It's Galway or the Highway

I'm sitting in Ireland blogging, chatting with our Lithuanian innkeeper and listening to American R&B from MTV. Loving this.

We got our rental car in Dublin and headed straight for Galway. Along the way we saw our fair share of sheep, cows ("Cows, dad, cows!") and emerald green. I also got a glimpse of my river, all sparkly and fantastic. Galway is PHENOMENAL. Lots of beautiful old stone churches, a cobblestone pedestrian shopping street several blocks long, a river walk, and even a bust of JFK. The houses are adorable - tiny little white and grey boxes with brightly colored doors and windows. We walked around for several hours taking it all in. In the rain. We entered a pub at about 6 p.m., obviously haggard. We went to the bar to order food, and they said they'd just closed down the kitchen. I asked if he had another recommendation for some pub grub. He took another look at us and said, "we'll open it back up." That's just it. No questions asked, wouldn't even hear of us trying to find another spot. We were extremely grateful, humbled and happy. We settled down to watch Galway take on Clare in hurling. After burgers, chips and our first pints of real Guinness, it was time for a little more sightseeing. We walked along to the Spanish Arch, which was, well, anti-climactic. But, dude, we're in Ireland. Whatever. We made our way through a few college campuses and back to the B&B. I feel justified in mentioning that my sense of direction never fails me in the city. We didn't get lost. Not once. We did, however, get caught walking down the wrong side of the sidewalk.

A special factoid about Galway for you: the Claddagh ring originated here. Claddagh is actually an area just outside of Galway, tucked between the river and the bay. Claddagh was, from what I read, the last autonomous kingdom in Ireland. Mothers have been passing the rings down to their daughters here for hundreds of years. However, the individual credited with the Claddagh ring is a man from the Joyce clan (one of the 14 tribes) in Galway. He was apparently kidnapped and sold into slavery, where he worked for a smith in Algiers. When he was freed, the smith offered him his daughter to stay. Joyce refused, and brought the Claddagh design back to Ireland.

We set off today for Clifden, a metropolis of 1100 people on the Atlantic coast. Other destinations included John D'Arcy's castle (no clue who he was, but his castle sure looks pretty in the picture) and Kylemore Abby (with all the appropriate jokes about my brother Kyle). The GPS and our collective brainpower still couldn't get us to the castle and the abby. Okay, so maybe my sense of direction needs a little more honing in the middle of nowhere. However, we had a splendid time in Clifden, even getting our picture taken in front of Malone's deli and meat shop and getting herded by an 8-week old border collie. We took the Sky Road out of Clifden and drove up to dolphin beach. Sorry, no dolphin sightings. But, the islands stretching out into the sea more than made up for it. We had a picnic lunch perched up at the lookout point, scoping out the lattice of ancient stone fences below us. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The trip from Dublin to Galway was not without it's special moments of terror, as my mom and I were sure my dad was about to clip the car next to him on more than one occasion. Let me qualify that statement by telling you how narrow the roads are here. There's about 2 inches (uh...5 centimetres?) of clearance on either side. If you're lucky. Ireland has the 3rd most accidents in Europe. And we're driving on the opposite side of the road. The fact that there were no actual accidents is quite impressive. Today as I was driving from Clifden back to Galway, there were a few times where I'd have a tour bus coming at me on one side, sheep in my lane on the other side and a dip in the road that had the real potential to send me flying in either direction. These are the moments when you close your eyes and hope for the best. The roadsigns are full of Irish witticism, and are perhaps a bit snarky - which I can't get enough of. For example, there's the sign at the edge of Galway Bay that has a car driving over a cliff (it's about a 3 foot drop). My favorite is when you're entering a rural town (read: 4 storefronts), instead of telling you a speed limit, there's a sign that says "SLOW" followed by one that says "SLOWER". Use your discretion, I guess. When entering a larger town, you come into the "TRAFFIC CALMING ZONE" as if calm were even possible for the Irish, or for anyone else when in Ireland.

The most endearing thing so far? Even though only 5% of the country speaks Gaelic, all road signs are in Gaelic. Most are also in English.