ahh...galway. i love galway. it's a much smaller city than dublin, less cosmopolitan and the people are oh-SO friendly. we got off the bus around 1pm on friday, found our hostel quickly, and asked the man (who we promptly nicknamed "sexy jesus") for a lunch recommendation. he sent us to food 4 thought, a quaint and delicious cafe where we ordered paninis and sandwiches and pie. a glorious start to our weekend.
from there, we wandered throughout the city for a few hours. alissa was named impromptu tour guide, as she had researched a walking tour that led us to many historical monuments (st. nicolas' cathedral, the spanish arch, galway cathedral, the salmon weir, and more!) we quickly got acquainted with the city and its many side streets, buskers, and tourists. it was too much fun. we ducked into a couple vintage stores and i made my first unnecessary purchase of the trip--an adorable plaid sleeveless top, which i promptly wore out on the town.
at the hostel before dinner, we met a fellow american named joey, who will be starting his fourth year at the naval academy (anne, if you're reading, he knows you from summer boot camp.) i don't remember his last name. he had planned out a big british isles trip before settling in kiev doing a research project for the remainder of the summer, but was stuck in galway waiting for his bags to arrive. we invited him to dinner.
that night was a long one and ended with me forcing myself to keep my eyes open before heading back to the hostel. in the morning, we woke early to grab the bus to the ferry to the aran islands. we had planned this trip before leaving dublin, so we were hoping to smooth sailing. the hour-long bus ride took us to the hour-long ferry, and when we arrived at the island we were told that we weren't, in fact, getting off on inishmann (the middle island, not as touristy as inishmore and the site of some pretty interesting things), but had arrived at inishere. this smallest island of the three, inishere had nothing to offer but a pub, some houses, and a shipwreck. we hiked for most of our four hours and i ended up taking a nap near the beach. it turned out to be incredibly irish, but not necessarily what we were hoping for on our day trip. alas, we were happy to have found such a treasure.
back in galway, we hurried out to kelly's, a local pub and restaurant, to grab some food and watch the us-ghana game. as you can imagine, we were sorely disappointed with the turnout of the game. i was exhausted by 10pm and opted to head back to the hostel for some much needed rest while the other girls (bianca--my clustermate, alissa and netta--two other girls from um, and abby and jamie--two girls from madison) headed out on the town with joey again. i had a good night's sleep but the others were a bit groggy by the time we woke up to get to the cliffs of moher in the morning.
we hadn't planned our cliffs of moher trip and spent some of the morning debating between just taking a bus eireann out or taking a planned tour. in the end, we opted for the plain bus. it was a two-hour bus ride and left us with an hour to hike the cliffs, which were absolutely magnificent. i was blown away by the sheer beauty and height of the cliffs and, of course, the colors of the water were breathtaking. the wind was a bit much, but all in all the four hours on the bus was well worth it.
upon our return to galway, we hurried to grab a bite to eat before boarding our 530 bus back to dublin. the four-hour bus ride was spent intermittently sleeping, listening to music, and playing solitaire. so fair, i've spent so much time on coaches! my ipod even played busted "year 3000" for me while rolling through the irish countryside, which reminded me even more of my ptp trip and lovely girls.
i hit the hay early last night to prepare for my 10am lit class. now, i have about an hour before history. tonight, our group has planned a traditional irish ceili for us to participate in, and tomorrow we have an all-day archaeological field trip planned. so much to do, and so little time to finish laundry! i'm running out of clothes quickly and am hoping that my box from home will arrive soon (thanks a million mum!!)
all in all, my first weekend trip in ireland was glorious and i can't wait to share more!
xxx
cliffs of moher
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