Last weekend I made my way to Galway with a group of students from Loyola, Maryland! It was a "crack time" as they would say in Ireland. My trip was thursday to Sunday. I got a free ride up there because the Loyola college ended up paying for the bus ride :-). I stayed in my first hostel called sleep zone. It was very clean and surprising nice for 12 euro a night. Thursday night we made our way out to the night life in Galway stopping at pubs like The Quay and Kingshead. I learned the Kingshead gots its name from a story:
Cromwell wanted to kill some British rulers but didn't want to do it himself so he hired some Irish people to do it. He asked the Irish people what they wanted in exchange for the rulers head being cut off. They said, they wanted him to buy them a pub. That pub is still in business and called "The Kingshead"
On Friday we took a ferry out to the Aran Islands. We got a bus tour up to some 300 foot cliffs. These were by the far the most beautiful cliffs I have seen yet! We could go sit on the edge of the cliff and hang our feet off the edge. It was amazing. After we stopped at a coffee shop where I ended up practicing my Gaelic with the owner (It didn't go that will but he was very excited to teach me more) That night we ate at a cute little Italian restaurant (I was in heaven) and then made our way to Coyote which was supposed to be the most American look a like bar in Galway.....It was horrible. You could ride a bull, there was pictures of the Coyote ugly girls on the wall, dancers on the bar table and a huge American flag on the ceiling.
On Saturday we took the longest bus tour ever to the Cliffs of Moher. It took all day to get there and though the view was still beautiful, I enjoyed the Aran Islands much more. We also stopped at the Burren. Everything was very touristy. That night my friend Katie Radford from home invited me over to her apartment for dinner. She is studying in galway for the semester. She made a great pasta meal.
On Sunday we went to a small cafe for breakfast and then attempted to go purchase some Claddagh rings (Galways is where the ring originated) but the shops were all closed.
It was a great weekend, but I never thought I would be so happy to return to my lee side cork apartment!
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