Wow - we woke up to a most glorious day! It's warm and sunny and a perfect day for our turn in the front seat of the bus! This is what our tour guide, Mal, calls the "Jesus Seat" as we are witnessing first hand him handling this large coach while driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the coach!
We leave Galway and our first stop is in Spiddal, an area that speaks all Irish. All the students here learn Irish until they are 16, but most commonly English is spoken. In this area English is taught as a second language. We stopped at a shop where they sell handmade Aran sweaters. After a talk about the area we were given a coffee or Irish coffee and the Irish coffee was wonderful! Outside the store there was a pretty home with a thatched roof.
We stopped along the way for a photo op at a beach.
Our new friend Vivian.
At another stretch your legs/photo op stop we were met by some beautiful white horses.
Then on to Cong for our Quiet Man tour. This is where this famous movie was filmed and the town really exists on this claim to fame. We had several opportunities for folks to reenact scenes from the movie and Bill played the part of the Protestant preacher.
Then back to Galway for a cruise on the River Caribe. As we approached the dock area it was clear that this unusually warm and sunny day had given the Irish people a bad case of what we would call Spring Fever! There were people everywhere - swimming, playing ball, fishing, boating, and everywhere we went people waved at us up and down the river.
Further into the cruise we got a demo on making Irish coffee from the 2011 champ, and the ONLY woman to have ever won this competition. First, you warm the cup by putting hot water in it and a spoon into the hot water. Then dump the water out after the cup is warm and put 2 teaspoons of raw sugar into the cup. Add hot coffee and stir to dissolve the sugar. Then add 1 shot of Irish whiskey, Jameson's is the only version we can get in the states easily. Then top by pouring whipped fresh cream, no sugar in it, over the a spoon overturned. Looked relish! She then showed us how to do some Irish dancing and Bill, along with several others from our group, were asked to participate.
This was such a fun cruise!
After this we were dropped off in Galway to explore the town for a bit on our own as our hotel was a distance from the downtown area. Bill and I went into a pub, as we had not yet done this. The one we chose, Paddy's, was definitely a working man's bar. It reminded me of a college bar. We had one drink and went on to explore more of the town. We ended up meeting others from our group and at a bar that had Irish music being played. There were 3 types of accordions, a person who played the violin, a keyboard player, and a guy who sometimes played a drum - sometimes a spoon like stick thing - and sometimes struck the drum with the stick things. It was a great fun listening to that.
Bill closed out the night with a Galway Hooker :)
Tomorrow - heading back to Dublin.
