our car and......oh shit, a stick shift in a country where you drive on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the road. Once I figured out where the clutch was and how to shift left-handed, we were on our way. Though we had landed in Ireland, or at least what I thought was Ireland, the British flags were proudly (smugly?) flying at the airport and in the cities surrounding the airport. This made me think about the whole Northern Irish Conflict. You take for granted that all those years of fighting weren't so long ago.

We had some minor navigational difficulties, SHOCKING. Dave mapped the hotel location and got directions online before we left. So here is the address online:

The Downings Bay Hotel
Downings,
Co. Donegal,
Republic of Ireland

To be fair to my non-Irish husband, he didn't know that Donegal was the county (not the city) where the hotel was located. Thus, we merrily drove 2 hours out of our way and made it to the town of Donegal. When we couldn't find any hint of our hotel, we asked for directions at a gas station. Uhm yeah - that is when we got the spectacular news that we needed to be in the town of "Downies" as the Irish call it, not the town of Donegal. Oh mother-effer.

Then (miraculously), we had one of those travel moments you will never forget. An exceptionally nice Irishman from the gas station, had us follow him to the edge of town. He gave us general directions and his really nice map of Ireland so we could find our way to the hotel! Then he called the hotel (twice because they didn't answer the first time) to make sure he told us to go to the right place. All the while, we are double parked on a hill..... and then his car starts rolling backwards and hits our rental car. OMG are you kidding me, that poor guy is just trying to be nice and now we are crashing. In any case, there was no damage to the car and we ended up having a beautiful (if loooooong) car ride to Downies/Downings.

Friends
We managed to get to Downings at about 10:00pm after our diving adventure. We found our friends in no time (at the bar). As LF told me, "Downings is the size of a biscuit tin", and she was right. Since I didn't take an photos at the bar, here we are crashing LF and KF's honeymoon in Buenos Aires. The happy couple was married in Downings and out trip was to join them for something of an anniversary party, it was an honor to crash this event. And as JP says, the Guinness just tastes better in Ireland. Yes indeedy it does.

Us at a lovely dinner in Buenos Aires in 2007 with the happy couple (LF and KF) on their honeymoon.

Atlantic Drive and the Singing Pub
Downings is a small, vacation town. There isn't a whole lot to do, which was really nice after the endless barrage of activities in London. On Saturday (after an Irish breakfast involving no less than 4 kinds of fatty meats), we took trip to McNutts to buy a wooly Irish blankie and then hiked the 8 miles around Atlantic Drive. This road does a circle around the peninsula. You get unbelievable ocean views. Here are a few photos from the hike.

Dave eating the not-quite-ripe blackberries along the road.

Very dramatic, isn't he.

You could only wish it was Hawaii, who wants to swim - not me brrrrrr.

Gaelic anyone?

Stone cottage + yellow door = adorable.

As expected in Ireland, it started pouring about 6 miles into the hike. This was actually OK thoug, perhaps destiny. Just around the corner from there we were, there was this awesome vision of *The Singing Pub*. It is what I would think of as a pretty typical Irish pub, because you know - now that I have been to like three Irish pubs, I am an expert...... There were kids running around, lots of families, other hikers, people there to watch rugby on TV. I would have stayed longer but when the rain stopped we knew we had to get back into town before the next (inevitable) rain shower.

Dave in a mad sprint to the pub, who knew he could run that fast.

One happy dude.

Overall, the hotel was good and the friends were great. I have never had so much tasty, smooth, frosty Guinness in my life. The title of the blog is a tribute to a friend who said he was going to drink has face off that night in Downings, then realized after he said it that his kids were sitting in front of him. Relax, I don't think the kids heard - or if they did, they didn't care. It is Ireland after all, of course you are going to drink your face off.