I love buskers and generally anyone who tries to make a living peddling their art (except Lady Gaga of course, cuz I am not buying whatever "art" she is selling - I mean holy crap, did you see her new album cover???). Buskers on Shop Street in Galway and Grafton Street in Dublin remind me of the movie Once. Man, that was a great movie. And the song Falling Slowly has got to be one of my favorite songs of all time.
Along with sheep and buskers, ice cream is rather easy to find in Ireland. They sell ice cream pretty much everywhere - every convenience store has a soft ice cream machine. A 99 is a soft ice cream with a Cadbury Flake bar. Ice cream in Ireland is creamy, rich, and delicious, probably because of the Irish diary. I had the convenient store variety in Dingle, the fast food variety at SuperMac in Galway, the gourmet ice cream shop variety at Murphy's in Killarney, the gelato version at Gino's in Dublin, and the shake version at Shakes in Dublin. Oh and on my 2nd to last day there, I had an iced hot chocolate (like the frozen hot chocolate from NYC's Serendipity) from this chocolate shop called Butler's. Ok I am actually really craving ice cream as I write this. Should I head out to Bi-Rite for some honey lavender, or salted caramel, or roasted banana?
San Francisco bus drivers are assholes. I know I am generalizing - surely there are hardworking, professional, courteous MUNI bus drivers out there, but it just hasn't been my pleasure to encounter one. When I was in high school, I actually had the driver close the door on me with my foot inside the bus and the rest of me outside. The oblivious driver started to take off, with me hopping alongside banging on the door. Fortunately he quickly realized what was happening and he stopped to let me live another day. It was craziness. I have other MUNI bus driver stories too, but I'll save those for another day. Anyways, in Ireland, customer service is top notch all around. I had great experiences with bank and post office workers. But I was particularly impressed by our bus drivers when I went on a couple of day tours. Not only were they good at their jobs (maneuvering those narrow roads in Ireland), but they were just super cool and super nice. At the end of the day on first tour, after the driver Eamon dropped everyone off at the Galway coach station, this other party and myself asked if the driver would take us back to the Salthill area. He amiably agreed even though he probably didn't have any responsibility to do so. When he stopped in Salthill to let off the other party, who were a group of elderly women, he not only walked off the bus with them and actually walked them across the street to safety. Come on! You never see that. Eamon does Ireland proud!
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