This city isn’t really all that impressive to be honest. We lucked out however with our first CouchSurfing hosts. A group of 4 Australians (Sarah, James, Megan, Hanna) were really cool people. Very laid back and ya just gotta love the Aussie accents. They were also hosting another young lady Claire from Tasmania, as well as a couple of German ladies. It was quite the cultural stew simmering in their three story apartment. The accommodations were very comfortable and we all enjoyed exchanging travel stories. One might say it was destiny, check out the next door neighboors:
The city itself seems to be a bit victimized by the international conglomerates. The Gap. HMV. T.G.I. Fridays. McDonalds all seem to dominate the very busy pedestrian-only Buchanan and Argyle Streets. The outskirts of this shopping meca are littered with boarded up mom and pop shops that once were. About the only establishments with lit neon signs in the windows were the old pubs that are still frequented by the older locals. On the upside, the new development area provided an spot for some funky Scottish street performers to show off their skills.
The western part of the city however made the trip worthwhile. There were some well kept gardens that were full of color.
As well as tennis courts, lawn bowling greens, fountains…
…skate parks…
…sculptures…
…a river…
…and what looked like a church…
… actually turned out to be The University of Glasgow. The grounds of the campus were absolutely amazing! I couldn’t help but feel that it was used as the background for many Oscar winning performances.
But for me, the highlight of the trip had to be God! Apparently unbeknownst to me he/she/it released a new album! Available on CD, Vinyl and Download.
I don’t know about you, but I for one am super excited to hear what the big G can do with an electric bass guitar!
But here’s where Glasgow really takes a turn for the worst…
CAN YOU BELEIVE IT!!?!? God has been CANCELLED!?
This guys expression pretty much says it all
Shocking! Yeah, I know.
No, but in all seriousness, those “Cancelled” stickers were seen on numerous posters throughout the city. And if you were to look really closely at them they are quite an ingenious bit of social engineering on the part of the Glasgow city council. Instead of pre-posting signs on walls that say “Post No Bills” they instead wait for those bills to be posted, and then slap “Cancelled” stickers on them so as to deceive the passers by into thinking the advertised album/concert/event, etc… has in fact been canceled. It would be interesting to see statistical data that shows if sales actually are affected, or if people have learned to just tune out the red and white stickers and still go buy God’s Greatest Hits anyways.
Sadly our stay in Ireland is coming to a close. We depart from Cork airport tomorrow. But before leaving we decided to make one more stop in Killarney for a night as it was listed as #85 in the TripAdvisor Top 100 world destinations (PDF).
In Limerick we had a layover,
with two bags slung over our shoulder
we ducked into a pub,
to grab us some grub,
sad that our stay in this land was near over.
The accents (much like the sandwich bread) were THICK down here! After stuffing our bellies, we picked up our connecting bus and arrived in Killarney. We checked into our hostel and then wandered around the city center. We had some daylight left so we popped into a tourist center to grab a map and then headed out on a 5km hike through a national park…
…to see Ross Castle.
It was situated right on the edge of a beautiful lake and we arrived just as the sun was breaking through the clouds.
It even had a real cannon, which itself happened to be situated along side some ominous black crows at the time.
We weren’t able to fire the cannon at a nearby group of campers, so we got frustrated and hiked back to town. We had some work to catch up on anyway, so we broke out our trusty WiFi hotspot detector and scoured the city like a couple of treasure hunters. We honed in on a strong enough signal from an un-secure network that we could “borrow” some connectivity from and sat down on a busy street corner to commence work. We were quite the spectacle, let me tell you. Just about every passer-by stopped in their tracks and starred in awe. Normally you might expect a vagabond or a street perform to be sitting on this corner with a ragged cup-o-pence in hand. But here we were, two young looking, clean-cut travelers occupying a beggars turf with a pair of shiny new Apple laptops, surfing the net and making international phone calls via Skype to business associates. It really was a priceless moment. Eventually the ground got too cold and we upgraded to a nearby hotel lobby. Quite the digs!
We were about 50 years too young to be in there however based on the clientele we encountered, so we called it a night.
We had thoroughly experienced the city life of western Ireland, and felt it was time to get away and experience the rural life. So we chartered a fishing boat to go explore Inismore, the largest of the three Aran Islands (Inishmore, Inishmaan, Inisheer) .
And as soon as the tide came in, we were off! While away at sea, we caught a young Irish laddie…
…and evaded a few pirates.
Once we arrived on shore, we were faced with a difficult decision.
We opted for “better” over “quality” and picked up a pair of rusty mountain bikes to begin our ride around the island.
Along the way we made a few friends.
Some with feathers…
…some with fur…
…and one with four stomachs (look it up).
We knew it was about to get dangerous when we approached the ominous warning signs. Children ahead! Eeeek!
And sure enough, on the way up to the fort Dun Aonghasa we encountered the little devils, just sitting there on the side of the path, swindling all the tourists. Singing classic Irish tunes…
and dancing ol’ Irish jigs…
How could anyone resist their charm! Jay was instantly suckered into coughing up his spare Euro’s and by his estimation they had managed to pull the same wool over many other eyes, somewhere to the tune of 200+ Euro!
We can only surmise that they were trained in their crafts by this veteran who was running the same shtick.
After being bilked out of most of our money, we finally reached the top of the climb.
Unbeknownst to us, the Galway Races just happened to be going on during the same weekend we happened to be in town. The races are a HUGE event in Ireland and last night on Williams Gate Street nearly all of Ireland poured into the streets and into the pubs lining the street…
to celebrate their winnings…
…or drink away their losses.
We ran into our Canadian friend Michelle
as we checked out some of the local street performers.
Not one to be outdone, Jay, Michelle and Donna Carolyn performed a few acrobatic feats of their own.
The partying in the streets went way into the wee hours of the morning and the number of people that were packed into this small city was astronomical!
Which could explain why it was so darn hard to find a reasonably priced hotel.
Which also explains the following photos…
of us sleeping in our Skoda Octavia rental car…
Which also explains the need to take a nap right now.
