Day 4 of Ireland! Leaving Dublin was quite an interesting task... we walked 20 minutes to the train station, not knowing anything about train times, using our Eurail pass, or anything of the sort. We got there bright and early at 7:40AM, and the train to Galway was at 9:30AM... our Eurail passes were accepted, so we sat around eating really delicious ham and cheese jambon.
Irish trains are a lot nicer than the trains in Chicago... they run much smoother, they're newer looking and cleaner. You can also reserve seats, and your name will appear above your seat, which is nice. It took about 2 and a half hours to get to Galway from the Dub, which drained my iPod a significant amount...

It was raining when we arrived (big surprise there, huh?) so we immediately crossed the street and headed into a pub to get out of the rain (Irish tradition, from what we understand). Once the rain let up a bit, we headed out in attempt to find our hostel (Barnacles)... which was interesting considering there are no street signs to show which street you're on. Galway is absolutely adorable, little shops everywhere and cobblestone walkways, it's gorgeous!

Once we found our hostel, we had a little over an hour before checkin so we stored our luggage and went for food, which was, again, delicious. However, there's mayo on EVERYTHING here.. we've decided we need to have a mayo-free day (today). Once we were able to check in, we decided to shower and nap before going on another (you guessed it) hostel pub crawl!

This pub crawl was a lot of fun, and even better than the Dublin crawl. Our guides made us all sit together and introduce ourselves, and they played a Guinness drinking game before heading to pub number 2. We met more Americans last night than in Dublin, which was nice... a lot of people from Florida.. and more Aussies and Canadians, and a couple Brazilians. The second pub gave us free shots of Irish Moonshine (the legal one) which surely could knock you on your ass. We also learned a few phrases in Gaelic, and a traditional Irish dance (that didn't work out so well).

The crawl continued to pubs with live music, a mechanical bull, and really great shots (every pub gave us a free shot) and everyone in the group stuck together, and it was fantastic. We got in probably around 4AM, and slept for a few, before we had to check out this morning (2 separate reservations... bad idea). Today we've been exploring some more, ate another delicious breakfast and went to the Spanish Arch, Blake's Castle, and just walked around the city... through the market square where people were selling handmade goods and homegrown vegetables as well as freshly baked goods (definitely going there for breakfast tomorrow).

That's about it for now, we're going on a Cliffs of Moher and Burren all day tour tomorrow morning with one of our new Aussie friends, Daniel, whom we met in Dublin and happen to be staying in the same hostel as him in Galway. Should be good! It's supposed to rain, again, as always, but beautiful nonetheless!

As they say here... Cheers, love!

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