Galway with Friends and Family! (2)

Galway Bay

I parted ways with Dian on Monday. She invited me up to Clifden for a few days, but I had a flight to the mainland that I couldn’t miss. I enjoyed the ambience of Galway and found it a fitting place to spend my last few days in Ireland. It turned out quite well. Dian dropped me off in town in the morning and I made my way to the hostel to drop of my bag. I walked around the town a bit more exploring some of the nooks and crannies. I found a little pizza shop called Pizza Napoli. The timing couldn’t have been better. I had been craving pizza for, well… I always crave pizza, but I hadn’t eaten any since Brighton with Alex. Withdrawals!? I wasn’t about to enjoy English, Scottish, or Irish pizza so I jumped all over Pizza Napoli. I went back to the hostel and met a few of my roomies. While they played an early afternoon of drinking games, I decided to be anti-social and go for a run along the promenade, totally worth it. The weather was still beautiful and they ran out of booze while I was gone. The lot of us ended up hanging out that evening drinking beer on the steps next to the river. Shane looked like a hobo, we met a group of locals that were almost drunk enough to go swimming in the river, and then headed over to a dive pub for some warmth and a pint.

Shane

Tuesday was lounge around and hang out day. It rained all day so I didn’t really have the motivation to get outside. I did in the afternoon for a bit, but it was pretty miserable wind and rain. I ended up moving into the common areas of the hostel and met a few cool people throughout the afternoon to talk with.

Galway is cool!

Wednesday all my friends left town, except Alice. She was heading out to the Aran Islands though. I was in luck! A German girl that I met briefly in Killarney, Monika, happened to make it up to Galway a few days after me and was staying in the same hostel. It was raining so we spent the early part of the morning in the kitchen hanging out. I happened to check my email and my luck was going strong. My dad had arrived in Galway the previous night (I missed his email by about 30 minutes!). I rushed over to his hostel but he had already left to spend the day down at the Cliffs of Moher. I got back to the hostel and hung out with Monika. We saw a gap in the clouds and decided to go for a walk along the promenade. There’s a lighthouse halfway, but apparently you can’t access it. We tried… and failed. We bounced around the rocks and pretended to be rebels thinking some security guard would shout at us to scram. Monika came up with an awesome idea to have some hot chocolate so we went on an adventure to find a market to pick up some cocoa and sip a cup in the lounge of the hostel. The hilarious part is that by the time we made it back, the sun had come out and it was warming up. It was still tasty! We made another trip around the town mainland to swing by my dad’s hostel again to see if we could bump into him at the right time. Alas, he had not returned and I updated the note I left him to tell him to meet me at my hostel.

Me, Alice, Chris, Monika and 3 locals excited to throw a hang loose sign

Finally, contact! Monika and I walked back into our hostel and right into my dad. It was awesome. He made a friend out at the Cliffs of Moher, Chris. The four of us conversed in the kitchen for a bit and met up with Alice before heading out to dinner. It was interesting to see my dad engage with everyone. Monika is from Germany and Alice is from Switzerland. Both of them speak French and German, as does my dad. Talk about being left out of a conversation at times! It was all good fun and we continued after dinner at a local pub that had some good Irish trad. I was leaving in the morning and didn’t want to say good night to my pops. We made plans to meet up for breakfast so I could be his IT support. That’s exactly how I want to spend my time in Europe, fixing computer issues… Love you pops!

Pops, Monika, and me

Me, Chris, and Alice

2011 Europe - Galway