(No worries—”deadly” means “awesome” over here)

Before heading out of Galway Thursday morning, we drove to a place called Salt Hill on the outskirts of town to check out the diving situation. What we found was a multi-tiered platform touring over the beautiful bay with all manner of people (most in wetsuits) hurling themselves off into the water from different heights. Pressed for time, we headed straight for the top level and took the leap of faith, about 30 feet down. I’ve never really jumped off of anything before, but it seemed like the perfect time to start. It was so wonderful that we each went twice more before setting out for Dublin. Erin came away with a bit of a bruise on her arm from where she hit the water on one of her jumps, but we were otherwise unscathed.

It seems that people everywhere like to under report the distance from their city to the next point of interest. (I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that the Oregon coast is only an hour from Portland—maybe by helicopter!) Our friends in Galway assured us that Dublin was a 3 hour drive. Six hours later we pulled in for a last minute sound-check at the Boom Boom Room, but got to play to the best crowd of the tour so far.

All in all, Ireland has been a whirlwind of amazing new friends and beautiful landscapes. Erin would like me to point out just how difficult the driving proved to be—not only are you on the left side of the road, but the steering wheel is on the right and you have to shift with your left hand (yes, it was stick-shift). She got us through brilliantly. We are off very early tomorrow morning (in about 2 hours) for a quick stop in London and a show at an art opening before hopping over to Brussels.

Links:
Nire
Urban Dictionary agrees: Deadly is awesome

Photo courtesy of Nire