It’s a full day in Galway. It actually started with my roommate stumbling in at 3:30am and having an argument with a coat hanger. Remind me to pay the extra for a room to myself next time! The bus into town was leaving at 9:00, so we got to take it easy and enjoy breakfast. I took the bus in and enjoyed walking around town with Mark and his fiance (name escapes me), a nice engaged couple from Vancouver Island. It’s a touristy city, so there are plenty of brick walking streets lined with shops of all sorts. Two hours pass quickly, and we grab subs at Subway before meeting up with a partial group (15) for an unsponsored side journey. It was not associated with the tour at all, but the tour guide had highly suggested catching a bus and ferry to the Aran Islands. It was nice to be in a smaller group for awhile as well. We caught the bus at noon, took it for about an hour, and then caught the ferry for a 45 minute ride.
Once on the Island, nearly everyone rented a bicycle and we took off in a circle around the island. The first half was along the lower coast line. The whole time, we saw gorgeous coast and fields, full of stone walls, and sparse housing and animals.
On the other side of the island, we paid a small fee to walk up a nice path heading towards the Dun Angus (Dún Aonghasa) cliffs. The end of the path was a fort type area, although it was really just a big stone wall. There were no boundaries and no buildings, so it felt like a nice untouched environment. A few of the brave of us lain on our stomaches with our heads looking down over the cliffs, a drop-off hundreds of feet high – quite exhilarating. The whole experience reminded me a lot of Neist Point on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, for those few of you that have been there. We headed back through the center of the island, which included a fairly steep climb by bike, but was a lot quicker, allowing us to get a quick drink before jumping back on the ferry at 5:00. This was certainly the best experience of the trip.
By 7:00, we were back in Galway. We caught a bus back to the hotel. Dinner was at 8:00 in the hotel and took quite a while. I had salad, beef stew, and ice cream. After dinner finished at 9:30 or so, I joined in with Marc and fiance, my roommate Jimmy, and another couple, Matt and Sarah for some Texas hold-em. Matt and Sarah are from California. He’s a firefighter, and she’s an ER nurse. It was not the cutthroat game I’m used to back home. They kept getting mad at me for raising pre-flop, but in the end, I won. About 12:30, the game was done, and it was back to the room for sleep.
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