Galway and Beyond

Athenry, as we said, is outside of Galway, a city located on the west coast of Ireland. Chetan and Shradda, being the owners and operators or "Galway Yoga," have a studio in Galway which meant that we had several excuses to see the city.

We kept it simple our first trip; we helped carry some stuff up to the yoga studio, then got dropped off on the boardwalk for a walk along the water whilst they wined and dined with family. The walk itself happens to be something of a local tradition as, at the end of the sea walk is a stone wall that you are supposed to kick. Most locals seem to do this unconsciously and unceremoniously, touching the wall for the briefest of instants, then, without breaking stride, turning around and walking back from whence they came.

After dutifully kicking the wall, we too revolved ourselves and headed to the reccommended Murphy's Pub for a few pints and music. Normally, we would stick to Guinness, what with the whole being in Ireland thing, but Kate decided to mix it up and try a Smithwyck's, another Irish beer which likewise did not disappoint. We were initially disappointed, however, in the music as, rather then the traditional Irish folk we expected, it happened to be more of a Bob Dylan tribute band, which was still good in the end.

We came earlier the next time we went into town, starting the day off with Galway's wonderful Saturday farmer's market where Shraddha spoiled us even more, telling us to pick whatever looked especially delicious at a stand selling especially delicious looking things. So we obligingly stocked up on a variety of Mediterranean delicacies, like fresh mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, fresh hummus, and marinated bean dishes. Shraddha took off after our little shopping spree, leaving us to indulge ourselves with lunch at the market, which meant sampling various curries, enormous cookies, and the incomprable Hari Krishna samosas with tomato chutney (I've never had better).

After lunch, we headed to an amazing used bookstore, Charlie Byrne's, a labyrinthine little hodgepodge of rooms all filled, floor to ceiling with books. We ended up with only one, pulling Space by James Michner out of the bargin bin for a single euro, but the real joy was simply in combing the shelves -not to mention getting out of the rain. Speaking of which, we also ducked into a movie theater once to see Get Smart, which, I gotta say, was pretty disappointing.

On another outing, we went to a jazz club to see Saoirse's boyfriend, Angus, play his last show before leaving for grad school (to study jazz guitar) in the Netherlands. And even through we walked in with Chetan and Shraddha, and even though we were in Ireland, and even though it was about 9PM... we were still carded by the surly bouncer... who apparently didn't believe we were 18.

But Galway was not the only place Chetan and Shraddha took us; no, we also ventured out into the Irish countryside to see first the town of Westport, a cute little Irish town, and then onto Croagh Patrick, or Saint Patrick's Mountain. We left early - like 6AM - so we arrived around 8AM, but nothing was open in Westport for breakfast. Not even a little coffeeshop or the supermarket. This was really weird, especially as it was mid-week. So we met up with Shraddha's friend (and former student at the Teacher's Training Course), Porric (sp?), and we drove closer to the mountain, stopping at a hotel to eat breakfast at the only place open... which just so happened to be a ridiculously overpriced affair at a set price of 14 euros! But the tour group who was devouring it next to us didn't seem to mind...

Anyway, we made it out to the mountain and hiked up, occasionally glancing back to discover the lowering tide had revealed more and more islands in the bay below. As we climbed, we got a little of the history of the mountain, learning that it is supposedly the peak St. Patrick climbed and lived atop to meditate on all things spiritual. Also, every St. Patrick's Day, the faithful climb the mountain... barefoot. Which is ridiculous as most of the climb is over evil-looking rocks and loose pebbles.

Indeed, we had a pretty tough go of the climb; at first, it was pretty much straight uphill, then it started to level out... but also started to rain, then that turned to merely fog, which fogged up Kate's glasses so she couldn't see anything. We wussed out a bit and headed back after reaching the first summit while Shraddha and Porric continued on, but it was probably good in the end as Kate's knee really started to bother her on the way down and we had to go at a snail's pace. Still, once we were down, we got to explore the area a bit more and get some tea in the gift shop while we waited for our companions...

On our last night with them, Chetan and Shraddha took us to dinner at Bridgestone in Galway, Chetan's favorite organic vegetarian Italian restaurant. The food was amazing and the conversation was a riot as usual. During dinner Saoirse told us about a conversation she had with her roommate: after telling him that she didn't know whether she was invited out to dinner that night, he suggest that perhaps Chetan and Shraddha just wanted a night out together, to which she responded, "No, they're taking their other children," which really was pretty accurate - we truly felt like part of the family. After dinner, we all headed to the yoga centre and joined a few others in a healing chant, which was a very interesting experience, then we dropped Saoirse off at her mansion (literally - as real estate prices have fallen in Ireland, all these mansions have become unoccupied and unsalable so the owners rent them by the room to students). We said goodbye, went home and finished packing, and the next morning, Chetan and Shraddha put us on the train to Dublin.

We arrived in Dublin around noon and had a 6AM flight the next morning so we stored our bags at the bus station so we could grab them before catching a late night bus to the airport, where we would just nap for a few hours. Actually, finding out about this bus business was a bit ridiculous - we kept asking around at different places that you would think would know (like the bus station, the tourist information office, hotels, etc...) and kept getting different answers. The best we can come up with is that Dublin Bus, the city bus, is in cahoots with one of the airport service companies and so any city employees only know about that one... but there is another bus service that runs every half an hour all night called Air Coach, which was good news for us as it meant we could stay out as late as we wanted.

We spent the day wandering the city and taking advantage of the best weather we'd had since arriving in Ireland. We took good advantage of a couple parks and cathedral gardens (we skipped Cristchurch and St. Patrick's as they charged entrance fees and that's not cool).

We also happened to be in Dublin on a Saturday (which meant a farmer's market where I got this enormous and delicious brownie) and coincidentally, also during the Fringe Festival, a rather famous festival dedicated to theater... on the fringe. We decided a play would be an awesome way to help fill the time and chose Appointment in Limbo as it was well recommended by both the festival representitive as well as the hundreds of posters all proclaiming the play to be "Superb! Fantastic! One of the best produced plays of the year!" We were told it was a comedy about Irish politics but we figured we'd get enough of it to make it a safe bet. In fact, it turned out to be the worst play that either of us have ever seen. Yes, it would have been slightly better if we'd been better aquatinted with Irish history, but no one in the audience was laughing so it definely wasn't that we missed the humor. No, the play was just really, really bad.

When the play finally ended and we recovered from our shock, we made our way straight the Temple Bar, the nightlife district, for a bite to eat and a few much-needed beers. When we entered the central area, it was in full swing; the pubs and streets were packs, people stumbling around, getting into drunken fights and we saw at least one man get dragged shirtless to a cop car, surrounded by a crowd of 50 eager onlookers. It was 9PM. We grabbed something to eat and grabbed a corner of a bar somewhere...

At about 11 we decided to call it a night and go back at get our bags so we headed back to the bus station, arriving about 30 minutes later... to find the entire place closed. The lockers have '24 hour storage' posted all over them but apparently that means that you can store them there for a 24 hour period, not that you can access them 24 hours a day. The station was closed until 6:15 the next morning, or exactly when we are due to be on a plane. We circled the station looking for a night entrance to no avail but finally found some kind of night guard who, after a bit of pleading, let in us along with a few others who had the same problem. So, bags in hand, we finally made our way to the airport, found 2 of maybe 15 (albeit extremely uncomfortable) chairs, and settled in wait until our 6am flight to Berlin.