I've now been in The Republic of Ireland for exactly one day. My first impression of it is generally favourable despite the ridiculous weather, difficulty in navigating and overall apathy from workers. Sarah and I arrived in Dublin this morning after a cramped, restless, red-eye across the pond. I was amazed at the lax attitudes at the airport- no customs cards or forms to fill out, and I'm not entirely sure the official even looked up at me as he stamped my passport and waved my through. Perhaps it's just a Sunday state of mind.

We caught the bus across to Galway. On the 2.5 hour journey it went from sunny, to grey, to pouring rain, to hailing, to blizzarding, and back to sunny again. This place takes the expression "if you don't like the weather, wait two minutes" to a whole new level.

Galway is charming and small. We spent the day wandering aimlessly and managed to catch most of the important sites in the process. It's surprisingly green for this time of year, and aside from being hideously windy, the seaside is beautiful. I'm absolutely loving the accents, but they're surprisingly difficult to come by; everyone seems to be from somewhere else!

We've already been eating very well. We spent forty minutes this evening circling the restaurant we were looking for which as it turned out was about 3 minutes from the hotel; the maps are incredibly difficult to follow. Were any of the street names posted it would be significantly easier, but I'm always up for a challenge. Besides, now I understand where U2 got the inspiration for their song…they were trying to go for dinner in Galway!!

Tomorrow we're off on a tour heading south down the west coast, so off to bed for now and more updates soon.