Friday, April 8, 2011

Day #81: Galway, Ireland

Today was a rather quiet day, which was nice for a change. Last night we had gone to an Irish pub called The Spanish Arch where we drank and got to hear some traditional Irish music - they played Will Ye Go, Lassie, one of my favorite Irish tunes! There was a guitarist, fiddler, and drummer. They were very good! I had a Baileys on the rocks and a Captain Morgan Rum and Coke, to which one of the natives at the bar responded that it was an excellent choice. Did I mention yet that the people here are very nice? Whenever we are looking at a map or aren't sure of something they are always asking if we need any help! The next morning we slept in until 9 am and had breakfast, then went out into the city to explore Galway. The city turned out not to be terribly big, which was nice for me because it wasn't overwhelming. We saw the Spanish Arch and the Latin Quarter, where we found a music store that sold CDs by the Irish group Taida, which has come to my hometown a few times over the years. I was very pleasantly surprised to find their CDs! Then we went to Galway Bay and meandered around the peer. We went to the beach for a little while, where I did some beach combing - I got some shells and washed glass! It felt a lot like Lake Erie, only they have sea water plants, like kelp. We saw several swans and a heron. There were also several people walking their dogs along the beach. One of them was a very rambunctious little black dog that kept popping up around us when we were trying to take a group photo! He was very cute though, and I miss dogs.
After the beach we ate lunch, then we did some more exploring. We ended up going back to our hotel to make sure about our hostel tomorrow, as we will be departing Galway for Dublin tomorrow morning. Then we went to the park in the square near our hostel to do some reading, where we ran into Brian, Hannah, and Sarah Cartes. Brian was quite pleased with himself as they had visited an O'Donohue castle, which he said was a school where Brian Boru had studied. I am a descendant of the line of Brian Boru, so I guess you could say that my ancestor went to his ancestor's school. Meh. Not too much has changed, the O'Briens still have to listen to the O'Donohue's gab and lecture! ;-) It sounded like they were having a splendid ten day as well. It was nice to see more Franciscan students, though there have been several in and out of our hostel over the past couple of days, and we saw a few at the pub last night. I am up to Book V in The Ballad of the White Horse, and I am loving it! We went and got some fish and chips at a small restaurant on the corner for pretty cheap, then we returned to our hostel to plan Dublin tomorrow. We leave around 8 am in the morning for Dublin, and we will spend the day exploring the area, spend the night at a hotel, then leave super early in the morning to fly out of Dublin to Vienna. I hope all goes well! Pray for us!

1 comment:

  1. It is SO strange to here about you going places that I did. And I am also jealous of the places you are going to that I didn't. :P Just can't be happy can I? Oh well. I am SO glad to see that you are enjoying yourself though! <3

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