November 6: Galway

Started the morning with a nice long walk up Croagh Patrick hill. Croagh Patrick is basically St. Patrick, but Kevin (our tour guide) says that he didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland. The snake was the symbol of paganism and basically because Pat converted a whole bunch of people to christianity (he wasn't even the first one to do it either) that's where the whole story comes from.

Anyway, so there was a big hill and at the top there was a church, but we didn't go all the way up. Apparently people doing pilgrimage-type stuff do Croagh Patrick with no shoes on too, and some of the boys tried it. I wasn't game enough because the path was muddy, rocky and full of sheep shit. The view was really nice when we got up there, but it was kind of cold. We also went to the Irish Famine Memorial in memory of the people who died and left Ireland during the Potato famine, and then we headed further south.

There is a lake called Doolough (spelling?) along the way which we passed. Apparently during the famine about 300 people went to ask their landlord to help out with their rent and food and stuff but he was too busy to see them at his place because he was having a feast so he sent them away, and then on the way back they all froze to death on the lake. It's a pretty lake though, even though the water is all dark and grim and stuff. However, the name just made me and Sam sing the Duloc song from Shrek, which was probably kind of wrong and offensive.
We also stopped by a place called Recess where nothing happened. Seriously. There is a statue and a plaque there that says nothing happened. Kevin takes us to the most random places. :P We also stopped at Kylemore Abbey along the way for some photos.

That night we were in Galway! It's a really cool city, and we went to a pub on the Claddagh side where they had soccer on TV and then Irish dancing with the locals. I didn't partake but I did find that they had the pear cider from Sweden, so that was pretty awesome.