Blogs from Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, Europe - page 4

4.18.08 Update since back in London… Dartmoor was incredible. Got back into London, and enjoying it better this time. A tale from the hostel...(rated R) First night back at the hostel a pretty young lady stepped in the room while I was about to go down and make dinner. We got to chatting and decided to go get some dinner at a Greek restaurant just down the street, it was raining. She’s Canadian and lives and works in Wales and was down in London to go on a cooking network TV show. We had a bottle or so of wine, and back at the room, things looked to get interesting when suddenly our other roommate returned - a young Scotsman named James, an actor with a lot of creative spark, pride and something indescribably unsettled in ... read more

August 2005 We were looking for somewhere easy and price competitive from EMA for a spontaneous trip at August Bank Holiday. The best option was direct to Shannon on board the penny fight champions without a particular plan of action thereafter. The most obvious destination was Limerick. However a quick read of certain travel guides, seems to focus on a place with unemployment, crime and general neglect at worst and a place where the visitor might still have to dig a little to appreciate it’s charm. We landed at Shannon and turned towards Ennis. Ennis held enough charm without digging for a Saturday night out. A typical Irish market town with a ruined friary, painted shop fronts and enough establishments selling the black stuff to make the night out entertaining. Ennis was our first experience of ... read more

For our last API excursion of the semester, our group headed to the Delphi Activity Centre in Connemara for an overnight stay and the opportunity to test our athletic skills. There were different options for outdoor activities - we could choose surfing or team games . . . I stuck with the ones that got me off the ground. Being addicted to anything rock climbing/high ropes related, I was super excited to get on the Jacob's Ladder and the high ropes course in the morning, and then hit a climbing wall and zip line in the afternoon. The Jacob's Ladder was the most challenging for me . . . it consists of about 5 horizontal wooden beams, hung parallel at increasingly greater distances as you work your way to the top; my friend Kevin and ... read more

Yesterday, I finally made it down to Salthill for the first time since I have been here(which has been exactly one month and a day). The weather was absolutly perfect, so Sudie and Jenny and I decided to walk on down to see the ocean. We sat up on the diving platform for about 30 minutes just taking pictures and watching. Unfortunately, Jenny's sunglasses fell into the water, taking a dive to the bottom of Galway Bay. She is optimistic however, hoping that when we all jump in, from atop the platform on the very last day we are all still in Galway, she will once again retrieve them. We then walked along the prom and into town, and then back to Dunaras. Then, we went out again later to Skeff's where we each tried ... read more

On Tuesday I took a bus that got me into Galway at 11:00 pm. The only places that take people in at that hour are Youth Hostels. The Sleepzone was hoping with the energy of a collage dorm on a Friday night. Not surprising since this was spring break in places like France and Spain. The poolroom was full of French teens. The Internet room was full of female American exchange students talking about hair coloring. The TV room was full of their male counterparts, sprawled out on the couches watching baseball from America. Each and every one of them had a laptop propped on their reclined lap: watching statistics, IM’ing friends back home and sneaking porn I suppose. It was like the new phallic symbol, demonstrating the American virility and computing power. There is nothing ... read more