AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI OI OI!

Oh USA, you are really missing out by not celebrating Australia day.

So my friend Kurt announced the other night that he was planning on going to Galway this weekend and anyone who wanted to join him could. I quickly joined the trip and the next day we set out for Galway, which is on the west coast of Ireland. We all had to marvel at the fact that it only took a three hour bus ride to go cross country, pretty mindboggling. 

So we got there and walked down Shop Street, which is basically Galways version of Grafton Street here in Dublin. That brought us straight down to Long Walk (which rumor has it is where my great (great?) grandfather lived) and Galway Bay. It was on the cloudy side of things our first day, but it was still very beautiful. 

We decided to try and find a hostel after going out to the bay because it was starting to get dark out. Heres where we're failures.

So before we left we didn't make reservations at a hostel because "who the heck goes to Galway in the middle of January?" A lot of people do. A lot. As we found out. We went to a hostel and the lady flat out told us that there were no rooms in that hostel and there are no rooms in any other hostel in the city. whoops. We tried a few B&B's and economy hotels but still nothing. 

By the luck of the irish my roommate in Dublin's friend goes to NUI Galway this semester, and had visited our apartment last weekend. While my roommate wasn't on this trip we decided our only other option was to give her friend a call. This friend, Hannah, is now my hero and is welcome at our apartment any time because she graciously let six strangers crash on her floor. 

She also suggested that we head to the "Kings Head" pub, as they were celebrating Australia Day and it was guaranteed to be a good time.

Oh it was.

I met two Irish guys with family in Boston, they were excited to hear I had family there too and we talked about the Red Sox and Patriots and how the rest of my group who are all New York fans are failures. Everyone here is surprisingly up on American Football, many pubs are even staying open late next week to show the Superbowl.

The next morning we woke up to the most gorgeous weather we've had here. After grabbing some crepes we went straight for the bay. Blue sky, sun and sparkling water, it was absolutely fantastic. 

We had to catch the bus back by 5 so after shopping a bit on Shop Street we went back to the bus station. The sun was just beginning to set over Galway Bay as the bus pulled away, adding a nice exclamation point to a very nice mini vacation.

Galway Bay in late afternoon
Galway Bay

This kid was poking this swan with a stick. We watched for about 5- 10 minutes. We then realized that we were all hoping the swan would attack back and left feeling like horrible people

This building had the facade of a church, but when you looked behind it it was just houses. Touche
The Beach
Kurt has a new friend
Long Walk
Swans were EVERYWHERE!