Saint John's in Ireland?

Stepping off the bus at the front gates of Glenstal Abbey, I immediately felt the unmistakable welcoming feeling that always surfaces when returning to Saint John's. Glenstal is the only male, benedictine, monastic community in Ireland. We started our day on Sunday before the sun did in order to make the two hour drive to morning service. The chapel itself was a gorgeously vibrantly decorated chapel with the classic layout of the monastic community positioned in front. We shared the pews with the amassed population of the school boys from age eleven to eighteen.

After service we headed into the woods with Father Anthony for a lesson on mystagogy of the woods. Father Anthony was the resident expert of the woods and toured us through it with ease stopping at certain key places to describe the trees and tell short stories. Anyone who knows me probably can deduce that this was absolutely my favorite part. I shared a few stories with him of the Saint John's Arboretum and he was thrilled to have a tree enthusiast on the walk as well. After our tour we stopped in for a beautiful lunch of our choice of either chicken or salmon. I, of course, had the salmon and it was delectable. We then had a wonderful tour around the abbey including the walled garden, the glen itself, the terraced garden, and of course the castle that they call home. He explained how the castle was actually a big fake, built in the 12th century style it actually was built in the 1800's. He also explained how the order had moved to its present location in 1927 from Belgium. After our tour we stopped for coffee or tea and digestives (cookies) before touring the icon chapel and the library, both of which were very impressive and well-presented. Speaking with some of the monks we discovered that this group is very interested in being a worldly community and many of the members had visited Saint John's itself. One, in fact, had been there three weeks ago! All in all it was a phenomenal experience that made me miss SJU more than ever.

If you care to know a bit more, this video, although lengthy, is very good!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix4IxfyKloE

Fall Break

For this edition, we leave the Emerald Isle for a well needed (possibly less deserved) fall break. Before leaving, though, I got a visit from two excited travelers. My Parents! They decided to take a ten day tour of Ireland and the first stop aside from the airport was to hang out with me in Galway for Friday and Saturday. It was very exciting to don the tour-guide cap and show them around what has become a second home over the past few months. Sunday morning came, though, and it was time to bid them adieu. They dropped Jon Phenow and Me in Galway at the bus station and they headed on through the Connemara National Park for their own adventure.

After a two hour bus ride, Jon and I ended up in Dublin. It was my first time there so I was fairly excited to see the area. We didn't do an official tour in any respect, rather we took the day to walk around and simply take in the city how we saw fit. We saw the Guinness Brewery, which if you don't know/expect, it's HUGE. It spans about five blocks in length! We saw many landmarks such as Smithfield, Four Courts, Christchurch Cathedral, City Hall, Dublin Castle, Parliament Building, Trinity College, St. Anne's, and the National Concert Hall. En route to these majestic landmarks we took in quite a bit as well. We stopped by the Old Jameson Distillery, but we decided not to go since nearly all brewery's are now owned by Diageo. We did, however, tour the Temple Bar area. Quite fun and spunky area built around the Temple Bar (Go figure) which we stopped at an had a pint while enjoying live music and the bustling crowd. Soon thereafter we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe down the street for a plate of hot wings and a few drinks. Dad - I finally tried a Bahama Mama; wow is that a fruity, weak drink. The rest of the world - my dad got plastered off of Bahama Mama's on a cruise in the Caribbean. After realizing that Trinity College had become more so a fortress surrounded by high walls on all sides rather than a welcoming beautiful area, we meandered towards St. Stephen's Green. It was quite a beautiful park nestled into the big city. We then hopped over to the Iveagh Gardens which was a slightly smaller, more secluded park near the Nation Concert Hall. After that we headed to our hostel. If I could give you one piece of advice for visiting Dublin, its this: Do not stay at Camden Hall Hostel. When we got there we were greeted by a very friendly man and we got our hopes up that we had found a gem of a hostel. As we walked to our room we realized that this labyrinth was tricky to navigate. Finally we arrived in our room. We decided it was far too early to go to bed so we hopped across the street to The Bleeding Horse, a pub which claims to be the oldest pub in Dublin, to watch the soccer match. Knowing we would need to get up very early in the morning, we went to bed around 9pm. It felt like no sooner had I closed my eyes then three United States girls and one Frenchman (who it became quickly obvious was not with them and was just trying to schmooze) came in and chatted it up for a good half hour before the girls had finally sent him off. About an hour after everyone in the room had gone to bed, I was still stirring (most likely because the central supports for my bed's frame were missing to the middle was sagging nearly to the floor.) Anyway, the Frenchman came back in, which surprised me because I didn't think he was staying in our room. After about a minute of silence I rolled over to see him starting to walk off with all of my things in his arms. After a quick confrontation he set everything down on a bed on the way out the door. What a dick.


230am came far too soon and we rolled out of bed into the taxi headed to the Airport. We arrived in Venice and were immediately amazed by the city. Of course, being college guys, Jon and I found the first Italian pizza shop we could and we not disappointed. Again, we wandered the city aimlessly. This relaxed meandering became premium style for our trip. We saw the major landmarks in Venice such as Campo San Polo, Giacomo dell'Orio, Ponte di Realto, San Marco, and the Galleria d. Accademia. One word of wisdom for Venice, the water buses are extremely helpful but finding a ticket booth is nearly impossible. Buying a pass at the bus station is advised (although they never check for the passes.) We ate dinner at a very sketch restaurant near our hostel on the island of Guidecca. Our hostel was very nice and was equipped with personal lockers (my favorite part after the Dublin incident) and quality beds. On Tuesday we decided to start outside central Venice in the Parco delle Remembranze and stopped at the Viale Guiseppe Garibaldi, Viale del Garibaldi Pubblico, the Naval Museum, San Giavanni e Paolo, and San Maria del Frari. Of course, this was our last day in Venice so we felt it was necessary to sample the Italian wine and Italian pizza. We stopped at various places throughout the day to do this. By the end of the day we had had a combined three pizzas and each had had two bottles of wine. It was great.

Wednesday was a very interesting day... We were abruptly woken up before the day started at 11pm when an old man staying at our hospital started snoring. It was the worst snoring I have ever heard. I'm surprised the didn't hear it in Rome. Finally I gave up on sleep around 4 and took a shower and got dressed. We caught the water bus at 5am and got off at the bus station. We had purchased bus tickets to the airport and they told us to hop on the bus at platform D2 at 6am. We got there a little early, at about 5:55 and got on. Apparently the bus we got on was going to a completely different airport. Luckily we realized this after he pulled away but before he left the station. We ran back to platform D2 and hopped on the correct bus which led us to the correct airport and we got on the correct flight at 8am to Brussels. On our bus ride from Brussels Airport to Brussels Midi Train Station, we decided that Brussels was a dirty, broken, haggard city that we didn't feel like staying in like we had planned. We purchased the first ticket to Amsterdam we could and after some Subway we headed out.

Amsterdam was absolutely amazing. I immediately fell in love with the city. We stayed at a hostel called the Flying Pig Uptown which was slightly off the beaten trail but was amazing. It was on the border of Vondelpark, an amazing park with beautiful trails, fountains, and statues.Mom, don't read the next part. Immediately upon arriving at the Flying Pig we were greeted by a girl who was tripping on shrooms. It was hilarious. We migrated up to our room where we put our stuff in our provided lockers. So here's where things between Jon and I got really close but slightly awkward. When booking this hostel the cheapest price was for what was labeled as a "double dorm" and it was required to purchase in twos. We weren't sure exactly what this meant but worst case scenario as we figured it, we'd end up in a queen bed. That was exactly what it meant. The more awkward part was that in our eight person room Jon and I were the only guys and we were sharing a bed. It was quite ironic. After settling in we decided to hit the town and see what these Coffeeshops were all about. We ran into three students who had been studying in London and two of them were English Education people! It was pretty exciting and we got to talking for quite a while before we decided to grab some food and head to bed after a long day.

The next morning we grabbed some of the continental breakfast offered at the hostel and sat around listening to two extremely skilled guitarists free styling it while high. It was amazing. We headed into the city and decided to go on a boat tour of the canals which were gorgeous and very well done. After that we went on a Coffeeshop tour that was offered. It was framed to be extremely educational and worth while. It was far less educational than we expected. It consisted of an Aussie tour guide showing Jon, myself, and three British guys around and telling us where the best place to buy was and where certain celebrities got their weed. It was fun but very lackluster on the educational aspect. We found the Hard Rock cafe for dinner and drinks. It was quite enjoyable. Afterward we went back to our hostel and listened to the crazy guitarists again for a while.

Friday came and we headed out on a free walking tour of the city which I would highly recommend. We had the same Aussie tour guide but in the more formal setting he turned on the educational and professional charm. He made the three hour tour extremely enjoyable and extremely informational. I was seriously amazed with his group management. After managing classes in the Arboretum I had to give him a pat on the back when he managed our group of 70 people within the bustling city. For dinner we had coconut curry soup with two Canadian girls who shared the queen bunk below us. They were very fun and cooked good soup. Afterward they asked if we had been to the Red Light District and if we'd be willing to tour them around it. So we did. Overall it was a very relaxed and fun night that led to Chubaka sounds while we laid in bed. Janelle tried valiantly to make a proper wookie call but it only succeeded to make Jon and I bust out laughing and probably scare our neighbors thoroughly.

On Saturday we checked out of our Hostel and meandered around Vondelpark for a few hours then, after lunch, headed to the Rijks museum. After seeing the line heading three blocks away, we decided to skip it and just went to see the giant "I Amsterdam" sculpture. We stopped in Dam's square to do some people watching while a carnival was taking place outside the royal palace. I learned that if you want to gather ten thousand pigeons from around a city all you have to do is give a hobo a package of 100 hot dog bus and tell him to go feed the birds. I also learned a good way to keep track of a group, about 20 girls wearing various vibrant colored wigs is hard to lose track of. Final lesson of Dam's Square: if you want some drugs look for the sketchy guy wearing a shiny Bob Marley jacket and a giant gold, green, and red scarf. We also saw a group of break dancers randomly bust out a gig in the streets as wandered the city for a few more hours before catching a train, plane, bus, then taxi back to the Park Lodge Hotel.

So that is my fall break in one, not so small nutshell.

Climbing Leckavrea

With no excursions planned this weekend, the wall was whitewashed just begging for a new mural. In Connemara National Park, one of the most gorgeous areas in Ireland, there are many mountains. One of these mountains, the highest at 612m tall, was just screaming at us to climb it. So, of course, that's exactly what we did. I arranged with Lally's bus service to drop us off in Maam Cross, a small town near the base of the mountain, and then we headed for the summit. It was a tough landscape to traverse with variations between boggy marsh area to sheer rock faces. After rain falls streams emerge all over the mountain pouring from the top towards the lakes below. In the early stages the main goal was to not sink into the moist spots. As the hike progressed it turned into a bit more of a challenge when at some points we faced seventy five degree accents. I should mention, there was absolutely no path to speak of beyond the ones sheep had made when traversing the hillsides. It was a deceiving climb when we neared the top, each peak seemed to be the last until we got to it and realized that there was a higher point. Finally we saw it, a pile of rocks marked the top of the mountain. After adding our own rocks to the pile and stopping for a few pictures and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we headed back towards the bottom. This presented a far greater task in that descending down slippery, wet, soft grasses was not easy, nor was trying to slide down rock faces with few foot holds. After reaching the bottom the entire group that joined was very empowered and overjoyed with their accomplishment.

Excursion to Northern Ireland

On the way to Northern Ireland on Wednesday the 6th we stopped by W.B. Yeats' grave. Interesting tidbit: Yeats actually wrote what he wanted found on his headstone, "Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by." We also stopped by a megalithic court tomb which was recommended by our archeology professor shortly afterward. We arrived in Derry and ate dinner before having an excellent night out on the town, some of which I admittedly don't remember.
The next morning we headed off to the Grianan of Aileach, an ancient ring fort which has the view of a lifetime. Miles and miles are visible from this outpost. It also was a patronage location for many people since it had the holy well of St. Patrick as well. After that we toured through the Bloody Sunday Museum. It was extremely powerful with all kinds of pieces from the day contributed from the family. The facilitator of the tour was the brother of one of the men shot on Bloody Sunday too so his input was extremely powerful. After that Garvin toured us through the Bogside murals and then around the walls of the city. Garvin gave us the best tour ever, I offered to buy him a pint after we were done. He declined because he needed to drive but he told me as a season ticket holder of Derry Football since 1985 he was a member of the Derry Football Social Club and invited me and a few others to join him and his wife there that night. It was a great night, we played trivia and downed a few pints. The best question: "What do Americans call Knots and Crosses?" Answer - Tic Tac Toe, but we though he asked, "What do Americans call Nazi Crosses?" so our answer was Swastikas. Luckily, the host of a radio station was there so our laughable answer at least made it to the Irish radio!
On Friday we headed off from Derry on to the Bushmills Distillery to tour the Whiskey's birthplace and learn about the production. Of course, included in this was a free sample at the end. From there we took off for the Giant's Causeway which was extremely cool. This geological feature has been cause for astonishment for eons. Giant basalt columns shoot up from the earth forming along the Atlantic coast. The story behind it is  that the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. After that we headed for Belfast.
In the morning on Saturday we toured around Belfast stopping along the Falls and Shankill roads (Catholic and Protestant areas, respectively), at one of the "peace walls" (which was very powerful), the location the Titanic was built and launched, and at the Parliament Building. A few of us hopped off the bus and toured through the City Hall, the Church of St. Patrick, St. Anne's Church, Victoria Square, Queens University, and the Botanical Garden. Belfast was pretty cool but it was way too big-city feel for me.
After leaving Belfast on Sunday, we headed to Strokestown Park, home of the Famine Museum. We toured the house, which was home to tenants of land during the famine time, and then walked through the museum looking at original documents and accounts of the tragedies that occured. Then we headed to the estate's "Pleasure Garden." From there it was back to Galway and on to Spideal.

The Benedictines of Ireland

Hopping on the bus at 9 in the morning on Saturday the second, we made our way through the Connemara National Park. Connemara is a gorgeous area known for their bogs, grasslands, and scenic mountains. We passed through Moycullen (known for the Connemara Marble Factory) and on through Oughterard (home of the famous Aughnanare castle, a well preserved tower house from the 16th century) and finally through Maam Cross and on through the mountains.
We arrived at the Kylemore Abbey around lunch time and immediately were in awe. The abbey consisted of a gigantic fortress, a gothic church, and a victorian walled garden. The Kylemore Abbey has been home to the Benedictine community of nuns moved from their original home in Ypres, Belgium during the beginning of WW1 after originally establishing in 1665. Since 1920 they have cultivated and preserved the estate which was home to a school as well, sadly that shut down two years ago. It is a pretty heavily visited area for tourists in Ireland, in fact we ran into a group of elderly women from Wisconsin while there.

Long Excursion to the South West regions

Firstly, I must apologize for the lack of blogging recently. Last Wednesday, September 15th, we took off on a five day excursion. I’ll start from the beginning…

Wednesday we left the Park Lodge Hotel to head off to Thoor Ballylee. This was the not-so-humble abode of a Mr. William Butler Yeats, one of the best Irish authors of all time. This castle with attached cottage was built on a river which Yeats believed to be the same river his good friend Lady Gregory’s heritage was planted on. In Ireland, rivers pop up and disappear with very little apparent reason, sadly Yeats was incorrect. However, the bridge from the road over the river to his home was quite impressive so it was probably worth it anyway. An interesting side story on the bridge: it was half demolished by the I.R.A. but that was done with great respect. The men who were blowing up the bridge, after setting the charges approached the house and alerted Yeats wife and child who were in the castle at the time that they were going to blow up the bridge out of respect for W.B. Yeats. His wife’s response was, “Well can’t you go blow up a different bridge?” and they told her it had to be that one. Luckily they only blew up one side of it so the bridge remains intact.

After leaving Thoor Ballylee, we visited the aforementioned home of Lady Augusta Gregory, Coole Park. Before I go any further, I just have to say Coole is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly during times of suppression of Irish heritage the government tore down her house claiming it was structurally unsound (which was crap) but the land and the gardens were still intact. We stopped by the signature tree which was a giant tree signed by many of the greats who visited Lady Gregory. Some of the initials etched into the trunk were those of W.B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey, George W. Russell, Lady Augusta Gregory herself, John Mansfield, and George Bernard Shaw. We toured the woodland trails and then headed on with our journey.

A tour of the city of Cork was next on which we stopped by Fr. Finbaar’s Cathedral, the Holy Trinity Church, and the University of Ireland Cork. We spent the night out in Cork and enjoyed it despite the fact that it was flooded by underdressed fifteen and sixteen year olds who had just completed their junior certificates.

Thursday we left Cork to stop shortly after at the infamous and majestic Blarney castle. Yes, of course I kissed the Blarney stone. It was a very impressive estate that included the fortified castle, the house, and a poison garden! Who knows why we found marijuana in the poison garden, but I sure got a kick out of that.

From Blarney we headed on to stop quickly at the Michael Collins site. If you don’t know who he was, you should. So here it is in short, he was a leader in the Irish revolutionary war. He also invented guerilla warfare and utilized it so well that the English finally asked the Irish to meet and come to a compromise at a conference of the leaders of the two forces. He was ambushed near Cork and killed; now a memorial stands in the same place.

That night we headed to Kilkenny and stopped by the Ross Castle for an impressive tour. The view from what could be called the master bedroom was illustrated with mountains and a lake. The lake was prophesized to be the only possible way to infiltrate and capture the castle. In a way, this saved it. When the tenants saw ships coming into harbor they fled, fearing for their lives. This also helped preserve the castle so we could see it in all of its (restored) glory.

Killarney for the evening was filled with Irish music in very enjoyable pubs.
Friday we took off from the hostel and headed out towards the Muckross House to see how someone in the 1800’s may have lived among the landed gentry. This estate was much more than expansive; it was gorgeously maintained as well. I personally wasn’t all that thrilled about touring the house and hearing where and when each piece of furniture was from so if you ever decided to visit, I’d recommend not touring the inside. The house included a sunken garden, mountainous landscape, two lakes, a rock garden, and an abbey.

From the Muckross house we headed out to tour the Ring of Kerry. It was quite impressive touring around the peninsula. We stopped at the Barracks to tour the now-museum. This is another place that would not be recommended by many people on this trip. The rest of our tour of the Ring of Kerry was amazing.

Saturday, on our way to the Dingle Peninsula, we stopped at the Kerry County Heritage Museum which was extremely interesting. The basement was outfitted as a recreation of Tralee in 1450 allowing for a “Medieval Experience”. We headed out to the Dingle peninsula stopping in the town of Dingle and the Blasket Islands Historic Museum. The Blaskets housed one of the last Gaelic communities and also were the cause for the destruction of some of the Spanish Armada’s ships.

Sunday Morning we headed home but not without an exciting stop at the infamous Cliffs of Moher. This was possibly one of the most exciting parts of the trip thus far. We walked along the cliffs staying a few steps back from the intimidating edge. We did however take a risk and laid on the edge overlooking the 214 meter sheer drop to the ocean. From there we headed back to the Park Lodge.

Rock of Cashel & Hurling excursion

The time: 10:30am Saturday morning and we're off on a magical bus ride to Tipperary county. Upon first arrival at the Rock of Cashel it became immediately apparent why it has been marked as one of the need-to-see locales in Ireland. It's stunning silhouette had all of our jaws dropped. Parts of the castle date back to the 12th and 13th centuries. When we got there we watched a 12 minute video clip that, I think everyone would have agreed with me in saying, was worthless. After the video we had time to explore the castle an it's surrounding cemetery. The site itself, planted on top of a hill, was not ridiculously expansive but the history that took place in that location certainly was.

After leaving the rock of cashel, we headed into Tipperary to see the All-Ireland U-21 Hurling Match featuring Galway vs. Tipperary. It was an extremely exciting event with 21,110 people attending. There was dissension over the fact that it was being held in a non-neutral location and many of the Galway fans boycotted the match. That put us in the ranks of the hundreds of Galway supporters. Luckily, there were a few Galway loyalists who sat in the row behind us. I hopped up to sit next to them and got the blow by blow of everything that made hurling, and Galway, amazing. The fans were definitely slightly psychotic but that only made eveything more exciting. You may think I'm exaggerating so I'll prove it with a specific incident:
Setting: Tipperary player gets railed hard and is laying face down on the field. Play stops. Ref, trainers, and health officers rush towards the downed player.
Me: "Oh Man! That guy just got F*d up!"
Galway Fan: "Good. I hope so. I hope he's dead."
End Scene. True Story. All in all the game was a blowout and it was not in favor of Galway. Nonetheless it was extremely fun and filled with hard-hitting action.

The Aran Islands

Nine miles off of the coast of Spiddeal lies three small islands known as the Aran Islands. There is only one word that approaches an appropriate definition of them - Legendary. Three small isles make up the Aran Islands : Inis Mor, Inis Meain, and Inis Oirr. This is one of the only places in Ireland where the original Celtic language is still the primary language of the 800 inhabitants.
The ferry brought us to Inis Mor which is the largest of the three islands at 9 miles long and 2 miles wide. After stopping for a delicious fresh fish, we made our way out of Kilronan (the main city of Inis Mor) to Dun Arann Lighthouse and Signal Tower.

 This ancient fort is placed at the highest point in the islands and the view is spectacular overlooking Kilronan on one side, the Galway coast on another, and the Aran countryside on a third. Continuing on from the fort we headed to the oldest Celtic fort in all of Ireland Dun Aonghasa dating back to 2000B.C. The cliffs on the edge were spectacular and again the view was phenomenal.

After that we took off on our bikes once more to find the Aran Seal Colony but to our dismay the tide was much too high for the seals to be comfortably sunbathing. We biked through Kilronan to a pub on the outskirts and after a refreshing pint of Smithwicks we took off toward Teampall Bheanain (Church of Saint Benan.) The church is reputed to be the smallest in the world with dimensions of 3.7m x 1.8m. On approach it's silhouette marked the edge of the hillside. The road ended 2km from the church at the base of the steep rocky hill next to a goat pen - funny side story: the locals offered me a free goat because they had too many after I jovially played with their dog for about fifteen minutes.

We returned to Kilronan and visited the Aran Sweater Market and Museum to purchase one of the renowned hand knit beautiful sweaters.

Here it goes...

After spending more time in the airport than I would have liked, my real excursion began. Driving through the Irish countryside was every bit as beautiful and amazing as one might have guessed. After arriving at the Park Lodge Inn where I will be staying for the next four months I quickly picked out my room and unpacked. We are staying in cottages that used to be for the cleaning staff but now are fully functioning college apartments. It is wonderful; I have a kitchen (although small,) a living room, a dining room, and three bed rooms (two doubles one single,) an entry way, and a deck. It's a really nice set up, especially since I offered to be the cook in exchange for the single (which is nearly as large as the doubles.) After unpacking, my cottage-mates and I walked to the sea shore which is only about 5 minutes from us. It was a phenomenal sight to behold and we hoped around on the rocky shore for a good half hour. I also discovered an old oar that had washed ashore long ago and had been pinned between a few rocks and is well-weathered. Dinner was a fancy meal served by the hotel staff so that they, and our professors, could address a few items of business. When dinner was over the pub crawl began. We headed into Spiddal witch is about a twenty-thirty minute walk where we proceeded to stop, and drink, at all of the pubs. Spiddal is a small town and only has three but it was still tons of fun. There was live music at our third pub and plenty of very amazing Irish people to make the night well worth it.
This morning we took a bus into Galway, about a half hour East and took a bus tour of the entire city. After that we were let loose on the town. We took care of all our shopping needs and became acquainted with the town. I ate lunch at McDonoughs and had the local favorite, fish and chips. I made friends with an older couple eating there and they gave us pointers on Ireland, they were shining examples of the friendliness that the Irish are famous for. After doing a bit of grocery shopping it was back to the Park Lodge we went. JP (John Pierre) the brother of the owner of the hotel has his own pub in the basement and has decided to open it for us this evening. Best wishes to all! I uploaded  a few pictures to facebook too.

Where in the World is Bobby?

The small dot outside of Galway is marking Spiddal. Spiddal is the small town which I will be staying in until December.

School

National University of Ireland, Galway. This is where my professors teach although through our program they visit us in Spiddal to teach. Absolutely gorgeous.

Arrival

I arrived in Shannon Airport this morning at 6:40a.m. local time. We were immediately exposed to the exquisite Irish accent when an airport worker boarded our plane to welcome us. After passing through customs, tracking down my luggage, and exchanging my U.S. Dollars for Euros I stopped at an airport coffee shop and got into a lengthy discussion with the barista. Apparently her daughter studied at the University of Galway and she told me all about different places to look for in Galway. Sorry this is a brief and boring post but, well, I still haven't left the airport. There isn't much else to say.