Galway and Beyond

We stopped in Galway for a couple of days to put an end to the mad travelling around by car—the crazy driving for hours to get to the city by dinner time, eat, walk around sleep, wake up, walk around, drive somewhere else, and then repeat the pattern of the last few days.

It's an interesting city: on the water, lots of cute shops, tons and tons of tourists, and really bad food (with the exception of the Indian food we had after we drove down from Derry). On the way to Galway, we stopped at Donegal Castle and walked around. It's so awful to use adjectives that barely contain the full definition of how something actually appears, so I hate to say that Ireland is quaint, with it's small coastal towns full to the brim with B&Bs, signs in both English and Irish, wee men riding their bikes wearing tweed, but it is, and we drove through about a hundred little towns that all seemed lovely and amazing, but small, rural and strangely full of tourists.

The rain continued the two days we spent in Galway. The first day we walked around the city, saw and amazing old medieval church, the Spanish Arches from the 1500s, and a couple of other sites. There are 'authentic' shops in Galway, and one that sells Claddagh rings (stamped "original" because, well, it's where they originated), so I bought one, and I also bought my RRBF a cute, jaunty tweed cap (I just hope it fits his head). Then we went back to the B&B and slept for a little while (car-lag), got up, had Chinese food and went to the pub. The nightlife in Galway is astounding: there are tons of bars, pubs, nightclubs, smartly dressed boys and fancy girls. I felt downright old and dowdy! But of course, I was wearing a huge, smelly raincoat, the same grey sweatshirt I've been wearing the whole trip because I didn't bring enough warm clothes and my everyday jean skirt. Ha! There goes fashion, right out the window.

The pub was fun. We met a couple from Roscommon, a lovely girl from Florence, a fellow doing a PhD in 17th century Irish economics who said, "There's an old Irish saying, 'God gave whiskey to the Irish so they wouldn't conquer the world.'" We were having some conversation about colonialism or the like, it was very funny. And then Tina met a funny fellow we called "Bob the Builder" because he was a bricklayer who talked to her for our entire pint but never introduced himself.

We got up the next morning and drove to Clifden, well actually a small town outside of Clifden called Cleggan where we went horseback riding. Tina did a lot of riding in her youth and beyond, so she's totally experienced. It was only my second time on a horse, and I was terrified. His named was "Duggie" and he was lovely. We walked, and then trotted a bit, back and forth on a beach in the Canemara. It was a fun experience.

But then the driving began, again. After a false start, we were on our way to the Cliffs of Moher. We drove through The Burren, a geological wonder, an area where time and prehistory have evolved into a fascinating and spectacular karst (a limestone region). You come around a windy, bendy corner and then all of sudden the landscape changes and it's one of the most interesting, beautiful things I've ever seen. Before we got to the Cliffs, we had dinner in Doolin, and it was a meal to rival the restaurants in Paris. Surprising that the best meal we've had so far was in a tiny town with only 200 residents where we almost didn't get a table after being lost for a couple of hours earlier in the day. I guess that's what travelling is all about, happenstance and circumstance.

We landed in Limerick by around 11 PM last night and are spending the day looking around, maybe walking over to Frank McCourt's infamous neighbourhood.