Galway to Goodbye Ireland

I am SOO happy we fit Galway in, even if it was super fast less than 24 hour stay in the city!  But it ended up being a super cute water town and those are my favorite.  The worst part of course was dragging all of our luggage from the bus stop, trying to find out where our hostel is and the dragging it through the cobblestone streets after traveling all day and finally dropping everything off...wow so trying.  However without too much pain we arrived at Barnacles Quay (pronounced key) hostel and it was pretty decent all considering..it included towels and free internet in the kitchen/lobby area / had a kitchen/ lobby area and everything was decently clean.  It also was our first experience staying at a hostel sharing a room with 8 other people..quite interesting, but fortunately no one was there when we had to drop off our stuff and dig through our bags to get clothes for the day.

Also the front desk was really nice and gave us recommendations and gave us a cute little walking map of the city with major sites pointed out and little blurbs about each site so that gave us a starting ground for our whirl wind tour

what we covered:

• lots of walking like usual
• love the quay street, reminds me more of europe with just walking paths, cobble stones, pretty colored stores, flowers hanging, etc. 
• little pubs everywhere
• went into the official claddagh maker shop and learned about the history of it 

• walked across the river to the original claddagh neighborhoods
• saw lots of swans..gorgeous looking but when we later fed them they have a ferocious growl

• went through the Spanish arches that date back to the 1500's!
• took a bajillion pictures of the row of colored houses along the shore

• saw the irish  "canoe polo" open taking place, when we asked how cold the water was they splashed us
• went inside St. Nicholas Church/ cathedral - the oldest still in use parish in Ireland 
• walked through St. Nicholas market that happens every saturday and sunday 
• pretty cute saw a man that makes sweet htings out of wood, a lady selling baby hats very similar to the style kathy kelley makes (but not as cute, all theirs were rainbow and no bows or buttons or cute stylings)
• got AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS crepes (three cheese, fetta, homemade cooked spinach, homemade sun dried tomatoes & homemade pesto) from a little stand run for 19 years by an irish couple
• did a little souvenir shopping aka more postcards to send out and Ireland shot glass b.c it was our last day, 
• when it was getting colder and shops were closing quickly made our way to pennys (super cheap but fashionable store, think h&m and forever 21 type thing but european style and even cheaper) they were having a huge sale and we had seen sooo many people walking down the street with bags from there so we had to ask where they came from and why everyone had bags!
• walked out to the point of the city in the water when the sun was almost set (couldnt' really see the setting though b.c so foggy & what not)

• went to irish pub, met locals and went to the local pub...think frat party crowded, but it was after a football game so you can imagine irish football fans..fun to see and talk to people! 
• we met an old man who said he was a famous irish muscian back in his day but we were so confused by the accent and his story we arent quite sure how true it was...

• witnessed the "collegeness" of the town after the pubs close the clubs open and soo many girls in not too much clothes, representatives from the clubs stand on the streets giving you stamps trying to get you to go to your club
• erin and i needed to sleep by this point so we didnt join but unfortunately we could hear EVERYTHING! from our hostle, irish singing in the streets, some intense fight, trash trucks in the am, so very little sleep before waking up at 6am to make our journey to AMSTERDAM!

final ginger count!! 298 CRAZYY! galway was def the winner there were way more there than anywhere else