Day 21: Our Last Field Trip

I can't remember the names of all the places we went on day 21.  The first one was Coole Park, where we learned a bit about Lady Gregory so I will let the pictures do the talking.  The last one (before dinner) was The Burren. On an unrelated note, bus drivers in Ireland are impressive.  I'm not sure how they make some of those turns!  Our dinner was included that night. Fish and chips (big surprise, right?) and bailey's cheesecake for dessert.  It was a near miracle how the bus driver managed to park us there.
Perhaps sometime this trip it will not be windy when my friends try to take a picture of me so my hair won't look so crazy.

Day 20 A Little Class and A Little Sightseeing

Since our papers were due on day 20, we had a half day of class with the idea being that the second half of the day could be spent finishing our papers.  Thankfully, my paper was done as were many of my friends so we decided to spend the second half of the day seeing some of the things we still hadn't seen yet in Galway.  We finished class, met with our group for a little while (we had a group presentation due on Friday), then headed back to the dorms for a little while.  I did a little laundry as after class ended on Saturday, I still had another week of traveling to do so I needed clean clothes.  Once again the washing machine did not like me and it took like 10 minutes to get it to work.  I will very much miss Ireland, but I will NOT miss that washing machine.  Also ran an errand with Jen because Susan, another woman in our class, had a birthday the next day so we went to a bakery across the street so Jen could get her some treats.  I bought myself some treats while we were there.  Once the laundry was done, we headed in town for some sightseeing, eating, and drinking.  Our first stop was St. Nicholas Church--we took the scenic route, yeah, we got lost, but we eventually made it. Then we walked around a bit and decided to head to Salt Hill again since the sun was actually shining.  It was a bit of a walk--I got over 30,000 steps that day woohoo--but it was nice.  I couldn't believe how many more people were out since the weather was so nice.  There were even people on the beach and in the water.  I kicked the wall again--I earned it this time since I walked the length of it instead of like last time when we took a taxi part way in.  We had drink at a pub in Salt Hill then headed back to town via Taxi.  We stopped at Shaun and Charlene's B and B to see how the B and B
people lived then went into town for a late dinner. We finally found a place that was open.  It was called Biteclub and the interesting things about it were you could eat kind of outside, you were like part in part out if that makes sense and they had Prosseco on tap.  I had fish tacos--holy spicy!  I downed my water, yikes!  They were good once I figured out to pull off the red chili things.  And by I figured out, I clearly meant someone told me to do that.  Fries were decent and I had a Nutella brownie for dessert.  I haven't had a lot of Nutella, but it was quite good.  And of course I "had" to try the Prosecco on tap for the novelty of it.  :-)  (I also had my newest drink of choice, Orchard Thieves.)  After that we went to the Quays, which was fun.  I left a little early with Kerry and Christine, but I really could have stayed since we ended up talking until after 2am.  Then Jen, etc came to my window on their way back so let's just say I stayed up way TOO late chatting with friends that night.  Good thing we didn't have to be anywhere until 11 the next day.  I got about 6 hours of sleep, ugh!  The idea this week seems to be, it's our last week, we have to make the most of every moment.  Who needs sleep?  

  Inside St. Nicholas

  Someone playing Kayakball. I still need to google this sport.  This guy told us about it earlier in the trip because none of us had heard of it, but I keep meaning to look it up.

  Posing for pictures in Salt Hill

Proseco on tap.  

Day 19 A Long, but Enjoyable Day

Not gonna lie, the thought of getting up before 6:30am to go to some random island did not appeal to me.  Thankfully, the weather turned out to be lovely (I've started overusing that word since I've been here. In a minute I'm going to start saying cheers, brilliant, and firstly.  I love the accents over here!)  Anyway, got up EARLY after not enough sleep and headed to school to board a bus to some small town to board a boat to an island called Inishbofin.  It's a small island with gorgeous views.  The boat ride was a little bumpy, but we made it safely and then walked up to one of the three (I think) hotels on the island and had scones and coffee/tea or in my case scones and water.  Then it was off to explore the island for several hours.  I was so mad that my Fitbit battery died an hour into the walk.  Ugh!  Anyway, we walked a lot.  We got to the island around 11 I think and it was after 2:30 by the time we got back to the hotel for lunch.  Our guide had been our guide once before.  He was a grumpy, funny man.  Very knowledgeable.  We had a leisurely lunch--I tried the vegetarian lasagna because I'd been having too much fish and chips, though given that it was an island, I probably should have had some sort of fish--my dish was fine though.  Then I gave in and I tried the sticky toffee pudding for dessert.  Yum!  On the way back to the boat, we saw a car with Texas license plates.  Explain that one.  There are few things on the island:  a primary school, a couple of hotels, a hostel, a store, a community center, and not much else besides houses.  Yet, somehow someone manages to bring their car over from Texas.  I would love to hear that story.  A smoother boat ride back to the mainland, back on the bus, and then home to the dorms.  Read the paper one last time then submitted it.  Went out for drinks with some friends afterwards to celebrate the completion of our papers.  Yay!

Above is a memorial to two American students who drowned in this area.  Below is peat.