3!

Well here I am in Doolin. I got here tuesday by a wild bus ride that started at 5:30 in the morning. The bus drivers here are amazing, and they burn it all the way down tiny Irish roads made for carts and horses. 100 km/h, right tire glued to the center line, missing cars by inches. Everything here has been grey and windy for a while especially here in Doolin which is very small. It has:
200 people (locals)
81 horses
50000 cows
2 million sheep
120 tourists (not really people)
1 market the size of your thumb
3 obligatory pubs
7 closed resteraunts
1 Big-ass bull, really pissed off

Let's just say I've had a lot of time to think, theorize, play guitar etc.

On the upside, things are a bit cheaper here, I can usually get by on under 45$ a day. So tomorrow I'm leaving for Galway and then Amsterdam on the weekend. Amsterdam dammit! I've been excited about that one for a while now. My hostel friends have all been there and we talk about it for hours. We really talk about anything to beat these godawful Doolin blues. This town has the energy of a corpse.

All I've been doing is hiking really, but thats a lot of fun due to the awesome scenery. Actually, J.R.R Tolkien got his inspiration for the Hobbit here, and I can see why. There are ruins everywhere and various towers and broken down old houses. Little stone walls divide almost everything. If you've ever seen The Princess Bride, the scene where Andre the giant climbs up the cliffs of Insanity was filmed here. I hiked up to see the Cliffs of Insanity yesterday which was a lot of fun. So really, the scenery is indescribably beautiful, but thats no fun to read about.

The only story of any real interest involves the really angry bull from the list. So yesterday, I took that hike to the cliffs with an american kid, Kellen who I met here at the hostel. He's from Washington near Seattle, a tall gawky kid thats still pretty cool and sharp. We were cutting through peoples fields willy nilly, over their prized little stone walls snapping photos all the way, and in one of the fields we saw a funny little sign warning us to 'beware of the bull' I'll try to snap a picture tomorrow before I leave. Being the fearless adventurers we are, we just kept on walking, more or less oblivious. We walk a bit more, snap a few more pictures. Little did we know bulls aren't photogenic. Im trying to frame a photo, taking my time and Kellen gets this look on his face like he just found out his junk is covered in green sores. 'Oh fuck!' he starts running. I get the idea and start running. I don't look back because I know theres 1300 pounds of angry beef about to charge my ass, I definitely heard his trampling and snorting. So I just dove over the nearest wall into a desperate judo roll, look back and saw the fuckin' beast of my nightmares. In retrospect I have no idea how much in danger I really was, maybe not at all.

I proceeded to chug my 187.5 mL bottle of wine.

Our little adventure ended with two hours spent trying to hitch a ride. We got two, one was in the wrong direction (embarassing haha), the other one was from an american father and son who took us all the way back, even though they weren't going that far.

so next time I'll be writing from Amsterdam, and you guys just know that'll be a good one.

Cheers
-Forrest