Back to the grind

At this point, I'm not sure that anyone is still reading this, but I'm trying to get into the habit of posting anyway. Maybe someday I'll write something really brilliant that the world will not be able to miss! In the meantime, this has just been kind of an exploratory project in blogging and such.

So we're home and back to the usual nonsense that makes up our days. Dan is back at work and I'm home studying for exams (mostly :)). Most importantly though, I'm spending quality time with my cats!

Cong

We drove to Cong today. Cong is north of Galway and is the town where they filmed a good bit of The Quiet Man. There isn't much there at all except for a bunch of tourist sites including Dan Danagher's pub, and this little place to sit quietly and reflect on the film!

We arrived there around 2 p.m. and realized that the memory card for the camera was still in the laptop in the hotel, so we hopped in the car and had to drive another 15 minutes north to Ballinrobe to buy a new one. By the time we got back, the Quiet Man Cottage Museum was closed so we could only wander around the town.

Cong Abbey is right in the center of town and considering it's mostly just remains of an old monastery, the grounds are truly beautiful. The abbey sits on the bank of a small river known for fishing. On the other side of the river, there is a nature trail that winds through the property.


We drove back into Galway and met up with Rachael and a few other conference-goers for drinks at Neachtains and then dinner at the Dáil Bar on Cross Street. Considering it was Saturday and Eyre Square gets a bit sketchy at night, we decided to head back towards the hotel. We ended up back in Garvey's again for a few drinks before calling it an early night. Only one day left :(

Good times, good friends

We headed into the conference for a bit this morning and then back to city center for some lunch. Rachael had never seen The Spanish Arch so we wandered down in that direction. The arch is a remnant from the 16th century and was likely part of the old city walls. The area along the Corrib River is absolutely beautiful and one of my favorite parts of the city. Once again, the weather surprised us and it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day.
We finally ate at Ard Bia along the river. We had eyed it up a few years ago and never actually went, and I regret waiting so long. It was absolutely delicious. It's a tiny cafe in this little stone building right on the river. It looks a bit medieval on the outside, but the inside is really cozy with tables tucked underneath stairwells with bunches of pillows and cushions. You almost feel like you're eating in somebody's kitchen. Rachael and I both had a chorizo, gubeen and onion jam sandwich (just thinking about it makes me drool) and Dan had seafood chowder. Really, really good. I had to buy some of their onion jam too - it was too good to leave behind.
After lunch we wandered around for some shopping. I was thrilled to raid a cheap dvd place (Zhivago's) and found a couple of films that I can't get back in the states.. After that we walked back towards the university and met up with Mary and Rachael for a drink and some food at the River Inn. We got lost on our way there by making the cardinal mistake of traveling in Ireland - NEVER assume that a road is running straight or parallel! We were right in assuming that the road we took would get us where we were going, but it took us a little bit longer than we thought.

We headed back to campus for the Sean-nós performance. Sean-nós is a traditional form of singing and dancing that is found mostly in the west of Ireland. It really is beautiful and very cool and forced me to practice my Irish a bit. The venue wasn't great for this kind of thing - it was in a big lecture hall (hence the need to zoom in with my camera), but it was truly a treat to see something like this. The video below is of the last performance of the evening.

We finished the evening at a friend's house for a bbq where we caught up with old friends and met some lovely new ones too. Good times.

Conference Day

So today, I actually went to the conference, and considering it's the reason I'm here, I think at least one visit was in order. I attended a good panel on film this morning and followed that up with a talk/interview with Bernadette McAliskey. The latter was a bit of a disappointment though, because she really only talked about her childhood and her parents rather than her work as a civil rights activist. The last work related bit of the day was my conference panel. The paper went well, but I think everyone was extraordinarily tired and ready to call it a day.
We met up with Rachael and some UConn alum for drinks and dinner at Riordan's. I had egg mayonnaise which is downright sinful - what's better than eggs topped with mayonnaise? Eggs topped with mayonnaise on brown bread. MMmmm. Dan and I added some Irish stew and Shepherd's Pie to the mix and stumbled home with full stomachs.
Unfortunately, Galway city is getting a bit sketchy at night. Quay and Shop Sts. were packed full of young kids looking for trouble. It was a little unnerving to walk through roving bands of thuggish, drunk brats with big glass bottles - all of which were ready to pick a fit if given the slightest of reasons. The Gardai were nowhere to be found, which made the uneasiness a bit worse. Let's just say we were happy to get back to the hotel and tuck Rachael safely into a cab.

Tomorrow we're back to vacation mode.

Connemara

We spent today on the N59 exploring Connemara. The weather turned out to be quite nice so the scenic aspects of the trip were even better since we could see for miles. Connemara is beautiful with mountains dwarfing the low-lying bogs and sheep dotting the hills (and roads).

The area is fairly touristy so there were tons of shops and restaurants tucked into the hills. We stopped at Joyce's Craftshop - the sign said it was the best in Ireland ;). It actually is quite a nice shop. They have a lot of gorgeous sweaters and yarn, but the warm sun was so strong that I had little interest in purchasing an enormous wool sweater. We did get to see the Giant of Connemara.


The giant stone statue sits across from Joyce's with a sign that reads "Late 20th c. antiquity - This stone monument was built in 1999 for no apparent reason." I love it!

We left Joyce's and continued along the N59 to Clifden. We had never been there before and I must say it's a hidden gem. The town is packed full of restaurants and shops and sits along the coastline so it offers great views and fantastic seafood. We had lunch at Mitchell's Seafood Restaurant and I think I'll be dreaming about the cod and leek pie for a few weeks. It was absolutely perfect, and Dan's smoked salmon on homemade brown bread was pretty damn good too. Clifden is also the site of the first Marconi Telegraph tower, but by the time we had eaten and shopped we opted out of visiting that area which was still a few miles further south. Instead, we made our way back to Galway, stopping at the Connemara Marble Visitor Center (aka - Gift shop for tourists).

Tonight we are going to conference to hear the controversial roundtable on immigration. This panel has caused quite a stir with some of the potential conference delegates - well really just one - it's quite a long story, but in any case some accusations of xenophobia and racism arose in a flurry of emails. So - here we are at the contested roundtable. I hope it's as good as I anticipated it to be!

The Burren

We got going a bit late today (I think it may have something to do with the amount of pints the night before:), but we decided to head out to The Burren area. The Burren is a protected landscape area a bit southwest of Galway that is known for its enormously rocky terrain and unique wildlife. It's absolutely stunning to see the mountain tops covered in huge rocks and the bits of flowers popping up amongst them.


We stopped at Dunguaire Castle outside of Kinvarra. They host a kitschy Medieval Banquet every night. It was tempting, but we opted to just take a few photos and move on. No need for role playing - that would be an awful expensive Renaissance Faire ticket!

The weather turned out really lovely today. The sun was unbelievably warm and really bright. But of course - it's Ireland and the weather changes in a heartbeat. As we worked our way up through the Burren, it became darker and darker and the roads became more ominous as well. There were several corkscrew turns - I could barely watch because there were tourbusses coming down the opposite side - and the speed limit was still between 80-100 km/hr!

By the time we reached the Cliffs of Moher, the sky had turned a nasty dark gray and the rain started coming. We were lucky though - the fog is often so bad that you can't even see the Cliffs, but at least today it was just dark. You could still see clear as day, but it was dark and dreary.


The cliffs are simply breathtaking. It was a bit scary in some parts though; there are signs for suicide prevention lines posted near the edges, just in case someone wants to jump off the side. That made the already intimidating cliffs a bit sketchier when you think about how many people have jumped to their death there.

We left the Cliffs and continued our ring back to Galway, but we stopped in Liscannor first to visit the stone factory. Cool stuff, but all of it was way to heavy to bring back to the States. The only thing I found that was light enough for travel was a cool, little jewelry box, but when I flipped it over I found a proudly stamped "Made in India" sticker! Oh well - so much for supporting the local economy!

We finally meandered back to Galway and met up with Rachael for dinner and drinks at the Quay again. I think we are venturing to Connemara tomorrow. Oh yeah, I might actually go to the conference for a bit too!

Web album and map

I will add photos to our web album every day when I update the blog. You can access those photos by following the link on the right hand side of this page. Just click on the photo under "Photos from Galway."

Also - I've added a map. If you click on the map, you can navigate around by zooming in and out, panning, etc. Also, there is a link under the map if you want to make it bigger.

We're off to explore so I'll have plenty to write about tonight.

Galway 2009

So we're back. We haven't been to Galway since 2006, but it feels like we never left. We arrived in Shannon around 8 a.m. on one of the smoothest flights I've ever been on. Dan slept the entire time, which was good since he had to drive first thing in the morning.

Our first order of business was to grab some rashers and coffee/tea. Nothing makes bacon taste better than salty bacon!

We were half delighted and half disappointed that we had a FIAT - it's even smaller than my Golf, but with less street cred! There was NO traffic and the new bypass took us around the towns so we were in Galway in 45 minutes. I actually would have preferred to drive through the towns though - you miss a lot with the new road.


Surprisingly, our room was ready when we arrrived in Galway at 11:30 a.m. We grabbed some lunch at Fagan's. It was good, but way overpriced. They have completely redone the interior there and it's a bit too swanky now. I preferred it when it was just a pub, and apparently so did everyone else considering it was completely empty. Dan suggested that Gordon Ramsey show them how to turn around their business with "simple, fresh foods" and non of that "pretentious shite" that they seem to be shelling out. :)

We ended up in the Quays for dinner - lamb stew and fish and chips - nice and hot and filling. We finished off the evening with some pints at Garvey's and then at the hotel bar. Probably a bad idea because Dan is not feeling too well this morning! I've already had to make the cracker and coke run and it's only the 2nd day.

It is absolutely freezing cold here - well not freezing, but very cold. It's only about 10 degrees celsius (around 50 something I think) - and very damp. Neither of us brought coats or umbrellas so I suppose our first order of business today will be to suit up appropriately.

This blog will surely be more interesting as we get out of the hotel - I hope! More to come soon.