The friendly barkeeps are moving at a mile a minute, washing glasses, pouring pints, making change and laughing with all the locals.
Every single wall, in every single pub that we have visited over these last 8 days have walls and walls of police and fire badges from all over the world. The majority are from the US with Boston and Chicago badges getting the most visibility.
When you look closely at their price list you'll notice a few tings (that's right, I said tings not things since every ting is said witout the th sound...just the t. So that's where New Yorkers get the tirty tird street accent!). 1st you'll notice that they sell Coors light and Miller. If that isn't bad enough...then you'll see, upon closer inspection that Miller costs 4.50 euro compared to the 4.40 of most other beers. What???? More money for a Miller than a great Irish or German beer??? The price comes to 7 bucks for a Miller...I guess these guys aren't as discerning as I thought.
Guinness is of course a special beer. You don't just tap a Guinness. First you tap 3/4 of a Guinness. Then you wait 5 minutes to let it calm down. As you see here, we are not yet calm.
Then you top it off and deliver it to the guest with the perfect foam head. We have not seen anyone putting an artful shamrock or other Irish design in the foam...hmmm Now to be sure, every American orders Guinness or Smithwicks (pronounced Smithicks). However, I would have to say that the Irish, perhaps 30% order the "other" draft beer. Give me a break....Bud?? Yep, they love it here.
Ahhh, this is what we like to see. Peggy has figured out that you select the appropriate beer depending on the time of day. A light refreshing Harps at lunch, a darker tan Smithwicks in the late afternoon, and the dark Guinness at night...not that she has all these beers each day...or does she?
Take a look at the comfort level of this beauty and you can easily answer the last question...
Just about every where you sit, there are Irish folks willing to talk with you. Notice Jon and Ann in Liar's Corner...by the way, Jon holds his own in making conversation with the Irish...and he's great at it...
Now to the music...every pub has a great fiddle player...usually a young girl, and she's always amazing.
In fact, all the instruments are represented sometime throughout the night...fiddle, bazooki, pipes, guitar, drums of some sort, etc. nicely pictured here in this pub display of the tools to make a great jam session.
Most of the time, due to the crowds even at 11 pm at the pub, this is your common view of the band. Not bad, but people are always talking or laughing or the guys are trying to pick up chicks...
This pipes player has an instrument that combines an accordion with a flute and sounds amazing..I'll have to get the name for you in a later post. I actually recorded a 20 second portion of their jamming, but this blog software won't load it. You'll have to wait til we get home so you can listen to the CD called Foolin in Doolin..
Well, it's midnight and the sky has just gotten dark from the late sunset..we are off to sleep while you enjoy your afternoon...tomorrow should be a sunny relaxing day in Doolin as we enjoy our Tuesday just kickin it with the locals...again... Leaving you with the words of a T shirt worn by one of our Irish boaters...and I'll tone it down for the kids in the crowd..."I once gave up drinking and smoking... and that was the worst hour of my life!" Love you and sweet dreams...
They are called uilleann pipes (pronounced /ilen/) and are knewn as the bagpipes of Ireland.
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