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galway

I’m back in Galway. I just booked a week in the Barnacles hostel dorm room.

I dropped my parents off at the Shannon Airport at around 11am this morning. We had a fantastic time traveling together for the week. They both seemed to love Ireland. How could you not? The country grows more beautiful each time I travel its precarious highways. They also both loved the Guinness. One of my favorite quotes from the week was from my mother.

As we were nearing the end of a day driving to a new town, we were all becoming a bit stressed. This is bound to happen when you start each day not entirely sure where you will spend the evening. Navigating can be difficult when traveling throughout Ireland as roadsigns are an often uncommon sight. The frustrations we were all feeling was summed up when my mom said, “I’m ready for a pint of Guinness and some Bacon Fries!” (Bacon Fries are delicious, bacon flavored, rice snacks found in many an Irish pub)

As we were preparing to say our goodbyes at the airport, I was having conflicting thoughts on my current situation traveling. A small part of me thought it would be a good feeling to again have some sort of normalcy in my life. A permanent address. A normal job. A closet to put my clothes in. The other part of me was thinking about how free I was (I’m in Galway as I quit my job with face2face, more on this to come). I had all of my possessions on my back. I had a strong urge to book a cheap, last minute ticket with RyanAir and head to some other part of Europe for a couple days. I decided it would be in my best interest (namely, financially) to come to Galway and look for work.

So, as of right now, I’m unemployed. I quit my job with face2face on Sunday afternoon. I was nearly certain this would happen sooner or later. Even with all of the advantages of the job, I decided it was time to move on. Thursday is November first – this marks the halfway point of my time in Ireland. I’m ready to have a job that doesn’t require 60 hours of my time each week. I have the rest of my life to put in those kind of hours at a job. Where will I be working? I’m not entirely sure as of right now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to give you more of an idea by the end of this week.

Speaking of work, I’ve decided we do to much of it in America. From my understanding, when most people begin full time work in the states, you get two weeks vacation. In Ireland, with most full time positions, you’re given at least five weeks off. There are also eight bank holidays in Ireland. When the banks take a holiday, so does the rest of the country. This essentially means that in addition to your five weeks of vacation, you also get eight long weekends. As a man we met at a pub in Westport Quay said, “Work to live, don’t live to work.”

Brian and I have arrived in Galway. The trip from Aughrim to Galway was the first time I’ve viewed the Irish countryside (it was dark on the trip in from Dublin). It was everything I expected it to be – green.rolling hills.mountains in the distance, hazy through the fog.sheep.stone-made fences – it was spectacular. Galway is a great relief from the busy city of Dublin. Every time I write this, or bring this up in a pub, I feel like a slow, backwards Iowan. It really isn’t that I don’t enjoy cities. I loved Washington, DC, but never felt rushed as I did in Dublin.

I’m staying at the Kinlay House Hostel in Galway City Centre. Barnacles beats Kinlay in 1) room size and 2) room/hallways/bathroom scent. Our room smells somewhat of a gym locker room. But, I’m sitting in a cozy lounge right now, enjoying a cup of tea, and listening to the Beatles being played over the stereo system. Kinlay wins in overall common-area atmosphere. I’m in the middle of job-searching and flat-searching. I missed our complementary breakfast (consists of toast AND cereal – Barnacles only offered toast, one point Kinlay) by five minutes. I’d like to write more, but I also want to update you all with some photos, which is no easy task. So, without further ado, here are the latest scenes from Matt’s year abroad …

The grounds of Trinity College.

Trinity College.

The view from the cappuccino bar that I posted from earlier last week. The red window/door above the blue awning to the right is the window from my Barnacles hostel room. The door was open without a screen for the three nights we were in Dublin, and there were no bugs in our room. Pretty amazing.

Dublin.

The Department of the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is the Irish Prime Minister.

The River Liffey in Dublin.

St. Patricks Cathedral

inside of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

A bar hymn … pretty funny.

Lunch at a pub outside of St. Pats. Sausages, beans, and chips. And of course, a Beamish Irish Stout. It was terrific!
A busy Dublin Street.

St. Stephens Green.

The hostel / bar in Aughrim.

An old cemetery outside of a church in Aughrim. We really found out how small the town was the next morning.

Brian on a small trail we found connecting part of the main part of Aughrim to a school.

View from the bus on the way in to Galway.

View from our hostel room in Galway. In the distance you can see Galway Bay.

The River Corrib which runs through Galway.

Galway Bay.
The sun setting over Galway.

And last, but certainly not least, is our meal from yesterday evening. We decided we would save some euros and went with the EUR1.20 jar of … stuff. Pickles, sauerkraut, peppers … it was … terrible. But it was cheap. What you can’t see in this picture is the accompanying can of Guinness!
We had pints last night with two guys from Australia who we roomed with two nights ago. Great Aussies (said with a Z apparently, not an S). Much of our conversation was spent inquiring about life in Australia … and their inquiring about life in the states. I was shocked to see how much of our American television and music is sent to Australia. One of the guys had a far better understanding of popular American tv shows than I did. They both were about a year out of college and up and decided to quit their jobs and spent four or five months traveling Europe. Why not now?

The job search shouldn’t be to difficult. Flat searching, on the other hand, may prove to be a painful procedure. Most places for rent are listed in a weekly publication, The Galway Advertiser. It comes out every Wednesday at 12pm. Flat searchers (many from one of Galway’s three or four colleges) line up early for a copy and leave the line already on their cell phones.

Brain and I will be with them tomorrow.