Week 3

Galway!!

Over the weekend a few friends and I went over to Galway, which is located on the western coast of Ireland. After waking up at 6:30, we missed our 8:00 bus and were forced to take the next one about an hour later at 8:50. The bus ride was in total about 3.5 hours which gave a good amount of time to catch up on sleep.

Once we got to Galway Markus and I went to drop our stuff off our hostel while Kate and Kristen did the same at theirs. Since we made the arrangements at different times we were not able to stay at the same hostel. We were able to get a room at the Sleepzone hostel for 18 Euro a night which was pretty good.

Our room was about the size of a college dorm with 3 bunk beds

After we all got situated we decided to check out the small city (we could walk the entire length in about 20 minutes).

despite the size, we still managed to get lost.

We decided to check out a pretty impressive Cathedral by the name of Galway Cathedral, very creative. It was built in the 60’s and although it isnt old its still very pretty. I dont know why I only took one picture of the exterior. I guess I wasnt impressed enough.

The interior was very impressive with stunning stained glass work. Low light caused this pictures to come out somewhat blurry but you get the idea. Its funny how sitting in church will provoke conversations about religion. Well maybe not.

After some introspection we left to get some dinner at the King’s Head.

After dinner we left to grab some bread, jam and peanut butter and proceeded to make more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I had in my entire life till that point. The idea was that we would fill the bread bag with the sandwiches (which worked brilliantly) and eat them for lunch and dinner the next day when we were exploring.

To the untrained eye this bag looks like just a bag of bread but that assumption would be oh so wrong.

That night we left to meet up with our friend Ryan and find a suitable pub to discuss sandwiches.

Me, John, Kristen, Ryan and Markus:

There is always good music to be found in many different pubs in Ireland, its really pretty awesome.

Apparently Sean Connery expresses the same intensity for Irish music as he does for acting.

Once we decided that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is almost impossible to fuck up we left to find Kristen’s new best friend Landen. But to her credit, he was pretty bangin.

We were able to squeeze off one more picture before the group was torn apart by Landen. I thought it was bro’s before hoes Kristen! Maybe Im just jealous I couldnt get with him. Damn.

More music but this time it was Bluegrass

And so we went to bed.

The next day we took a bus then a ferry to get to the Aran Islands after which I was able to convince the group that renting bikes would be ALOT more fun than paying for a tour of the island despite the fact that it was pretty darn cold. If you care to, you can look up to the top of the page at the map to see the location of the islands.

This cow knows whats up

Excitement was had

After a few a mile or so, we got too excited and had to eat.

Somehow my dad makes the worst peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…thats a talent in itself.

These had the perfect ratio of jelly to peanut butter to bread.

On the road again

I had some bike issues

Met some cows

After a few hours we had to ditch the wheels and started walking to an old encampment dating to around 500 BC

The fort was a semi circular wall of stone stretching around from one cliff face to another. At the highest point the wall stood about 30 feet high.

We looked over the cliff’s edge to find an almost straight drop to the ocean 200ft or so below.

So that concludes day 1…or 2 however you want think about it. We had a really good day and in the end we decided renting bikes was totally awesome and that a tour would have been foolish. GO ME! Haha. Anyways we went to bed early because we had to get up early again the next morning.

Day 2!

This time since I had convinced the crew to rent bikes and not take a tour the previous day when they said they were tired and wanted to go on a tour bus, I went along with the plan. I will elaborate on my feelings about the tour bus later in the post.

So Markus and I went on one tour bus and the other two a separate one…which we thought would be fine but it turned out each bus went to different spots at different times…weak.

The bus took us to several places but only two are really worth mentioning. First we went to the Cliffs of Moher, then the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb.

First stop was the Cliffs of Moher which put the cliffs at the Aran Islands to shame. Standing at 65oft high it took a long time for me to even get up the courage to come within 10ft of the edge. They are fucking MASSIVE. I had been there before about 8 years ago with my family and I remember not even being able to go within 20 feet of the edge. It was raining that day but this time around it was beautifully sunny so we were able to stay for about an hour (the maximum amount of time the tour would let us stay, more on this later).

Those are people on the edge.

This is as close as I could get. I saw people walking on the very very edge and hanging their feet over the 650 foot face. They are insane.

Another cool picture of the cliffs

After the cliffs we went to a very old grave site called the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. This rock sculpture is the site of a family burial ground where they have found 16 people. Im not sure how old it is but it is very old.