birthday celebration

We went out for a real meal, our first of the trip, to celebrate my birthday. We were both very excited - the only requirement was that it had to involve meat, no rice or pasta. After a lot of walking, we found an Irish pub with a meat stew that said 'carnivore's delight' in the menu notes, so we knew we'd found the right place. We split a steak sandwich and seafood chowder and the stout beef stew. We met an Aussie couple sitting near us and had fun chatting with them, except we couldn't understand a word of what the guy was saying because he spoke so softly and with a pretty heavy accent. The girl was a park ranger at a sea turtle nesting site, so I got the info on that in case I get a chance to visit it.

After dinner, I tried to post my blog stuff, but only got the writing up and not the pictures - pretty frustrating since wireless is so expensive. We'd told a few people from orientation that we'd be at the Globe bar at the hostel at 9, so we met up with them - we were still kind of of 'island time,' oops, but they waited for us. Several of them were leaving early tomorrow for other parts of the country, so they didn't stay out late, but we joined up with two Americans, sisters from Colorado and Chicago, and headed out to a bar with live music. Turns out it was actually the same Irish pub where we'd eaten dinner, and the live music was stuff like Sweet Home Alabama, Brown-Eyed Girl, etc. - not exactly Kiwi or Irish! The pub was on the water, so it was a nice location and we had a good time.