Galway with Friends and Family! (1)

River Corrib

I spent nearly a week in Galway and loved every minute of it. Dian and I arrived Friday night after a day driving up the coast from Killarney. To show my gratitude for the ride and a place to stay, I threw together a nice home cooked meal for us to enjoy. We spent the evening relaxing and continuing the conversation of sharing our lives. We spent much of the weekend hanging out around the house doing a lot of this. If I’m half as independent and financially secure as she is, I will be one happy camper. On Saturday, I did go into Galway city to walk around and explore the town. It turned out to be an eventful afternoon. After walking a bit and figuring out where stuff was, I plopped down on the steps of Kennedy Park (Eyre Square for you locals) and had a drink of water. Within about 5 minutes, I was talking to a few Irish guys that were drinking in the afternoon sun. They offered me a beer and we hung out for a good bit of the afternoon. I probably wouldn’t hang out with these guys on any other given day, but it turned into some good fun. They heckled the knackers walking by, whistled at girls without shame, and even managed to get me to shout at a group protesting the clubbing of seals by Canadians. It was all in good fun though. Eventually, someone must have become fed up with the now 8 person group because the Po stopped in and broke up the crowd. I must admit, they were rather civil about it. They merely asked us to disperse and toss the open beers (Yes, I am specifying open intentionally). I got a good laugh out of all of this before heading off back to the town center.

Eyre Square / Kennedy Park

Shortly after leaving the park, I stumbled across St. Nicholas Market. This is an open-air market at the end of town. Not 30 seconds inside and Kerry says hello while I’m looking at Celtic jewelry. We exchanged greetings and she invited me for an oyster from another vendor. The last oyster I had was in London with my brother and it may or may not have caused a serious bout of food poisoning. Still, I love oysters and couldn’t pass it up. After swallowing a couple, we went for a pint at one of the pubs in town. There are plenty along Quay Street and we definitely had trouble making up our minds. We ended up settling for a nook in the patio of a particular fun looking pub. It turns out she is a working actress from Boston that is making a career in Beijing while taking singing lessons in Galway. Go figure… We said goodbye and I started my trek back to the house. I was unaware how far this actually was from the town. I was expecting a 5k walk or something. I’m pretty sure it took me every bit of 2 hours. I rather enjoyed it though as the path follows the coast. The weather was wonderful so it made it even better. People were out running about, walking their dogs, and having a merry ole time.

Galway Bay