Friday morning was my first morning in my new hostel, barnacles, right in the heart of the pubs on Quay Street. I gave the Galwegians a lecture on phonetics of how to pronounce the street name, and learned the next day that i was completely wrong, oops. Barnacles was a large hostel, and in the morning I went down to the picnic area style kitchen for some toast & tea. There i met 2 primary school teachers on holiday from the Nottingham (Ravienda (sp) & Julie), and a girl from switzerland (Sonja) who had just completed her culinary schooling and was sticking around Galway a bit to tour the Burren.
Everyone had been talking about what they were up to for the day, and since I didn't have any plans for the day except maybe calling up marie to see if she wanted to play chess later the two teachers asked me to be their tour guide since they weren't sure how to get to the salt hill promenade. So we walked up coastline that i used to jog every day last year, there I got photos of the sea life at low tide, the great beaches, and the "green dragon" which was the boat(pictured) that ireland had in the volvo around-the-world race.
It rained 3 times during our walk, which wasn't so bad except one downpour was remarkably heavy and we had to run in from inspecting a dead crab on the beach to hide in a coffee shop. While there we ate a lunch, which for me was my first full irish breakfast (yeah!). I made Ravienda try the black pudding, and she had a horrible face on but admited it was tasty, yet another convert.
From there we went to get a pint and were off to the free exhibition showing photography, painting, and commissioned work from Absolut Vodka at the Arts Festival. The photography was really intense since it was all based on child warfare, with some extremely graphic (decapitation or shot & dying) photos. I didn't photograph that, but don't suspect that I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.
That evening I ate dinner in the hostel, trying to conserve money for once and make some pasta. I gave Sonja a hard time earlier that day because as a recent culinary graduate she was eating pasta with no sauce for breakfast. As i was waiting for my food to cook i was working on the blog, when the people next to me asked in some really broken english if i wanted their extra food. I tried to explain that I was cooking but i'm not sure if she really understood, so I accepted. They turned out to be from Strasbourg France, and the Father who had just came back spoke decent english. His one daughter was able to say simple sentences and the only french. My food finished and we all shared the various dishes, me speaking in french, and the two of them that could in english because the father really wanted his daughter(s) to practice it and it was good practice for me as well. I had plans to meet sonja at the Crane, assuming they'd have some traditional music on tonight, so I invited the French family to come with me. There was an irish/swedish/american bluegrass mixed band that night, which played mostly covers of other country & bluegrass, which was not what I expected but it was still a good night.
Photos:
1 - the band at the Crane
2 - The french family: Marie, Roland, et Julie
3 - Sonja & I
Susan texted me that night and asked me to come to a Wedding the next day, all the way back towards Dublin and a bit north. Her mom had been guilt tripping her into going, and now it appears I was being sucked into the guilt trip too, but I was excited to go, this trip was unpredictable to this point, and why should it stop?
Good to see some pics. About to send file a missing persons report....
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