I had met a few Brazilian guys in Derry and they had rented a car and were driving to Galway and offered me a ride.  I grabbed Thiago’s whats app contact and we said we would meet in the morning at breakfast.  Breakfast came and went and my backup plan of taking the bus was getting closer and closer to the point where I actually headed to the bus station and boarded the bus to Galway.  I had juuuuust sat down when i got a phone call asking where I was and if i was ready to go.  I had already paid the fair but I might as well as the bus driver if i could get my money back and head back to the hostel to join those guys,  He was very nice and refunded my money (although i had to take money out of the ATM to get pounds in order to pay for the bus and was now leaving the UK and no longer needed pounds, but that’s fine)  I headed back to the hostel and we were on our way.

It was interesting that I didn’t even notice when we crossed the border other than that the signs changed from miles per hour to KM per hour.  Other than that there was no difference.  This is increasingly becoming a huge issue in the brexit talks because if they do need to reinstate hard borders between the two countries, there is going to be major conflict and most probably violence.  I talked to a few people from both sides and it is clear that neither one want a hard border at the Ireland/Northern Ireland border.

Anyways, I don’t want to get into it to much although i have mentioned it several times on previous posts because it came up so much while i was visiting there.

We arrived in Galway and spent some time wandering around for a while before the Brazilian guys had to head back to Dublin, leaving me to check into my hostel and see what I could get up to in the evening.

The town wasn’t that big but had a few walking streets with shops, bars and buskers that was really fun to walk around and explore.

The huge take away i took from Thiago was couchsurfing hangouts.  I knew couchsurfing as an app where you try and find places to sleep on someones couch based on a community of travelers who just want to meet people from around the world.  However, there is an additional feature that I was unaware of called hangouts where you can set yourself as available and willing to do an activity, or grab beers or explore and other people can reach out and join you.  Once two people are hanging out, more people can join and before you know it you have a group of people hanging out from all over the world.  Once they left, I re downloaded the app and set up my profile.  It was amazing how many people where in the area available to hang out and by the time the evening came, I already had plans to meet up with a group of 4 people.  It was amazing and totally skipped the trying to meet people in the hostel common room or go to a bar and try and strike up a conversation parts.

A Canadian, A German, and Italian and an American walk into a bar!  That was out group that night and we ended up having a great time!  We started in one of the Galway Bay brewing company bars in town and then moved on to a few places downtown!

By the end of the night we added a few more people to our group and had a great time into the evening.

Unfortunately during a bit of particularly aggressive dancing to the live music, I slipped on the wet floor and rolled my ankle and messed up my knee a little bit.  Two of the people I had just met were nice enough to assist me back to my hostel.  It actually hurt pretty bad and it made me a little worried that It might affect my running in the coming weeks.

The next morning I got up and had a decent ammount of pain and a lot of swelling

However, I had already purchased my ferry ticket for my trip out to the Aren Islands (more specifically Inishmore, the larger island) and figured the show must go on.  I limped my way to the bus stop, then to the ferry and eventually made it to the island.  Luckily, one of the most common things to do is to rent a bike and explore the island that way, and so I did that and it luckily did not hurt my foot much!  I met a few people on the bus and ferry to the island and so we ended up grouping up and hanging out for the day!

The first stop was the so called Black Fort, which was an expansive area of stacked stones and amazing rock cliffs overlooking the ocean!

It was so beautiful there that it was really hard not to take a ton of photos and likewise post them here.

Luca and I were both on bikes and decided to head deeper into the island to check out a few other points of interest.  One of them was called the The Worm Hole which was also the host of the Red Bull cliff jumping championships that same year.  I watched some of the jumps after and it was crazy.

It was basically a perfectly rectangular cut out in the rock that was perfect for swimming.  There were a few people taking a dip while we were over there.

We walked a bit more down the rocks (well i hobbled) and grabbed a few more amazing photos.

After hanging out on the rocks for a while, it was time to head back to the ferry in order to meet up with the rest of the group and catch it back to town.

The trip out to the islands was amazing, beautiful and the group we amassed was really fun.  We all enjoyed ourselves a lot and decided to meet up again that evening for some drinks and a continuation of the good times.

Another very multicultural crew of Canadian, American, Italian and Netherlands. were present!  We had Guinness, listened to live music and had lots of laughs!  We also starred in a promotional content for a Italian music festival which Ashley was helping organize!

The evening ended as most have in Ireland, decently late and with lot’s of Guinness in my belly!

The next morning was the day I leave Galway and initially had a 14km hike planned from where the bus drops me off to the next town over where there was a hostel.  With my foot situation, I wasn’t sure how that was going to go, but hitchhiking there was a solid backup plan!

I’ll cover the cliffs of Moher and Lahinch in my next installment.