The first (of many) explorations of Ireland

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Our ever-large group of Americans decided to go to Galway this weekend to explore the city and surrounding western coastline. I am especially glad to be getting out of the city for a few days, because although Dublin is a great city, sometimes you almost feel like it's an outlier to the rest of Ireland (as in not much green, lots of foreign tourists, and a severe lack of sheep). My friends Josh, Laura, Ally, and I left Friday morning on the train, a little earlier than the rest of the group, not really knowing what we were going to do once we got there other than check into our hostel and drop off our stuff. The trains are ridiculously nice, reasonably innexpensive, and the trip itself was gorgeous. Loads of open fields with the picturesque stone walls outlining the different shades of green that you see in all the postcards.

We had dinner at a fish and chips place that we had heard was amazing- and boy was it! The west coast of Ireland incorporates fish and other seafood into their diet much more than the Dublin area, so I had been holding out my first Irish fish and chips till I was able to get over there. Needless to say it was worth the wait and incredibly delicious. Galway itself is not too large of a city, so after dinner we wandered the fairly small city center, popping in and out of cafes and cool looking pubs to avoid the rain... oooh the rain. To be perfectly honest I was not expecting how MUCH rainier it is here than it was in Seattle. I knew they were similar climates, Ireland being slightly more mild- but I think there has only been two days since I've gotten here that it hasn't rained at all. Kind of depressing, but it's made up for by the gorgeous greens!

Galway itself is known as being the "Vegas of Ireland" because of it's nightlife and extremely young population, so i was expecting a lot of really young, intoxicated people everywhere. Instead I was struck more by the catholic-inspired everything (much more than Dublin for sure) and how there was a surprising amount of old people in our hostel!

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Photos

Train Ride
Ally and Laura

Odonough's Fish and Chips
deeelish

The Quay's Pub
An awesome live band that played all of my favorite classic rock

Statue in the center
Look guys! It's Oscar Wilde!

City Center
Earlier in the day when it's not nearly as busy

Glasswork outside of a cathedral
gorgeous!

JFK
The Irish like to talk about all of the people who have affected American history that are Irish... JFK especially :o)

Comments

[anonymous]

Did you like this hostel? Would you recommend staying here again?