Galway

14th - 16th August 2009

So I'm currently sitting in the lounge room of the most fantastic accommodation we've had since we left Australia. We're booked into an student apartment at the University of Ireland in Galway. We're supposed to be sharing the apartment with others, but theres no one here, so we've got a full apartment to ourselves, for the price of a hostel bed. The only downsides are that it is a fair hike into the city, and Dan blew up the microwave.

Anyway, we arrived into Galway without any hassles from the Irish Rail Network (They're reputedly to be quite bad), but we're greeted by some nasty wind and rain. We made our way into the town square and found out what bus we had to catch out to the accommodation. No issues, until I read on our booking sheet that we couldn't check in until 3pm - It had just gone past midday. It usually wouldn't be an issue, we'd find a nice park to go and sit in, but it was pissing down rain. We took refuge in a small shopping centre and called the accommodation to see if we could come in early. They told us we couldn't, but we'd be able to leave our bags if we wanted. That seemed like a decent deal so we jumped on the bus out to Dunaras Village. We asked the driver to drop us off at a particular roundabout (As the information people had told us to do), but he had no idea what we were talking about. I was trying to follow the bus on a s***ty little map I had, but eventually the bus driver shouted something at us, so we got off, albeit confused, but according to my map we shouldn't have been too far away. We weren't. Just up a hill and round a bend. When we got there they told us we could check in, so we did! We dropped bags and checked out the place and headed back into town to see what Galway had to offer. We'd booked onto a day tour for the following day, so we thought we'd better go check out where that left from rather than racing around in the morning to do it. Of course, we didn't have Internet access at this place, and we hadn't written down details or confirmation numbers or anything, so we had to find an Internet café to get all the details. Once we we're sorted we just spent the afternoon walking through the cute city streets and looking in all the tourist shops. We hit up a supermarket and bought some stuff for tea. I was looking forward to being able to cook in a real kitchen, not just a hostel kitchen, so we went a little crazy. We bought 2 of the biggest steaks you'd ever seen, and all the stuff to go with them. Once we'd loaded up on food (And paid 22 cent for the shopping bags - Ireland has a tax on plastic bags and we keep forgetting to bring one with us) we jumped on the bus home. We chilled out for a bit, and did some washing. We also realized that the apartment had Internet, just the corded variety, not the wireless were used to, so we checked emails and doubled checked arrangements for the next day. We were also able to catch part of a Neighbours episode, which is great considering we can't stream it in off the net whilst we are outside of the UK. The cooking of the steaks was much more eventful than it should've been. The exhaust fan wasn't strong enough for the sizzling sides of cow in the pan, and I ended up setting off the smoke alarms. I had Dan flapping cushions around trying to get rid of the smoke, cause I was a bit concerned that it was going to set off the whole alarm system for the 110 apartments in the complex. No one came rushing to check if the building was burning down, so I figured all was safe. We ended up just spending the night bumming around and watching tv.

Next morning we were up bright and early to get on our day tour with the Galway Tour Company. We were going to see the Burren (Which I had no idea what it was) and the Cliffs of Moher. We found the bus station and it could only be defined as chaotic in there. There were about 10 tour groups all heading off at the same time, and people going in all sorts of directions. We eventually got on a bus and set off. Our driver/guide, was possibly 75 years old, and I'm not actually sure that he spoke English. We couldn't understand a single word he said, and he would randomly break out into song whilst singing. He was rude, abrasive and impatient. He happily yelled at a number of other passengers when they were 1 or 2 minutes late back to the bus. It was quite possibly the worst tour I've ever been on. It was really disappointing because the things we saw were pretty amazing. We made a couple of stops along the way at a castle and some 3000 year old burial chambers, some 12th century Celtic high crosses and the Burren - which is just basically massive limestone mountains. Very cool, but we didn't really get a chance to get off the bus and go have a look at them. We finally arrived at the Cliffs of Moher around 1.30. I was starving so we first grabbed an expensive lunch in the restaurant there; although my chili beef baked potato was awesome (Irish potatoes are very yum). We headed up the overcrowded walking path to go along the edge of the Cliffs, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. By now, the weather had cleared up a little bit, but we were still getting a little damp from the spray off the ocean. The cliffs were massive, straight down rock faces, but surprisingly I wasn't scared. I think it was because we were behind a well-built wall. We reached a point where the wall, and the path ended and we found a massive sign saying, "Do not go past this point", so we did. Hundreds of other people were jumping the fence and disregarding the sign. There was a pretty well formed path, however no fence, or rail or anything to stand behind; Just a meter or 2 between us and the edge of the cliffs. We had been told that a boy got blown off the edge by strong winds at the start of the year, and to be very careful. We got a fair way along, and then the really big gusts of wind came along and I started to s*** myself a little bit. We headed back towards the bus, but had a little extra time, so we checked out the souvenir shops. Back on the bus and we were headed back to Galway. We stopped off at another nice spot on the side of the ocean, and had some more cliffs and some great views. The drive back was gorgeous, all along the side of the ocean, rocky mountains on the other side. The roads weren't designed for the massive coach we were on though, and there was many times I had to hold my breath when we drove past other cars (Plus I didn't have much confidence in the old man's vision or driving ability). We arrived back in Galway around 6, and went to find a pub to have some dinner in. Galway is definitely much cheaper than Dublin, but it is still quite costly to eat out. We found a nice little place however, and I was excited about my Chicken Kiev, until it came out (All of 5 minutes after I ordered); all soggy and microwaved, without a hint of garlic to it. Yuk. The massive side of cabbage got me excited though. It was delicious. Dan's Irish stew was also quite tasty, and he had both mashed and boiled potatoes with it, as well as cabbage and the other veggies. Dan doesn't like cabbage or parsnip, but he ate it. His old saying of "If it's on my plate I'll eat it", was in full motion. It was a massive meal, he managed to do it all, and finish off my s***ty chicken too. We grabbed some drinks from the nearest off-license and jumped on the bus back to the apartment to relax for the rest of the evening. Dan did try to microwave some popcorn, but when the microwave decided to start throwing sparks everywhere, and something inside of it melting, he stopped. He still wanted the popcorn so he popped open the bag, put some butter into a saucepan and popped away on the stove. That is until I realized that the room was full of smoke and he was about to set off the alarms again. I made him wait to finish the rest of the bag until I've waved all the smoke out the window with a pair of his shorts. Emergency averted.

We had quite a sleep in this morning, and it was fantastic. I think we slowly got out of bed around 10:30, and then cooked ourselves a yummy breakfast. By the time we were showered and dressed it was about 1 and we decided to catch a bus into town. The buses don't run very regularly on Sunday and we missed one by a matter of minutes. So we stood and waited at the bus stop in the cold for about 20 minutes to see if one from the other bus company would turn up, but it didn't We decided to head down to the local shops and get some lunch and then go back at catch the 2 o'clock bus. We figured that we'd try our Ireland McDonalds now, and it really was no different to English Maccas - because they only use Irish beef I think. We headed back up to the bus stop, and a bus came fairly soon after so that was good timing. When we got into the city we were planning on going down to the harbour and also to St Nicholas' Cathedral. Whilst we were walking through the city streets, Dan drops my hand and I hear him squealing, and going "Oh my god", before he started hugging some girl. Turns out it was a girl he went to high school with, Erica, who is living near Galway at the moment. Small world hey! After a quick chat with her, we continued on the slow amble down to the water. We looked in a number of little shops before we found the Spanish Arches on the docks of Galway Bay (Apparently Bing Crosby sung about Galway Bay, according to our tour guide from the day before). We had a quick walk around and then headed back up into the city. Galway had some really cute little streams and rivers that run through it, and some of them even run underneath buildings and houses. It really is quite cool. We had a quick look at some fisherman in the river, at the bottom of the Salmon Weir, and then proceeded to the Cathedral. It was a pretty cool cathedral, but very black on the inside. As we were leaving we were given a little trinket with Mary on it by some guy, so I pocketed it in a hope that maybe I'll get to heaven now. I don't know who made the decision, but it was stupid, and we walked home. About an hour later (with a short stop at the supermarket - and hey we forgot a bag again!) we arrived home with some yummy stuff to cook up a nice pasta for dinner. So here we are now, watching Simpsons and chillin' out. We need to pack the bags up for the 4.5-hour bus journey south to Killarney tomorrow. I have clothes and items sprawled throughout the lounge room, kitchen, bathroom and of course the bedroom, so I'm going to have to go on a treasure hunt to make sure that everything is collected before we leave. It's amazing how much of a mess you can make in 3 days!