Don't Trust the Bus

Waking on Saturday morning after a long day, I managed to pry my eyes open after a girl, who I thought was Kathleen, came to the edge of my bed and said get up. I didn’t realize until later that she was waking up her friend who slept on the bunk above me and it wasn’t Kathleen; either way it woke me up. Once dressed and down stairs eating breakfast, we said our goodbyes to our roommates, and made our way out into Galway. We strolled to the Galway City Museum where they had a local orchestra playing in the lobby. It provided peaceful accompaniment to my learning about Galway’s history, as I shuffled around the artifacts. I made my way through the upper floors of the small museum, taking in all the knowledge I could before stopping to listen to an oboist play in a gallery. Upon his concluding note, Kathleen and I left the museum and back towards the shopping alleyways to pick up some souvenirs.

Pretty much sums up how cute Galway is

Spanish archway

            Before making it into a shop, we decided to eat a hearty brunch at an adorable bakeshop and café. I chose to try the traditional Irish breakfast, and it was a delicious decision. The bacon, sausage, beans, potatoes, egg, and even the pudding filled me up for the rest of the day. We then walked into one shop so Kathleen could buy herself a Guinness sweater, and by the time we exited it was pouring rain. Dodging the other drenched pedestrians we made it into another shop so I could purchase a Connemara marble necklace that I had been eyeing for days. I love my necklace and I wear it around my neck every day. Slightly hungry, we managed to find a cupcake shop that we had spotted the other day. The rain was coming down so heavily that I could barely see Kathleen ahead of me; she happened to be wearing a bright teal bow that I would occasionally spot bouncing on the back of her head, and that’s how I knew I was going in the right direction. Thankfully we never got lost or separated. Now, soaked by the rain, but content with our souvenirs and cupcakes we decided that we were ready to go back home. We picked up our backpacks from the hostel and made our way to the bus station, got on the bus to Dublin and were soon home.

"I lost my heart to a Galway girl"

Irish Breakfast, so good!

            We had to come home on Saturday instead of Sunday because early on Sunday morning we were scheduled to go to the Garda station (police station) to register with immigration. The Garda station was a town over, so we had to take the bus as if we were going into Dublin, but get off only ten minutes into the bus ride, which still cost over two euros. However, the bus, which we had ridden many times before, always taking the same route, decided this time to take a different route and bypass the town that the Garda station was located in. As soon as that bus turned right off a roundabout instead of going straight through it I felt my heart skip a beat, and looked at Kathleen for an answer, even though her face reflected the same hopelessly lost expression I wore. Kathleen pulled up a map on her phone and found out where we could get off nearest to the Garda station. After a twenty minute detour, we finally pulled through the right town, so we quickly got off the bus and backtracked to the Garda station. Somehow, after nearly having a heart attack, we made it slightly early. We were both approved to stay in the country until the end of the semester thankfully. Once finished with immigration we stood at the nearest bus stop, waiting almost an hour in the frigid, early March morning air for a bus to finally come pick us up and take us home. Our trip to get immigrated took nearly the whole morning, and we were starving with no food in our pantry after our vacation, so we stopped in Dunnes and I got a French baguette, while Kathleen purchased a loaf of brown bread. By the time we made it home, we sat at our kitchen table in our apartment, eating our bread with butter and jam, while sipping tea and reflecting over our long weekend adventure and how not to trust the bus as the rain pattered at the glass of the windows.