Walking around Galway

At this point, writing a blog post every other day about something I did, I’ll be done telling everyone about my three weeks in Ireland some time in May. Sorry/not sorry?

Galway was unexpectedly delightful. I didn’t really know much about Galway other than Hawk lived there for a couple of years and loved it, it seemed to be filled with coffee shops and pubs, and he said there was a lot of things I could see but they were little things and all within walking distance so he could show me everything in a day. So at the time I planned the trip, I didn’t know that Jenn would be coming over for that part, and I didn’t know Hawk was going to stay in Galway the whole time I was in Galway… so I scheduled a couple of day tours which will be in a different post. I’m also going to make Nimmos Pier it’s own post, and all of the street art and statues I saw will be it’s own post.

The first thing we did after checking in, was go to a pub. Sure, we were hungry, but pubs! Especially this pub, that had the pub entrance, and then you go through what looks like a door to the bathrooms, and you get to this GIANT courtyard that looks like another small shopping center but it’s all still the pub! There’s another inside room, albeit small, and multiple places to sit and chat in the courtyard area. After the pub, we went for pizza at arguably the best pizza place in all of Ireland (Hawk said they’ve won, multiple years, awards for best pizza in Europe… not bad for a place that started off as a food truck!

The next day (and maybe I shouldn’t mention this because this was all on Hawk’s broken foot, and if I bring that up, Jenn will fly back over there and punch him in the arm again) we walked about seven miles, going back and forth and around Galway. We went into more sweater and yarn stores than was good for me (thank goodness one of them would ship back to the States). We had coffee. We had amazing fries. We went to a church and a pier that will have their own posts later. Hawk showed me where his old apartment was. He walked me through a small shopping center, where there is a section of medieval walls and two towers. Oh! Did I mention one of the sweater shops discovered when archeologists were working on renovations for the 16th century building… that underneath that were the ruins of a 13th century castle, making that the oldest building in Galway? You can read a little more about that here. We looked at more randomly discovered ruins in the middle of the city. We went to a cheese shop that was almost overwhelming, and a candy store that was straight out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. We went to a book store, where I picked up a copy of The Hobbit written in Irish. Then Jenn made it to Galway and we went to get pizza and find a pub!

I never actually went INTO the Gourmet Tart Company, but there were like three of them in a twelve block radius and Hawk kept saying “Gourmet Tart” and I kept saying “What’d you call me?!” and we all laughed because we’re twelve. Let me tell you… Jenn and Hawk and I together? Entirely too much fun. I wouldn’t be surprised if the few days we were together, that all the fun was sucked out of the rest of the world, because we were having it all.

I love my friends.