Galway Girl

Friday, 2.28.2014:

I got up early in order to get my last minute stuff for the trip to Galway. Once everything was ready to go, Catie and I hopped on a bus to make it to UCD in order to meet the bus to head to Galway. When we got to the stop we met up with everyone else and boarded the bus. We took the bus to this super authentic Irish place: McDonalds. This is where we are our lunch and then got back in the bus to travel the rest of the way to Galway. At McDonalds, I met this girl named Ellie, who was very lovely. Her friends from school were not on the trip so she hung around us for the majority of the trip. The ride before lunch consisted of a lot of sleeping and listening to iPods while the half after lunch consisted of weird games. For one game, everyone was given a potato and people had the choice of selling potatoes, buying potatoes, stealing potatoes, or bargaining. The person with the most potatoes at the end of the day was given a free bike rental when we went to the Aran Islands. Although this was pretty bizarre everyone guarded their potatoes like it was their own child. Another game was coming up a bunch of dares and then making people on the bus do them. After one or two incredible awkward/dumb dares we arrived in Galway. At Galway we checked into the hostel then were given some free time to roam around Galway. I, being unlucky, was the only girl in our group that wasn't in the same hostel room so I was stuck with a bunch of randos. After making a little small talk, I went up to the room with everyone I knew and we headed out to explore Galway. I would say that Galway was a cute town but I could never live there for a whole semester. We had a chance to see the Galway Cathedral, the _____ Church, the river, the Spanish Arch, and then walked around the streets. Here are some pictures:

After walking for a bit a couple of us decided to get some food at this Chipotle-like restaurant. It was good, but it was no Chipotle. After dinner, we walked around some more before heading back to the hostel to get ready for the Pub Crawl that ESN (the group we were with) had planned. At the hostel everyone had "pre-drinks" (aka pregaming) before we headed out to the first pub. The first pub had a good deal of pints for two euro, unfortunately this excluded pints of cider....and what did I get? Cider -_-. At the first pub we all just sat around and chatted as we sipped away at our beers and ciders. On to the next pub. At this one there apparently was some beer pong table set up but none of us could find them. Instead a couple of us enjoyed the excellent deal of two cocktails for 7 euro. No one that lives in Dublin with Dublin prices can pass up a deal like that. As I drank my White Russians everyone chatted about random things here and there. On to the next pub. On the way to the pub this random guy named Tom joined the pub crawl. Tom was an odd man, he kept trying to convince people that were dating. For example, he kept trying to tell Joel and I we were dating. Boy is he wayyyyy off. At the next pub everyone split up. I hung out with Erica while we tried to find a spot at the bar to order another drink. After we grabbed a pint we made it up the stairs and hung out with Ellie. Sarah, my roommate surprised everyone by showing up at the pub we were at. It was good to see her. On to the next and final pub. This pub had a really cool concept of raising and lowering prices of drinks like the stock market. One minute the price might be really high and the next it might be really low. You had to buy drinks at the right time. Although this concept was incredibly fascinating, the set up was poorly done. The "ticker" was simply a tv monitor that flashed up prices every minute. It would have been way cooler if there was a ticker at the top of the walls, wrapping around the whole room. Oh well. After this pub a bunch of us decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel. As I laid in bed I thought about my excitement to see the Aran Islands the next day.

Cheers,
Jenny