Galway and the Aran Islands
My next stop was in Galway, Ireland's 4th largest city. Galway is situated on Ireland's west coast, known for cooler weather, scenic countryside, and plenty of sheep.
After a midday bus ride out of Dublin, my friend Danielle and I went out for (surprisingly good) Neapolitan-style pizza in town. We accompanied our meals with coloring and Where's Waldo. This was a welcome respite from our previous night of loud bars and combinations of various cheap alcohols.
The next day, we went on a bus trip of various tourist destinations. This began with (not hyperbole) two straight hours of our bus driver talking about whatever was on his mind. He was terribly annoying, but it certainly made for a good round of jokes.
Our first stop was at a neolithic (I think?) tomb. This seems to have been before there was much going on architecturally. You'll see me there with the third member of the day's crew, Matt. Matt is from Australia and Danielle is from New Zealand, by the way. This aussie/kiwi combo made for plenty of trash talk.
We next stopped at the ruins of a church containing a special example of a cross combining pagan and catholic elements. Such crosses were used by the likes of St. Patrick in the conversion of the Irish to Christianity and are quite old. I took this opportunity to take more awkward selfies with Matt.
Next we stopped for a quick lunch at a local pub. Per usual, I took this opportunity to be a tourist and partake in a pint of Guinness.
Danielle and Matt were nice enough to join me in this. I also had a quite expensive and quite disappointing plate of fish and chips. Matt's bangers and mash looked considerably better, and was about half the price.
From there, we rejoined our headache inducing tour guide on the way to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs were the main event of the trip, and were quite stunning. We were lucky to have good enough weather that we could see cliffs off into the distance, which isn't a given.
This part of the trip was consisted of alternating misty rain and clouds, and Danielle narrowly avoiding panic attacks as we walked along the cliff edge. Matt (aka "Mattitude") took this opportunity to poke fun at her. We posed for a number of pictures and I ate a well deserved ice cream.
After the bus ride home, we finished out the evening with dinner and drinks. We made new friends from the USA, Germany, and Spain. Galway is a rowdy place despite its small size.
The next day I slept in to recover from a long night. While I was in need of the sleep, this made most tourist activities unavailable to me. I took the opportunity to go to a pub and read. I then went out for a dinner and pub crawl with some friends from my hostel. See me here with my bunk-mate, Nicholas 🇨🇭. Nicholas is doing a bike tour of Ireland, seeing many small towns and sights along the way.
The next day I ventured by ferry to the nearby Aran Islands. These islands are small and agrarian, and are best known for the traditional Irish populations. Some people on the island only speak Irish (aka Gaelic).
The island is best traveled by bike, and can be largely traversed in a day. This served as a great opportunity for adventuring through some more wild areas, something I hadn't done yet on the trip. This made for some nice pictures, but my feet were soaked.
That night I met some Irish guys staying for the night on the Island. We went out for beers and dinner, before heading to bed at a reasonable hour 😎.
After this, it's back to Galway for the night and time to plan the next couple stops. Cheers!
