I'm really enjoying being back in Vancouver, after 26 years. This is a lovely city, visually appealing with lots of trees & art works. The people are very friendly & helpful to strangers. Unfortunately there are a lot of homeless people which is sad and they are pretty assertive about approaching you. Some are pretty harmless but others are clearly under the influence and make it difficult to think about wandering around on your own at dusk.
Yesterday we wandered about Chinatown, Gastown, the waterfront and the financial district which was great for architectural shots. Today we walked down to Granville Island which was fabulous; essentially it's a farmers market on steroids with the addition of an art/tourist/gift shop component and attracts 10 million visitors a year.
Next stop was a visit to the University of British Colombia to have a look at the First Nation art.
We have been trying to fit in as much as possible for our last few days but we are all exhausted and looking forward to heading home tomorrow, but not the journey itself.

Nightmare journey from Frankfurt to Vancouver - for me anyway.
In the midst of travel sickness and after 22 hours on the go I shot these pics (on my phone) of a jelly fish tank at the airport.  Any serenity induced by watching the jellyfish was quickly dissipated by the hour long queue to get through immigration. Eight international flights had arrived at once. Not pretty.

It was up and out again this morning for the longish trek back to Dublin. And it was raining relentlessly ...again.
We stopped at Waterford and were going to have a tour around the crystal factory but we'd have to wait 40min and then the tour was an hour and we decided that was too much time. There was a statue of Princess Aoife & Strongbow - he was the Norman invader.  I really liked the face of the Princess because the rain made it look like she was crying. We got thoroughly soaked again having a bit of a wander around.  So it was back into the car and zoom off to Kilkenny.
Kilkenny is a medieval town, with a good walking tour of historic places and even a ghost tour at night.  Shame we had to miss that one. While these lovely historic towns are picturesque and charming we found the Achilles heel; trying to find parking and actually moving through the town in a car is an absolute nightmare.  Oh and if its raining there are no verandas so walking around you just get soaking wet.  We visited the Black Abbey  which had the most fabulous stained glass windows; St Marys cathedral & Kilkenny Castle.  Lunch was fairly abysmal and took way too long to arrive.  We reached Dublin about 4.30 and had quite a bit of trouble finding the Airport Hilton, back & forth on the motorway  & negotiating millions of roundabouts raising everyone's stress levels. The GPS wasn't updating quick enough to clearly identify which lane we needed to be in but we got there eventually.
Dinner was almost as abysmal as lunch so it felt like a bit of a write off day really; we got cold & wet multiple times, didn’t enjoy any of the dining experiences and its still bloody raining.

Had a sleep in and woke at 8am to rain.  Not the periodic, it'll pass in a minute or 10, rain. The flat grey sky set in for the day, rain.
I'm totally sick of sitting in the car all day and the others seem to be the same as no one is gearing up to do anything. Two have gone back to bed with books; one is snoring loudly on the sofa & 2 of us are working on laptops.
At about 1pm we ventured out into the rain for lunch & then went walk about. In a very short time we were dripping wet. I popped into Treacy's pub to change my lens out of the rain. Two auld fellas were keen to chat and while I was having a natter the girls came in the back door and insisted I have a look. It was like going down a rabbit hole: the front of the pub had a 70s diner style going on, but through a door there was an amazing transformation into old style Irish pub with low ceilings, dark wood panelling and fireplace.
We went back to the house for a bit of a dry out and at 6.30 went out again. There was a charity donkey race being held in the main street at 7pm despite the unrelenting rain all day. It was hilarious watching professional jockeys wrangling poor little donkeys.  We saw a couple of races and then ducked into the Imperial for dinner. It's an absolute joy to enter one of these old style pubs and discover a fabulous meal and this was no exception.  We then repaired to the back bar (The Nook) of Treacy's for a "roadie".   The place was jumping and it was so nice to sit by the fire and soak up the atmosphere and listen to the music.  
Several rounds of Baileys later we headed home. 

I have been doing the bulk of the driving (largely to avoid getting car sick) and I'm very tired. The narrow roads mean you have to concentrate hugely and it’s a manual Peugot and a complete pig that I have named François.  The manufacturers merely swapped the steering wheel to the opposite side for a left-hand drive and the indicator is on the same side as the gear stick. The gear box has a narrow gate making it easy to miss a gear & you are constantly shifting gears to cope with the roads. Its tiring.
We stopped at Ross Carberry where we stopped to have a look at a Dromberg - a ring of standing stones. And after a very quick lunch in Clonakilty visited Timoleague Friary which was absolutely fabulous.  It's unusual to be able to visit both these places and a. not have to pay an entry fee & b. not have to cope with loads of other people.
I am not impressed with my photos of today. I'll post when I get the chance to improve them.
We reached Youghal (pronounced Yawl), County Cork, around 5pm. The house is right on the sea front, no WiFi again though.  We walked down the beach to a hotel for a sadly under average dinner.
Milestone moment… tonight I drank a half of Guinness. Wasn't sure I'd end up finishing it.