Galway

We arrived in Galway yesterday afternoon after a surprisingly stressful train ride here. The scenery was gorgeous, but the train system had a confusing quirk or two. The most troublesome was that if you pay extra, you can reserve a seat on the train, but these reserved seats are not marked in any fashion, save for on the ticket given when you reserve a seat. There is a queue for the train before it arrives, presumably to get good seats, but there is always a chance that someone has already reserved your seat and will kick you out of it as the train is pulling out of the station. Laura and I were fortunate enough to have unreserved seats, but there were 5 or 6 people in our car who ended up sitting on the floor for the majority of the ride. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad during the week.

So, now we are in Galway with our group. We did not have internet for the first day, but thankfully Connie got us all internet today. The apartment is a little bit shabbier than depicted in the photos, but it is alright. My only real gripes are that in my room only one of the four lights works, and our apartment did not come with any sort of trash bin, though most of the apartments do. On the plus side, we have one and a half baths, which is pleasant, and the location is on the side of an absolutely gorgeous river. Here is a picture of my bed.

And these are some rather impressive ruins that are just on the opposite bank of the river from us. So far as I am aware, there is no path to them, I think they are just on someone's land. They are only a couple fences down from a herd of cows.

And to illustrate again just how beautiful this area is, here is another:

Tonight we went into town to watch the Euro finals. We found a nice hole in the wall type of pub populated nearly entirely by old irish men, and had our first Guinness in Ireland. It was splendid. And Spain came out victorious, which I certainly cannot complain about. There was quite a celebration on the streets. Apparently there is a Spanish tradition when your football team wins to go to the nearest fountain [should one be available] and jump around in it.

We also met a nice fellow by the name of Mel. He grew up in Dublin and has been teaching linguistics at the university in Galway for 7 years. He absolutely talked our ears off, but he was extremely friendly, and he was the first Irish person we have had a good chance to talk to. He was at the pub with three women from Spain who were also very friendly. A couple of them gave us phone numbers and email addresses, so hopefully we will have a chance to meet up with them again.

I am extremely grateful to have the internet again, but it is quite finicky here, and I will leave the rest for later.