Galway - my new city of residence
Trip Start
Sep 16, 2009
1
3
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Galway,
Western Ireland,
Ireland
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The bus ride from Dublin to Galway was great. I brought a book to read but ended up spending the whole time looking out the window. As the path fom Dublin to Galway is directly across the center of the country from the west to the east, there's not much in between. I got to finally see plenty of green land, sheep, horses, cows and stone walls. The ride would probably be painfully boring for someone who wasn't new to Ireland, but I loved all 3 hours of it.
I got to Galway and lugged all my stuff to my hostel. No John and Joe this time to carry my bags, but it was only about a ten minute walk. I loved the atmosphere of the city as soon as I got into Eyre Square. It was just like I imagined -- lively and young, but clearly more layed back and relaxed than Dublin. The salty air from the coast made made it feel kind of beachy, but the busy city centre with a motley assortment of brightly colored storefronts and a spiderweb of cobblestone pedestrian streets reminds you that you are in an urban area
Me and Frankie in O'Connor's Pub
.My hostel, Barnacles, was nice. It's a big hostel. Clean and bright. Everyone was very friendly. The best part about it is definitely the location. Right on Quay Street and across from the Quays bar, you can literally walk out of the front door of the hostel and into a pub, restaurant or shop of your choice.
I was starving when I arrived, so I asked the Irish receptionist for advice on where to eat. Fortunately, she directed me toward Riordan's, a little cafe across the street with traditional Irish food, big portions and cheap prices - aka my new favorite place.
21- 24 September 2009
I quickly got busy exploring the city and dropping off CV's. I found that walking around looking for 'Help Wanted' signs in windows is a great way to familiarize yourself with a city. I tried not to be a job snob, and dropped my CV into any pub, restaurant or shop with a help wanted sign in the window. I had no idea how quickly the 60 copies of my CV would go! Eventually, I decided to make more copies and just completely saturate the city, dropping my CV into pretty much anywhere that looked welcoming regardless of whether they had a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window
Hanging out by the fire
. This approach seemed to work pretty well. Not that I got a lot of calls, but I did get a few, and the majority were from places that didn't even have signs in the window at all. The most personally beneficial place I decided to drop into was Proactive Design & Marketing. After an interview with a temp office, I was walking around the Lisbon Business Park, Galway's main center for businesses and offices. I saw a sign that caught my eye for Proactive and saw public relations was listed as one of their areas of expertise. With nothing to loose, I went in and talked to the first person a saw in the lobby. A tall, smartly- dressed professional women, she greeted me and assured me that they didn't have any paid positions as she looked over my resume. Figuring it couldn't hurt to give up a day of free work once a week in exchange for learning about PR practices in another country and being able to claim myself to be a truly international PR practicioner, I offered to come in and help out with PR one day a week. She told me many of their clients were requesting PR help, and they didn't really have the manpower to satisfy these demands all the time, so the arrangement would be mutually beneficial. Turns out she's the director of the firm, so we made plans then and thee for me to come in and start the following week.
Stuff Everywhere
On my second night in the city, I figured I should go hear some of the traditional Irish music Galway is famous for, especially after the let down in Dublin of live bands playing Sweet Home Alabama and Mr. Jones on repeat like a pop radio station plays a Black Eyed Peas song. Following some advice from Barnacles, I headed across the street to Taafs and heard music coming from the pub before I even walked in. This was the beginning to an interesting night.
I walked in and sat down by the bar to watch the live band, three dingy Irish guys with second-hand instruments sitting in a booth, one had his toddler daughter on his lap and one might of had a dog - the dog could just be an addition added in by my memory because it fits the scene. I'm not sure. Anyway, with no microphones, amps or top 40 request lists, they were a bit different from the live bands in Dublin. Awesome. The music was great and uplifting, and I soon got to talking to the two women in their mid-sixties sitting next to me wearing tweed flat caps, drinking Guinnes and taking zoomed-in pictures of the little girl sitting on her daddy's lap like she was a cute bird that landed on a branch of a tree outside their kitchen window... obviously tourists. Turns out they were from Denver and in Ireland with a church group of about 40 women. As their fellow group members began to trickle in, Taafs turned into a strangely dim-lit Coldwater Creek store in March, playing a CD of traditional Irish music in honor of St
Live music is a specialty of Glaway
. Patrick's day. My two new friends, Cindy and Carol, were very friendly and quickly turned into typical American grandmothers when I told them that I had just moved to Galway by myself and was staying in the hostel across the street. After buying my a pint and taking about 10 minutes to figure out how to take a picture of me on her iphone, she decided to email the picture on to my mom. To let my mom know I was being taken care of. Imagining my mom's reaction when she got an email from a random address with a picture of me and the content "Don't worry. She'll be fine. We're taking care of her. -Cindy & Carol," I contemplated leaving to go find a computer and email my mom letting her know I hadn't been kidnapped. I figured it could wait until morning. Sorry about that mom.Appreciative of Carol & Cindy's genuine concern and generosity, I decided it was time to move on and to find another pub I could listen to music in without struggling to sift through the Guinness-induced cackles of 40 middle-aged American women.
I headed over to Ti Colis across the street at Cindy's suggestion. With a similar feel, less of a tourist crowd and a cool band sitting on some barstools and belting out catchy trad music, I had come to the right place. Sitting down on a bar stool, I got to talking to the young guy sitting next to me
Galway
. He was from New York. Was I really in Ireland? Anyway, he was in Ireland visiting family and seemed to be a nice enough guy. Our conversation was interrupted with the first of many strange interactions I would have with the typical white-haired, bike-riding, tweed blazer-wearing pub regular whose slurred, incredibly fast spoken words buried under a thick Irish accent you have to intently concentrate on to understand. He kept trying to insist that I trade stools with him because mine didn't have a backrest and his did. I was quite fine, but after his third attempt at "hospitality," I gave in and traded stools. I thought about taking a picture of him because of how charmingly stereotypical he was. After dozens of interactions with these same stereotypical pub regulars and waiting in line in the convenience store behind them as they attempt to haggle with the clerk about being 20 euros short when trying to buy a plastic liter of cider, they're not quite as charming...colorful though nonetheless.
Continuing my conversation with the New Yorker, we were again interrupted by another Irish man in a blazer who was an obvious regular as the bar tender continuously passed him pints passed our shoulders without taking any orders from him or the exchange of any currency
Galway
. He finally started asking us where we were from. Upon hearing my story and the fact that I was on the job search, he said, "You're in luck. I'm a pubsman." Struggling to decipher through his thick Cork accent (uncannily similar to that of the Lucky Charms leprechaun), he told me he owned a pub just outside the city and had just put an add out that he needed a worker. He even said there was a room above the pub I could live in. My second day in on the job search and I had already gotten a job with an inclusive accommodation! This wasn't going to be as difficult s everyone made it out to be after all. After quite a while chatting with him and his friend in an attempt to get a feel for my new "boss," he hinted to me that he was divorced and currently looking for a new wife. I decided I'd find employment elsewhere. There's no such thing as a free lunch.On my way home, I did stop to ask directions and ended up befriending a chatty young Irish guy from a wee town of about 800 people in Donegal. His name was Frankie. We got to talking and it turns out he had recently spent a period of time traveling the states. He had such a good time and found people to be so hospitable, that he decided he would always make an effort to pay it forward and show Americans how hospitable the Irish were as well. Thanks America. Frankie During the next week or so, Frankie became my personal Irish tour guide. A fun, extremely polite and cordial guy, Frankie showed me around to all of the best restaurants, pubs and views of Galway.
