Trivia Champs

Well it's been a while since we've been to a trivia night. Then we heard about a night being organised all throughout Galway county as a charity fundraising Guinness World Record attempt.

34 pubs throughout the county took part, with the questions being read out over the local radio station. I don't know how many people they needed for the record, but i guess we'll find out one day if they made it or not.

Anyway... our table managed to sneak in and win the night for the pub we randomly chose to go to - and won a couple of bottles of wine. I took one as payment for the 1 (out of 60) questions that I answered (name the pop star who was in the crap movie Crossroads - go me...) and both ally and i had absolutely no idea about the Ireland-related questions, luckily our other teammates DID know quite a lot, and we carried them over the line.

So, hopefully they made the record and raised quite a lot of money (for Autism i think).

Cheerio.

Sandwich man

After a week or two of unemployment (and a few months of semi-retirement) I'm about to start a new job - in a sandwich bar... So, have ditched the dish-washing for making sandwiches and coffees instead.

It's a job...

The Aran Islands

On the weekend we finally went to see the Aran Islands, well the main one anyway.

The Arans are 3 islands just off the coast of Galway. They are the most western point in Europe - next stop New York! People have lived on these islands for thousands of years - which is amazing considering how isolated and harsh they are. However this isolation has made a trip to the islands something special. People say that it's like going back in time, and to an extant they are right.

The main island, Inishmore, is the largest of the three and is about 12km by 2km in size. It has a population of around 800 people, most of whom descend from generation after generation of islanders dating way back. Gaelic is still spoken as a first language by the locals, one of the few remaining pockets of Ireland that do so.


We had heard that the islands are very rocky, desolate and harsh - and boy were they right - rocks rocks rocks rocks. Practically the whole island has stone fences creating small paddocks, which in the 'old' days kept cows, sheep and pigs or were used for growing grains and vegies.
These days however it seems that tourism is the main source of income. The line of mini-vans waiting for us when we got off the ferry raised our eyebrows - however I guess it makes sense.


As the island isn't that big you can walk around, however it would still be quite a walk, so we decided to hire pushbikes instead (if you were going just for a daytrip I guess a minivan tour would be more practical). Somehow we managed to get lucky with the weather and we had a perfect day for riding bikes right across the island.
The Arans have a number of world-famous forts - huge ring-shaped stone walls used for defensive and possibly ceremonial purposes. Our bike ride took us to see a number of them as well as some old churches, whose walls are still standing after all these centuries.

The most famous fort is Dun Angus - situated on the edge of huge cliffs at the top of a hill. It would have given perfect views of any raiders coming up the hill, and along with the defensive walls and 'minefield' (fields of rocks placed vertically in the ground to slow down any horses and people charging the fort) would have been pretty effective - i guess. The views from inside the fort, looking out over the cliffs and out towards the USA somewhere in the distance was brilliant on such a sunny day (winter is really starting to set in here now in Galway, so we were quite lucky).


We saw a number of other forts on the island, and also rode (we're so unfit) up to the highest point on the island, and climbed an old lighthouse there to get awesome views of practically the whole island. Check out my panoramic view from the lighthouse in the picture above (although i think this website shrinks the photo quite a lot). It shows one of the ringforts, the main town and the distance in the mainland. You can also see the myriad fields with their stone fences, and the locals' houses dotted along the few roads.

Unfortunately the main tourist season has now finished and there is only one restaurant and bar open in town at night, so after a quite nice seafood meal and a few beers in the pub we had an early night.

The next day the weather had turned a bit and the morning gave us a few showers, however we had by now seen the more distant sights, so we could walk to the remaining highlights closer to town. These included what is perhaps the world's smallest church, perched high on yet another rocky peak, looking down at the Atlantic ocean on one side, and the tiny airport and second harbour on the other.


Not far from there we set out for another ringfort. There wasn't much in the way of signage and it pretty much involved just walking across field after field of rock (with the odd cow there eating what little grass was growing on top) until we eventually got to the Black Fort. Like Dun Angus this one uses the towering clifftops as a natural defense, and is set out on an outcrop, with a huge stone fort wall blocking it off from the rest of the island. This one is more low key than Dun Angus, but for us it was much more impressive - so isolated, no-one else around, brilliant cliff scenery - it really gave you a sense of how life in ancient island would have been (apart of course from us still having phone coverage, digital cameras, and a cooked meal on the way home!)

By the way - I had a beautiful lunch on the way home - a new-looking pub that had really bad service - however I had a Warm Scallop Salad with Balsamic Sauce. I'm not seafood expert, but this was a damn good dish, and even Ally was impressed with how it looked - i really shoulda taken a photo of it...

So we pretty much saw the sights of Inishmore (minus a few that we somehow missed on our bike trip) and got a good taste of life how it used to be. We'll try and get to the other 2 islands on a daytrip soon.

Next week - we're off to County Clare to check out the famed Cliffs of Moher and the Burren and whatever else we can find on the way.

Cheers.

A day in Kinvara

Well, more like 3 hours - but that was enough.

After a couple of days in London, we still had a free day on our hands, so we decided to go on a daytrip. After scouring the local bus routes, we decided on a little town that we knew nothing about - Kinvara.

It's about a half hour bus ride south of Galway, on the way to the Cliffs of Moher. No real reason for us going, but we'd read about a nice little castle sitting on the bay there.

So we got the bus down and got dropped off at the castle. Unfortunately it had closed for the year just the week before - great... Anyway we could still walk in and around the walls, just couldn't go inside (i don't know what would have been in there anyway, probably not much).
The town is basically a few streets arranged along one side of a small bay, facing the castle.
Apparently there's a 'hooker' festival in August (a hooker is a type of fishing boat, famous in the Galway area) which is worth coming for - otherwise, it's just a nice quiet little town.

So after a quick walk around the town (5 minutes does it) and a coffee in the most boring coffee/arts shop in the county, it was time to do what we'd really come for - a beer!


So we walked past a number of nice-looking pubs before coming to what we were after, a dodgy, crumbling dingy bar 'filled' with 3 locals. The next hour or two was spent listening to them rabbit on about their problems and strange thoughts - we had a great time! Funny dudes - a good craic.

Another quick walk around town and we were done. We enjoyed our few hours there - a great choice for an easy day trip.

Drinking in Galway

Well, we all know that the Irish love a drink - and how true it is.

When you want to meet up with someone - you just tell them to meet you at so-and-so pub in 5 minutes and that's how you socialise.

We are living right in the heart of tourist-ville in Galway city. From our windows you can see 3 pubs, and if we actually bother to walk out of our lane you can visit another dozen or more by just walking another 50 metres. It's crazy how many pubs are in such a little area - but even crazier how they've all always got people in them.

We are trying to have at least one pint in as many pubs as we can. At the moment we're in the low twenties I think. I'm taking a photo of each pub as we do them - so hopefully by the time we're done here we'll have a virtual map of galway - pub by pub...

The pubs are great. Generally they look small from the outside, and it isn't until you go in that you realise how big some of them are. Little nooks and crannies everywhere, stairs going up and down, little side-bars in the corners - and always full of people.

The best part about them? They are totally smoke-free! Not like at home, where pubs are partly smoke-free during meal hours - here, legally all workplaces are smoke free, so we are yet to see a ciggie in a pub all throughout ireland - it's great. Gotta feel sorry for the poor smokers, huddling close together outside in the wind and the rain and the cold - but oh well - quit!

We'll start posting photos of the pubs as we visit them, and maybe give a short description - why not.

Cheers.

Welcome

Hey all.

Well, hopefully I won't get lazy and will add stories as they happen. At the moment we're in Galway, Ireland, and not too much is happening. We're loving it here, but winter is approaching and it won't be long before we'll just have to spend more time in the many pubs to while the time away!

I'll probably post some stories of where we've been, what we've been doing, talking crap about stuff we've done since we left Oz and other inane stories to bore you even more.

So - enjoy!

Dean & Ally