Eurotrip '05: Galway & Gort

Sun, Aug 7, 2005 (Day 68)
My last full day in Europe - wow. What a bittersweet time. My plane just touched down at Stanstead Airport in London, coming from Shannon Airport in western Ireland. We had a stellar three days on the west coast!

Arrived into Galway on Thursday (Aug 4th) in the rain (seems vaguely familiar doesn't it? It's been raining since we left Spain. I think it's payback for the amazing weather we had). Checked into the Kinlay House youth hostel and stumbled around town in the precipitation for a few hours. Galway is actually a pretty small spot - especially considering where we've been. But because of that fact it is also very cool and unique - cobblestone roads and more pubs than I could count. Even in the pissing rain, it seemed you couldn't dampen the spirits of the locals who were out in the streets and drinking like it was George Street fest. We were going to fit in here :)

Back at the hostel we met our roomates for the next 2 days - Leigh & Clarie, a pair of Glascow natives.... fucking hilarious and crazy girls. Turns out they were completely loaded when they first met us (unknown to us), so at the time we thought they were extra nuts. We took it easy that night - still recovering from our escapades in Dublin mostly - but Leigh managed to do alright from what I could tell. Love that Jack and Coke!

The next day Northcott and I elected to take a bus tour of the region in order to see all that there was to see as easily as possible. We boarded our tour to the Burren - an absolutely amazing region of western Ireland. We visitied castles, the Ailewee caves (my first time in a cave - pretty freaky!), Blackhead, and of course the world famous Cliffs of Moher - which were worth the trip west in themselves - absolutely mindblowing! We took the majority of our photos there (for good reason).

Got back home to Galway around 7pm, baked up some chicken for supper (that was a treat), and started in on our St. Brendan's Beer (which was Dunne's Grocery Story Brand beer - think "no-name beer"). Met the 5th and final roomate - Devon - or "King Tubor" as he would later be affectionately dubbed (because he took his empty Tubor Beer box and wore it like a crown for most of the evening) . He was a middle-aged California surfer dude from Cork, Ireland. Go figure. I've said this before - The characters you meet in hostels are sometimes as much a sight to see as the places you visit. King Tubor was nuts man - what a crazy grin! He was a great laugh tho! He also brought along an American friend, Julia, and the 6 of us decided to get plastered together and hit the town for the evening.

Steve and I had great night pub hopping through the streets of Galway and dancing like fools with 4 new friends. The 6 of us ended closing down the last bar - "The living room" - goodtimes indeed. The next morning we attempted to book a 3rd night at Kinlay house (Saturday night), but they were all booked up. Upon reviewing the bus schedule to Shannon airport (where we had to catch our flight back to the UK on Sunday), we realized that our options were limited to the locations on the bus route - otherwise, we had no way of getting to the airport!

Hostel searching proved to be futile in Limmerick, Shannon & Ennis - everything was booked. Shite! However, there was a small beacon of hope for our endavours: GORT! (No, seriously, that's the name of the town. GORT). So, we booked the "Culture Club" hostel and were off to Gort on the 4pm bus after saying our goodbyes to the girls, breakfast with the King and Julia, and one last stroll through town & to the cathedral.

I should mention that while in our hostel in Dublin, some asshole in our room stole one of our Guinness pint glasses we bought from the factory for souveniers. Shitty hey? So while I was still in Ireland, I had to RE-steal a Guinness glass from the pub we had breakfast at to replace it. I say "re-steal" because I stole one last night while out drinking, but we forgot it in Julia's purse, and she lost it. Anyway, all was set right, cause now I've got the Guinness glass the King himself used at breakfast! If that isn't a souvenir, I don't know what is.

So, we headed on to Gort (which, I should add, we decided to turn into a multi-use word... like the Smurfs used to do with the word "smurf"). So we're on the bus, but we missed our gorting stop because the gorting bus driver didn't know his gort from a hole in the ground. We jumped off the gorting bus on the highway and walked back into town. Then we couldn't find the gorting hostel and we thought we were officially gorted. However, by the skin of our gort, we eventually found it. Thank Gort. However, we forgort to write down Krista Coates' number in London, so we had no way of contacting the girls to let them know when we were coming! (But that comes later in this gorting story).

We dropped the bags and wandered around the bustling metropolis of Gort, got some grub at a pub and took in the movie that was playing on the tv there. Mmmm.... tv. It was Dr. No or something... whatver Bond movie has the dude with the eyepatch. As it turns out, the very next day (Aug 8th) would be a very big day for the community - the annual "GORT SHOW". How classic is that? We cursed the fact that we had to miss it, but we had a plane to catch! I got a pic with the Gort Show sign all the same.

Up at 4:15am (or 1:45am newfoundland time - either way, ouch!) to catch our bus to Shannon Airport. It got slightly tense for a moment there, but we made it out without a hitch. That was this morning, and as we speak I'm sitting on a coach, blasting down the motorway towards London's Liverpool Street station. However, when we got off the flight, we had a little bit of difficulties, as we had no way of contacting the girls from Stanstead (or so we thought). We paid a pound-fifty for 10 minutes of internet time and fired off an email instructing the girls to have a look for us around 11am. Then, with only momements remaining, we got the bright idea to actually READ our email. Turns out Ginny had emailed out the phone number. Didn't we feel stupid. We called and woke up a hungover Krista and Ginny to give them or ETA.

So... this is my last full day in Europe. WHAT THE FACK!??? Time goes entirely too fast man... I'm not ready to go! But, all good things must come to an end. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I enjoyed the time I had over here to the fullest!
See you on the plane!