In Galway, we started out the following morning with coffee and brunch and then decided to spend the day perusing the shop-lined streets. There were a lot of people walking, like in Dublin, but it had a different feel to it. It seemed a lot more local whereas when we were in Dublin, there seemed to be a lot more tourists on the streets, so the difference was enjoyable. Galway (well, all of Ireland...) but especially Galway, is apparently known for its rain. Everyone had umbrellas and if we weren't able to keep the pace of the people around us, we found ourselves frequently dodging spokes to keep from getting jabbed in the eye. We ducked into a cafe in the afternoon called Java Script for our daily downtime/drying time and had coffee and tea. This was after we had acquired a tarp for our tent, which was very much the highlight of the day!
Galway is also known for its music and we had read about several pubs that were going to be having traditional music in the evening so we decided to check it out. We have found that finding the right pub is very difficult. They are either packed body to body with trendy younguns, teeming with tourists looking for traditional music (us...), or small, quiet pubs where you walk in the door and get stared down by about five or six local older men. We finally decided to walk a short distance to a pub closer to the university that the lonely planet guide told us about, Monroe's Tavern, and found it to be the perfect mix of locals, young people and older people, and tourists looking for traditional music. It was a bit vacant when we got there since the music didn't start until 9:00 but we ate and I drank my Guiness while Melissa tried the Galway Hooker so that she could test something local. She found it to taste a bit like fish. I didn't like it either, but we finished it nonetheless and had a lovely evening listening to the band that played. When the music started, we moved closer so we could hear and so someone eating could have our table. We were sitting on stools near the wall at a little side bar. Melissa had put her empty mug up there behind us, and we had also rested the bag with the tarp in it there, against the wall. About ten minutes after the move to the stools, the tarp bag shifted, falling towards the beer glass and kocking it to the tile floor, where it shattered. It was kind of a classic 'us' situation, and not the first. I forogt to mention how we nearly took out a couple of topiaries with our backpacks in Edinburgh at a restaurant that felt way too fancy for us. But that was a long time ago...we're much better at maneuvering now.
Since we had been gone all day, and because it had been raining all day, we hadn't had any chance to dry anything out. Our tent and sleeping bags were drenched, and because I was still sick on top of that, we cooked up a plan to sleep on the couches inside the tv room at the campsite. On our way back, 'nurse Melissa voice' rehearsed a speech about how in her professional opinion, as my nurse, I needed to sleep in a dry, warm place to keep from getting sicker, and how we had payed our fees, and were entitled to sleep inside. This was all in case we were faced with opposition. Well, we got back and sat there for a bit, trying to wait out the people who were still in the kitchen and showers, but then were met with the owner of the site who bascially told everyone to leave and turn off the lights when they did. She looked at Melissa and I and told us that if we wanted, we could go to the adjacent sun room, which would be open all night. Little did she know, we would actually be there, all night. We went and packed up our wet paraphanalia and walked to the sun room, which had a fold up bed and a long, leather couch in it. We still had the problem of what we were going to sleep under since both our sleeping bags were wet, and so, we whipped out the new tarp! We piled on the couch with half the tarp under us and half over and it was remarkably warm considering its rather stiff and scratchy nature.
The next day's advenure was to go to the Aran Islands. We decided to go to the smallest island, which is said to be the prettiest as well. We packed up early and after a forty-minute bus ride to the pier in Galway, we got on the ferry for a rough, wet, and very fun ride over to the island. Melissa wanted to know what it was like set-netting, and since we were on a smaller boat going to the small island, she had a chance. In her words, she has now been, "Indcuted into the world of the sea, the wind in her hair, the taste of the sea on her lips, her wet pants clinging to her ankles, the water dripping into her shoes, and confirmed in the painful fact that she has no balance, especially at sea!"
It was nice arriving at the island and having our hostel right by the pier. We were able to go in and get dry as well as do all our laundry and dry everything we had, including our sleeping bags and tent. We spent the day resting in the sun since, besides the occasional shower, it was a warmer, breezy day. The islands in particular are still heavily Gaelic-speaking so that was very interesting to listen to. Life was very slow there, and refreshing. We spent one night there and the next day perused the ancient ruins then took the ferry back to Doolin. Doolin was a small backpacker/surf community below Galway in County Clare and we greatly enjoyed our time there, as well as located some of the best fudge we have ever eaten, which was drenched by a cracked egg on the train last night, but has since been wiped down and salvadged. The things we have to go through for choclolate...
Last night, we got into Tralee from Doolin, right in the midst of the Rose of Tralee Festival. Melissa kept telling me I should have entered, but we ran into the problem of what I would wear and decided we could create a very fashionable dress out of black trashbags and duct tape, a poncho cape, and a bus-ticket/heather corsage, properly showcasing the wind-blown look while sporting the versatile and fast-drying croc for footwear. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a place to stay in Tralee and we were wet by the time we reached our campsite, so we decided to move on to Cork on the last train out and will be here for a few days, staying with a Homer friend and her roommate who have been extremely hospitable and allowed us to just relax and dry out, as well as given us some ideas of what to see and taught us some of the history of Cork. From here, we'll leave in a couple of days for the Wicklow Gap just below Dublin, and then back to Dublin, and home in little over a week.
a) Melissa on the beach in Ft. William, Scotland
b) Ivy in the Botanical Garden, Belfast
c) Slieve League, Carrick, Ireland
No comments:
Post a Comment