Well, Ireland certainly has a night life. I asked someone in a store for a recommendation of things to do in the afternoon and she said "oh, I don't know. Go get a drink. Not much else to do." Kind of depressing since I don't drink, but they've got music in almost every pub! So I had a blast.
I sat at the bar of a Japanese restaurant, chatted with the sushi chefs, and ate gyoza. It was delicious. There was a large window to my left, so I watched as all the people hurried by. It's just a lot of tourists, but that's ok. They're all happy and going to food and music and, most importantly for the area, drinks. Giant "Guinness" signs everywhere, I don't know if it's actually the Irish people or just the people visiting Ireland, but whoever it is sure likes to drink!
Had some awesome traditional Irish music at a pub called the Globe. This is Fred, who we met on Tuesday, playing the bodhrán. He gave me a mini-lesson on how to play it and I decided that it's more complicated than people think to play it well.
Before the band started playing, I ordered my non-alcoholic beverage at the bar and chatted with a few people around there. This guy in the photo below, though, heard something about me being a photographer and said "OH! Take a picture of me. Right here." My eyes darted around uncomfortably, but the bar was pretty empty, so I pulled out the lens and flash and took a photo. Of course he wanted to see it. "Hrmmm... how about another one. I'll do my George Clooney pose." I have no idea what he meant by that, but after 15 minutes of his entertaining drunk ramblings and wanting to pose for the camera, this is what we ended up with:
I really enjoyed the trad group, because they had three of them and they all played instruments and could sang. This meant the sound of the song changed as they switched lead or instruments. Made it interesting!
After a bit there, we went down the street to a pub with a blues band. I drank an orange juice with nothing in it and was told that was an insult to the Irish. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel really uncomfortable, so I tried to be really polite and understanding while still explaining I wasn't interested in drinking alcohol... Oh well... Met some other awesome people, the lead singer and harmonica player in the band was a friend of Fred's and a great musician! They had more of a Texas blues style and it really made me want to dance. Just listening was almost as good :)
Here's the vocalist from their group. I didn't get a good picture of it, but the coolest thing about him was he also played the harmonica! I've met people who could kind of play, but this guy was wailing on it! So much fun.
And now we're in Galway. Stay tuned :)