You can try to plan everything out, but life makes its own plans, and often, they are different than yours. sometimes they're better.my wife and i were on our honeymoon in 2005. we attended the wedding of friends in Italy and then spent a week+ in Ireland. the plan in Ireland was to not have a plan, just a car and a map, and a flight home out of Dublin.we flew into Dublin from Milan, and spent two nights there, then we hit the road. driving in Ireland is definitely different than driving in the US, the other side of the road driving presents some problems (mostly when turning), but the harder part was not hitting sheep and oncoming traffic. the map we got from Dan Dooley car rental was not nearly as helpful as the extra insurance we purchased right before they handed us the map. in Waterford, we returned to the car to notice that someone put a gash in the rear bumper. we assumed that someone wasn't us. in Lismore, some local kids left the imprint of a football over the right rear fender. i got my chance the next morning outside of Blarney. while being distracted trying to figure out where the hell we were, i approached a stop sign. stopping wasn't the problem, it was the ensuing turn. like i said, the wrong side of the road isn't so tough, it's the turns, and crossing traffic. since i was distracted by being lost i made a left turn into the wrong lane. that required some quick correction in the face of oncoming traffic, and as i swerved into the correct lane, i clipped a sign with the passenger side rearview. conveniently, we were now going the wrong way, so when we turned back in the correct direction, we had a chance to pick up the mirror. it fell out of the mount when we hit the sign, so it was laying on the ground, broken, right next to the sign. after picking it up and reattaching it, we were off to see the Drombeg Stone circle. Dan Dooley's map wasn't much help here, either, but we did find the place, and it was worth it. eventually, we made it to Galway. we'd been on the road long enough now to be prepared expect sheep in the roads, lanes too narrow for two cars to pass one another, switchbacks, and roundabouts, but when we left Galway to see Connemara we were met with new suprises... and we weren't prepared for Irish.the houses and other signs of urban civilization became more sparse by the mile, so did trees... and English.along the way, we tried to get dinner at a pub. because civilization was thinning out, our opportunities were limited, so we stopped at the first place we passed. inside, we found three men having a pint; one being the barkeeper who informed us that we couldn't get any food because they didn't serve at this late hour during the off-season. it was disappointing to leave hungry and sober, but what we heard when we got back in the car made it all worthwhile...now here's where the music comes in. i only listen to the radio under very exceptional circumstances - mostly consisting of times when it's not my car, or i forgot to bring my music. this trip was a case of the latter. we had no CDs, no iPod adapter, nothing. i was seriously pissed when i realized the situation, but, in hindsight, it was the best thing that could have happened. because we had no music of our own, we were listening to RTE Lyric FM all over Ireland. it may be their NPR, i don't really know, but i will be forever grateful to them for introducing me to Terry Allen. Ireland is an amazing country, my wife is an amazing woman, and our trip was incredible - all things worthy of their own post, but this isn't it. this is a post about Terry Allen, and for 5 minutes he made us forget we were hungry and sober and reminded us that life isn't about plans, it's about living.