On to Galway

Woke up early enough to enjoy our full Irish breakfast at the B&B. Well, I did since it included many types of meat, as we all know Brian won't go near it. But he did have some eggs, toast and more Irish brown soda bread which he took a strong fancy too. Now the full Irish breakfast is basically the same as the English breakfast, which includes two eggs, bacon [which is more like Canadian bacon), sausage links (taste different too, but still good), fried mushrooms (yuck!), cooked tomatoes, beans and bread of some sort. The one thing I'm leaving out is the black or white pudding. I think the English eat this too, but it seemed more prevalent in the Irish breakfasts we had. If I haven't explained the pudding before, it's a mixture of meat (like ground sausage) some oat type stuff, seasoning and it's fried in little patties. The difference between white and black is that the black pudding contains blood! YUCK! I ate the white pudding and definitely liked it, but I was still pretty sketched out by the black pudding and just tasted like the smallest bit ever, and will never again!

So enough about breakfast. Brian and I walked into Tullamore and were on the hunt for more Irish brown bread to buy at a bakery and take to Galway with us. I was also having some allergy issues, so we were looking for eye drops to relieve itchiness. Ands and Ruairi were hanging with his fam, and we were all going to meet up in the afternoon. Brian and I just nosed around town and checked out the shops and delis and such and had fun just hanging around. We grabbed a simple lunch at one of the delis and ate in the little park. On our way back to the B&B we stopped at a local pub to have a quick pint before heading out.

We caught the midafternoon train and just in time as it started to downpour outside! Luckily we were safe in the train and Ruairi's younger sister Claire was with us to Galway as well. She actually attends university there, and has kept her apartment for the summer. So that is where we were all crashing for two nights.


We arrived with time to go walking around the city and see some sights before dinner. We visited the University of Galway campus and the shoreline where many B&Bs and vacation hotels are located. The west coast of Ireland still speaks Gaelic, almost more so than English, so all the signs and such were now in Gaelic, and not in both Gaelic and English like they are in the rest of the country.

We found a great seafood restaurant for dinner and then found a pub with some authentic Irish pub music playing. Galway is a very up and coming, happening city and has a really fun center where everyone goes out for the night for dinner, drinking and dancing. We're getting a bit old, so after the pub we headed to the flat to crash out. But Ruairi's sister Claire and her cute friends went out to the clubs!