Back Home/ Ireland Day 1&2 (Saturday and Sunday)

Hey everybody. So, I am back from Ireland. What an amazing place! It is more beautiful than any picture could possibly illustrate and the people are about as nice as they come. Most of my family's, as well as my wife's family's, ancestry is from Ireland so it was a great experience going there. I thought what I'd do over the next week is post pictures and captions from each day of the trip.

On Friday night, our flight was delayed 5 hours due to "extensive engine problems" so instead of a 9pm flight (where we'd land at ~10am) it was a 2am flight (putting us at ~3pm) kind of throwing a monkey wrench into our Saturday night plans because it is a 4 hour drive from Dublin to Connemara (where we stayed). Anyway, I'll just get into the pictures now and caption them as best I can. (Fair warning though, pictures don't come remotely close to illustrating the vivid colors and boundless beauty that stretch across Ireland. Oh, and I'm not quite ready to unmask so our faces are blotted out.)


When we arrived in Connemara. It was simply amazing. Our cottage was set into the side of the most beautiful hills I'd ever seen.

Our Cottage. It was called CORRIB


The view from our family room


Another view from the cottage




















We called it an early Saturday night in order to head out early to check out Galway City on Sunday. Galway was very fun. A touristy town with loads of Pubs, restaurants, and gift shops selling "authentic", "traditional" Irish gifts...you know like leprechauns, Giunness paraphernalia, and the ever so popular claddagh rings. (Note: there are truly authentic gifts to be had; just not in these shops). We spent most of our drinking time in the one pub in Eyre Square that seemed as true to Irelands traditions as we could figure. This particular pub had actual band sessions where random musicians, with their instruments, sat in a circle and played some tunes. The pub was called:

Tig Cóilí














Enjoying my first pint in Ireland with Mrs. CT's brother-in-law


















My traveling buddies enjoying their first pints.



















After many pints, I had to go about as bad as this guy:















There were many really good street performers in Galway. Most of them seemed to enjoy what they were doing. These poor kids, however, did not. It felt like they were playing with frowns while there mother (in nice designer clothes, no less) stood over them like a warden. At least they got the day off from sweeping chimneys:

















View of Eyre Square






















So many choices



















So, that was Sunday in Galway. Later that night, we stopped in a small town called Oughterard and picked up some snacks before heading back to the cottage. An interesting note: Cookies are called biscuits or digestives.

Even more interesting, and the inspiration for a silly lyrical poem and other fun times, are these cookies:




Ok, so the silly little poem was 1/2 inspired by these cookies and 1/2 inspired by (believe it or not) Tampons, which in Ireland, we learned are called 'Little Lets'.***[see below] (another funny thing is 'Let' means 'rent' so I suppose the logic there is that they rent out the V for a few days per month?

Anyway, I decided that a better name for these Lets is Damny Jammers, and so began the tale of:


Katie O'Toole

Katie O'Toole trembled with fret
3rd week of August she started to let
In keeping with manners
She bought Damny Jammers
And so she was no longer wet


So there you have days one and two of the trip. Stay tuned :)

***After posting this, I was informed by Proud Maisie that they are not called 'Little Lets' , but there is a brand of them called 'Lilets' and it was all just a misunderstanding. However, without this misunderstanding, the tale of Katie O'Toole and her Damny Jammers might have never been born. :)