Month: August 2013

OK! So now on to Thursday.

I left off with telling you all about our trip to Galway. Well the next morning we woke up and went to the breakfast room. We had the traditional Irish breakfast which was a fried egg, 2 sausage links, 2 sausage patties, 2 pieces of bacon and a selection of breads and jams. It was absolutley delicious! Another couple came into the breakfast room shortly after we did. They sat at the table next to ours. A little bit longer they asked us where we were from. We told them Missouri in the US. They said, “No kidding! We are from St.Louis!” They were an older couple whose children were grown and they were enjoying traveling. They told us they had been on Ireland for 10 days and made a trip around the whole island spending a day here, a day there. They told us about the Kylemore Abbey. “A perfect place for people on their honeymoon to go.” They told us all about it and got us interested in making that one of our stops. We talked with them for nearly an hour during breakfast talking about sites we’ve seen around Ireland, and they told us different places they had traveled. They also told us some highlights for Dublin that helped us decide to take a day to go to Dublin, which we were not originally planning. After breakfast we sat and discussed what to do for the day. We found out that a show we had seen flyers for Trad On The Prom had a show that night as well. Their Shows were Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday nights. We asked our hostess what she recommended and told her we were also thinking about visiting Kylemore Abbey. She told us Kylemore was over and hour away and if we wanted to do Trad on the Prom that night we needed 1) get tickets right awya and 2) probably take it easy on the travel cause being at Kylemore would ware us out and we wanted to be sure and enjoy the show. First we went to this place in Spiddal called Standum. We saw flyers for it and it was supposed to be a great shopping area. We got there and it was actually a very small store with a wide variety of things. David and I did not see anything we liked so we decided to head down to Eyre Square we had dinner the night before. We only saw a small part of it the night before. We did not realize how big the square really was. It was 15/20 blocks of shops and restaurants and along with a mall in the area. We parked in the ‘Car Park’ or parking garage for the mall and wandered the mall. While walking we came across this store called The Galway Hat shop. That is where I got the blue cap you saw in a view of the photo previews David has uploaded. We shopped for a hat for David, but none of the ones in his size, he really cared for. So we decided we would keep looking. Wandering around the streets was great. We got to see tons of street performers while walking around, had a great time seeing all the local flavors. There was several shops that said they were the “original makers of the Claddagh ring.” (We did stop by Faller’s later that day where I got a bracelet and necklace with it.) That day was a lot of fun trying to local coffee, and just meeting people from the Galway area. We also went over to the Galway Cathedral. It was beautiful church and we did get photos of it. That evening we stopped in the food court of the mall and had a light dinner before heading to Trad On The Prom. I was SUPER EXCITED!!!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/tradontheprom

http://tradontheprom.com/

 

This is a good intro to the show. Also this is from a special show they did so some of the performers they show was not at our show. http://www.youtube.com/user/tradontheprom#p/u/0/MFosZsRJjJY

 

 

This is the Trad on the Prom You Tube and Site. We did not get any photos at Trad on the Prom except for a few of the stage and the sign before the show. The show does not allow any photography or recording. We were a little disappointed about that. I can only describe. The show was at the Salthill Hotel down by the coast on the other side of Galway from where we were staying. The resturant inside the hotel was called The Prom. It that helps at all. 🙂 The show was set up inside of a ballroom. The stage took up half the room. There was four sections to the audiance. A was to the right of the stage, B&C were infront of the stage, and D was to the left of the Stage. The seating was first come, first served,only your section was assigned. David and I got there early and were able to sit in the 3rd row of the section. We could of sat closer but since the rows curved with the stage, we liked the angle the 3rd was at better. Also there was 3 platforms misxed in the seating and on of the was directly behind our row. The other one was in the D section, and the third was in the back. The dancers, (actually one the 3 male dancers) used those platforms is several numbers. The performers in the show were TOP NOTCH! The music director for Michael Flately The Lord Of The Dance, Gerard Fahy was in the show. Also his 2 sisters, Eva, and Marion were in the show as well as Marion’s husband Chris. Marion was the lead violinist for the Riverdance show. They also had a male vocalist Sean Castello. He was very good. They said he had recently been voted male voacalist of Ireland. The other performers in the show included a piano player, and 8 dancers. 5 female dancers, and 3 male dancers. 4 of the female dancers did the riverdancing and the 5th did the other forms of folk dances. The three men were incredible. 2 of them were actually brothers. The Keaney brothers. They said in the show that the elder Keaney ( I think it was Cathal) recently won the “Grand Slam” for riverdancing compeitions. He won champion titles in Ireland, and for all of Europe, for all of Asia, and North America. We bought Marion’s and Ger’s CD. I could prattle on forever about the amazingness of this show, but it would not do it justice. So go watch the videos! Have fun! It is lunnch time and I have stuff to do this afternoon.

Take care and ‘Cheers’. (Irish way of saying goodbye.)

Day Two…I left off with us leaving Dromoland Castle. Like I said it was an hours drives to Galway. One the way there I kept nodding off. I was still very much tired from flying in the day before and being on a different time schedule. David was doing a bit better than I was though. He adjusted pretty well and once we got going he was ready to go for the day. We were advised to take the scenic route to Galway. It was not the fastest, but it was more enjoyable. We drove by the Cliffs of Moher. Gorgeous cliffs that drop straight done into the ocean. I was not feeling up for walking around so David parked and walked around taking photos. We tried to plan a day to go back and get more pictures, but it was so rainy many of the days we never made it back out there to get pictures. No to mention we had so much other stuff thagt we waanted to do and see. It was a pleasant drive just being able to seee the country side and enjoying all the sights that Ireland has to offer. We stopped by a local resturant on the way to Galway. David ordered the Irish breakfast and I had the BLTE. (BLT with egg.) We ordered hot  to tea to drink and again it came out with the bowls of sugar and cream. It was a nice quite place called Collins. We got there right after a tour bus finished up and we were leaving just as another tour bus pulled in. We thought we had pretty good timing. 🙂 Hehe. It is hard to really describe what it looked like. A picture is worth a 1,000 words and it would take a photo to really do the place justice. The highest in temptature it gets in the mid summer is upper 60’s maybe up to 70’s. So by Sept. it was cool and brisk. It was nice to get out every so often and just walk around. We did stop by a pier and tke some photos. The pier looked over a large lake and you could see the mountains on the other side. It was gorgeous. We get to Galway late afternoon. We checked into our B&B Woodhaven. It looked like a cozy home. It was fun figuring out which one was ours. We realied it was very common to see 5/6 bed and breakfasts places right in a row. David and I commented on that the entire way to Galway. We would say things like… “B&B, b&b, B&b, b&b,… OH LOOK! Another b&b right in a row. 🙂 Ours was no differt. The woodhaven sign was more located towards one of the other B&Bs and David and I had to look carefully at the signs. We checked into our room. It was a bueatiful room. (We forgot to get photos.:( ) It had a full size bed and a twin bed in it. The sheet and comforter were white, with a soft purple blanket on the edge of the bed. The walls were half wood and had some wall paper on them. They were a deep plum color with black designs on it. There was also three white frames with purple flower decorations in them. There was a small closet and shelf set with a tea pot and tea set on it. The main light was a small chandalier style with silver dangling circle decorations and crytals from it. There was also two wall lamps that were white with purple decotations designs on them. A very cozy little room. The bath room was very smal. That wasn’t a big deal. But it was interesting. The Irish heat the water at the source and do not have water heaters. So there is this old style heater sitting off by the sink. While the shower is going it gets very hot so you have to be very careful not to touch it at all. The shower was quite interesting. It was a small 3X3 foot square area. The two walls facing out from the shower were sliding doors. So you had to make sure both doors were slide all the way shut or you got water all over the floor. ( I did that once. -_- ) There was two nobs in the shower. One was tempature and the other was the pressure/ On nob. You turned from off, to full pressure spray. There was also a strong that hung from the cieling. You pulled on it and the box clicked from On to Off. You also had to be very careful to watch the water level. It filled quickly and drained slowly. So after being in the shower just  few minutes it would be filled to the rim and flow over the edge of the shower floor onto the bathroom floor. (Did that one once too. -_- I learned things the hard way over there. It was very frustrating.)  That night we ate at McSwiggins resturant. It was on the 3rd floor of a building downtown. It had a great view of downtown Galway. We spent quite a bit through out the week at downtown Galway doing shopping. Galway was not as Americanized as Dublin so we enjoyed the local flavor much more. (More on Dublin later.) So there we go. That was our Wednesday. The note about the next day will monstrous because of the show we went to Thursday night! 🙂

There will be many parts… there is 8 days of Ireland to write about. So I will break it u[p for your reading convenice. 🙂 After I posted my update bout the note coming soon David said, “Note or novel?” Haha. He knows how I can praddle on about stuff qand write for a very long time if I so choose.

We left for St.Louis Saturday night after the wedding ceremony was over. We got there around 11ish. (We ran into a few things on the way and it delayed our trip out there.) All day Sunday we did nothing. 🙂 We did wonder out to the arch which was only a block from our hotel and came across an Air Force Jazz band. It was a nice quiet day. Monday our flight for Newark, New Jersery left at 1:30pm. It was a 2&1/2 hour flight. We had a few hour lay over in NJ. We left Newark at 7pm and had a 6&1/2 hour flight to Shannon, Ireland. We arrived at 7ish am Ireland. So we flew all night technically. We sat in the airport drinking coffee after we landed both exhausted. David did not sleep at all on the flight and I slept only a bit of time. Between the 2 flights I probably slept only 3 hours. (I dozed for a little bit on the flight from St.Louis. We stopped and exchanged some money and went to the Hertz office at the airport to pick up or car. It was a little red car called a Leon that had heated bucket seats.  🙂 David and I thought that was pretty cool! The average temp in Ireland is around 50s this time of the year and it is very rainy. So we very much enjoyed our “butt warmers.” The first place we stayed was Dromoland Castle. It is a castle that was built back in the 1500s and added onto over time and eventually became a hotel. The grounds were gorgeous! We got there around 8/9 ish. The drive over there was very interesting. They drive on the left side of the road with the driver on the right side. It was different. I have video of David spazzing out saying something like, “I am driving a weird little car on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road! THIS IS WEIRD!” haha.   We checked in, as a valet parked our car and retrieved our luggage. They told us that they had a room ready for us to check into right away BUT since we were on our honey moon they had a free upgrde for a better room, however they were occupied and would probably not be ready till after 2pm. They offered us a tour around the castle then said we were welcome to help ourselves to the breakfast buffet that was laid out over by the resturant. We got something to drink and went to rest in the ‘drawing room’. It was a beautiful room with paintings of the people that actually lived in the castle from the 1700s. After relaxing we walked around the grounds and went and toured the wall gardens. Those were my favorite part. Very colorful with a little bridge over a stream, and a various type of flowers and trees. After spending quite a bit of time touring the castle and grounds, around noon they told us that our room was ready. We went to our room and cleaned up and went back to the garderns to eat lunch at their country club. David and I had soup and tea. Every where in Ireland serves their tea with a bowl of sugar and a some pitcher of cream. At the Country Club resturant they served it with a bowl of brown sugar cubes and white sugar cubes. David and I looked at that and thought it was very interesting seeing that set up for the first time. Haha. 🙂 We decided to take a short nap… We slept for 4 hours. We slept the whole afternoon away. So we got dressed up and went to the Lounge that was only open during dinner hours. At night they serve a 5 course meal that took us almost 3 hours to complete. 🙂 We sat down and knew we were in for a treat. There was 4 forks at each plate. Very fancy room with the male waiters in tuxes and the female waiters in nice white blouses and black skirts. At first they served this ( hard to describe) tuna fish squares with a green veggie sauce (it tasted very similiar to  gaucamole). Then we choose from a list of appitizes. I had a mushroom and crab stuffed cannoles. David choose an asparagus and duck slices for his. They then gave us ther choice for a our “middle course”. David and I both choose mixed berry sorbet. They serves us a single scoop of sorbert in the fancy little silver dish. For our main dish I choose Irish Beef with mash potatoes and a potato cake (corn bread type thing). David had Lamb with mixed veggies. They also came by and served pieces of steam potatos. Then for our dessert I choose a Lemon Souffle’ and David had an assorment of crackers and cheese. (That was common. I guess crackers and cheese is considered a very proper dessert. All the fancier places we ate had it listed as a dessert.) It was a very relaxing evening and a wonderful way to spend it. That night we had a hard time falling asleep.(Considering we slept so long in the afternoon.) We were hoping to get up early and do a few of the things around dromoland before we left… That did not happen. We wake up to someone knocking on the door. We are like “What in the world… Why is someone knocking on our door this early in the morning?” We looked at the clock… It was 11 AM!!!! WOOOOPPPPSSS! It was the cleaning lady seeing if we needed anything. Check out was at noon… We flew around the room getting ready. We called the front desk to let them know we just woke up and they said that was fine. After we got ready to go we checked out and headed on to Galway where we would be spending the next week. Galway was an hour away so we knew it was going to be quite the drive.