Oh, The Places You'll Go...: Galway, Home of the Galwegians

So after our trip to Sligo we hopped on a bus heading south toward Galway. We got into the the city and immediately found a hostel with open rooms. We dropped off our stuff and then headed out to explore the town. Galway has a big central square that is officially dedicated to JFK, but the locals call it Eyre Square. From the square you can go in different directions toward different ends be it, the rail station, the university, the ocean, or the port. Going toward the ocean there is an elaborate pedestrian walkway, similar to Grafton Street here, but less expensive. We headed down the walkway and to the ocean, but first we crossed the river.

The Corrib River is the shortest river in all of Europe

After we crossed the bridge we arrived at the Spanish Arch, a historical monument, but not an exciting one. The we headed into the museum on the water. It was a gorgeous building and had many interesting exhibits. My favorite was one where over the course of one month a photographer took pictures of everyone in her neighborhood. Now they all live in row houses so she had each of the go out and stand in front. Then, she spliced the photos together and they are hung around the gallery in order. I truly enjoyed it. Next, we went and hung out with our swan friends before walking the ocean path.

Ocean with cliffs in the background

The ocean side path is quite long, but Sarah and I love walking and love saltwater so it was a natural combination. We saw a lighthouse in the distance at the end of a very long pier and decided to walk out to see it.

so we walked from where the green roof is (abouts)

to see this

but found this

Signs not meaning that much to us and all we continued to walk the pier until we reached a bigger gate with more signs. We caught a glimpse of a Garda heading our way and turned right around and headed back to the safe zone.

Tired from our walk and travels we decided to head back to the hostel. I took a much needed shower while Sarah took a nap. Then we decided to go for dinner and both of us were craving Indian food. On our walk back to a place we had seen we saw this cool looking pub with a 2 Euro student special (yes yes I graduated college but my Berkeley ID does not have an expiration date...there are a lot of student discounts...yes, this might make me a bad person). The pub was called the Hole in the Wall and I made a mental note of it and we went and ate dinner. Afterward we came back to the pub and enjoyed the atmosphere. Then, some students came up to us and starting chatting. There were 4 guys and 1 girl and the girl begged us to come out with them, so we did. They took us to a local music place called Taffe's, which when they say it sounds like Taft's and that had me all kinds of confused for a bit there. The musicians played Folsom Prison Blues, but aside from that it was all Irish music.

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Side note about Folsom Prison Blues though, Sarah's dad used to live across the lake from Johnny Cash and was friends with his kids. He had started a band and was playing at one of the Cash kid's birthdays and Johnny comes down and asks, 'Do you know Folsom Prison?" They did and Abrahm was Cash's band for that song. How cool is that?? Also Johnny Cash took him out to water ski. Can you say awesome?

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End of side note, back to the story. We then headed to a dance club and got our groove on until the early morning. Our train out of Galway was not until 3pm so we decided to rebel against our inner old person and dance the night away.

The next day we walked around the city a bit more and I snapped some pictures of street art I enjoyed