Vacation Day Seven-In the City

I decided to sleep late and recover a little bit today, which I desperately needed after staying up too late yet again, writing last night’s post while watching new South Park episodes. This is how I spend my vacation. Fantastic.

So, I decided to throw my pity party right here in Galway, rather than hitting the road again. I’d originally planned to go see The Burren, which as described yesterday is a freakishly rocky area with very little vegetation, about an hour south of Galway. Imagine for as rar as you can see, the ground looks like the gravel under railroad tracks. I blew it off. If I want to see a barren wasteland, I can just go to Pasadena. Or Odessa.

I puttered around, then left my room around 10. It was sunny when I walked out of the room, but it started raining by the time I made it three floors down to the ground and got outside. It happens just that fast around here. Its like Mr. Freeze or some Super Villain created a weather machine and pointed it straight at Ireland. It would stop raining and then start at least twice more during my 45 minute run. And we Texans think our weather changes quickly. Huh!

Running gave me a good view of the city’s layout. Lots of kids and college students were already pouring into the city centre, along with tourists and some locals in town for Saturday. It almost resembled a week day. I saw a few other guys out running, and some more people cycling. Mostly I ran along the river (Corrib) walkway, as well as along the “Canal Walk,” which parallels the river (and apparently as a diversion of river water when, as today, the river is flowing extremely rapidly). I ran down the High Street/Shop Street/Quay Street area, where most of the city centre’s pubs, shops and restaurants are located. Its blocked to vehicle traffic, so people tend to congregate there. The pubs were already filling at 10 a.m. I’d be tempted to congratulate the Irish for living up to the boozed up stereotype, but there’s so many tourists and students around here its hard to say exactly who’s hanging out in pubs. It appears like everyone, natives and outsiders alike, are filling up the pubs. And shops, and walkways.

After getting cleaned up and having breakfast, I headed back out and walked past Eyre Square, right in the City Centre, where a Triumph Motors club was having a rally, or show or something. They lined up maybe 20 mint condition Triumphs (TR-6s, TR-7s, one TR-8, and a few Spitfires), as well as a 50s Jaguar. I don’t go for all the “guy” pursuits, like hunting and fishing, but I sure get excited to see classic sports cars like these. Triumphs always performed miserably, when they were working at all, but they sure looked sweet. [Insert misogynist joke here]. These owners maintained their cars meticulously. People were walking around oohing and aahing. Including me. I probably photographed all of those cars.

The city has preserved some of its original city wall, from when the Normans first founded the city. One, interestingly, is now within a shopping mall. The mall developers simply built around it and incorporated the wall into their design. Its great that developers will put the new alongside the old, and echoes what I perceive as a European philosophy of the past influencing and informing the new in all walks of life. Particularly architecture. I’ve noticed throughout my extensive drives that a lot of the new Irish homes (and I’ve seen many, obviously relics from the recent boom) incorporate designs and aesthetics from ancient Irish structures, such as the extensive use of stone, color types, and layout. In Houston, they’d have just knocked the wall down. And cleared out any pesky trees getting in the way too, just to show nature who’s boss. Then put in a lot of parking spaces. With a Wendy’s and a Pappasito's at the opposite ends of the parking lot (so you can get fuel up before you begin your long hike into the mall...where you'll get some pizza and ice cream later on). Don’t get me wrong, I totally think the USA has Europe beat in nearly every way, but the euros’ preservation and celebration of history shames us.

By the way, there’s some sort of big rugby tournament this weekend (turns out it was the Rugby World Cup), as I mentioned, and Ireland was playing Australia. That may account for the pubs being full, though I’m not sure the game was on yet. Maybe this is how they tailgate. In case you care, I approve of rugby. Unlike the other euro sport which shall go nameless, you have to be tough to play rugby. No flopping, no injury faking, no orange slices and candy after the games, and no douchebags. Those guys actually are a bit crazy. Anyone who goes out there and willingly gets their head beaten in repeatedly is gonna have that back up on them.

On another completely unrelated point everyone needs to know, I need to tell you that after having toured the country these last few days…I've discovered that the Irish Dental Service isn’t making the grade. Lets' just say its Appalachia time over here, tooth wise. Austin Powers thinks these people have teeth problems. That’s more true with men than women, though there’s plenty of older women with tooth problems. Maybe it’s the result of a lifestyle replete with smoking, drinking Guinness, tea and whisky, taking sugar in their tea and lots of foods, and being dependent on a national dental service (oops, sorry, national health care will save us all, just like its done for the Irish).

Highlights of my travels around the town include the Spanish Arch (literally an arch built along the river in the 16th century), the Canal Walk (where I happened upon a white water rafting class learning how to deal with being capsized, in very cold canal water), National University of Ireland, Galway (which has a really great old main quadrangle building, though not nearly as great as the quad at Rice), the St. Nicholas Church (dating back to the 1300s), the open air market right next to the church. Finally, I saw, and marveled at, Galway Cathedral. It dominates the skyline, but is Italian rather than gothic. Though it was built in the 20th century, it easily stands alongside the town’s other more ancient structures (another example of the aesthetic I mentioned earlier).

After all that walking around I was pretty tired, and stopped in Lynch’s Café for some good vegetable soup and a wheat scone, with some Irish breakfast tea. Just getting a chance to sit down and warm up was really worth it. The area was still packed at 5:30 though.

I had dinner at a pub across the street which I think was called au Poucan. Two guys playing guitar and one guy on banjo were playing irish songs. It struck me that this music has a lot, and I mean A LOT, in common with early country music (which I refer to as “country music”). Jimmie Rogers, Bill Monroe, the Carter Family, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Tex Ritter…those guys. Some other time I’ll write down my rant about how modern country music is really just rock and roll music with a steel guitar thrown in for good measure, and sung by a guy who has a country twang and can wear Wranglers properly. Nonetheless, I hear a lot of similarities between Irish music, and authentic country music. All kinds of people are here: students, soccer hooligans, grandma and grandpa, couples on dates, families that if they were Americans would be at the Olive Garden, and weirdoes traveling by themselves. There’s other kinds of pubs, though, with groups of drunk guys spilling out, smoking cigarettes, wearing their teams colors, yelling at each other and passersby. In Texas, of course, that’s known as a “sports bar.”

The rest of the night I just worked on the logistics for Scotland and getting last night’s post together.

Next-Connemara and Cong.