Our Warm Welcome to Galway

Night 21 & Day 22: July 7 & 8, 2012

The streets we walked out into.

            People stood holding plastic cups of beer and puffing on cigarettes in absolutely every direction we looked. We were all holding onto each other just so we wouldn’t get lost or pulled into the giant mass that filled the streets in between loads of bars. There were no lines differentiating between where one bar jurisdiction ended and the others began, and even if there was it would be impossible to see. 

            “Guys got any plans fer the night?” the man showing us our apartments asked as he opened the first door to go inside. We were all fairly worn out after several very busy days traveling so our responses were less enthusiastic than what I’m sure he expected. “Well I tell ya this, you’re ‘ere fer the next two weeks right? If ya don’t go out any other night while yer in Galway, you gotta get out there tonight. It’s gonna be wild out there.” 

            This was playing back in my mind as we were being forced in different directions depending on where the crowd was headed. There was one guy at the front, several spread in between the group of girls, and then me bringing up the rear making sure everyone was sticking together was me.

             We came out into this crowd from The Kings Head, a famous three story pub in the middle of Galway. It was a great place! When we got in there it was not crowded at all, we all got drinks and were able to grab a table. As an hour or so passed by the place started getting more crowded, a band started to perform, and people started really packing it in tight. We wanted to try to find another pub to go to so we all headed downstairs and outside but once we reached the street we realized every other pub was going to be the same. 

The winning ship (Groupama) is the first one.

            The reason for all these thousands of extra people in Galway was the Volvo Ocean Race. It ended with a week long festival in Galway and Saturday was the final night. Even though Saturday night was so crowded we still had a great time! 

Our favorite group of buskers!

            Sunday we took a tour of the city and then the group of guys here stayed out and we did a little bit of ‘splorin on our own. We checked out some of the different open markets and sports stores around the streets. We also ran into our favorite buskers that we saw on our trip to Inishere, and had a little chat with them! After that we headed to the pier where the boats were that competed in the Volvo Ocean Race. Working at a yacht club back home and being around racing yachts all the time it was really incredible seeing the massive grandeur of these boats. They were at least twice the size in every direction of any of the sailboats we have at the HYC so it was so awesome to just witness these monsters of the sea.