Day Seven: Slán go fóill, Galway!

Slán go fóill, Galway!

“Bye for now, Galway!”

To say goodbye to Galway, we decided to head back for some delicious pancakes at Pascal Pancakes before checking out of the hotel and catching our train to Dublin. 

True to form here in Ireland, our train departed exactly at its scheduled time of 1:05. (Katey absolutely loves this care for schedules) We settled in for the 2.5-hour ride back east to Dublin, and a little way into the trip, an older gentleman across the aisle got Katey’s attention. He either asked her for some gum or to wake him up when we arrived in Doolin. ??

When we were in Northern Ireland ten years ago, we found that even though they spoke English, we could barely understand them. (At one restaurant, the server said something to us and Steve said “Oh we speak English" and the guy was like “I am speaking English.” 😂)

Ten years later, we’ve found even here in the Republic of Ireland we have trouble understanding folks who have heavy Irish accents. Just an interesting development since we were last here. We even practiced our Irish listening by watching The Banshees of Inisheeran and Derry Girls, both highly recommended if you haven't seen them.

Our hotel room in Dublin is called a “cosy king” and cosy it is. The bed takes up most of the room and to get out for a midnight tinkle, we’ll have to climb down to the foot of the bed. So.

We had some dinner at Brennigans (fish & chips + Beef & Guinness stew). Then, we headed to a more townie-type pub called The Celt for some music (of course). We met a couple named Carol and Michael who were obviously a few beers in and we could barely understand what they were saying between their brogue and the beer. One thing we did understand is that Carol wants Katey to apply for Irish citizenship and keep appealing when she gets turned down. Apparently, if you have an Irish-born grandparent, you can apply for citizenship ☘️. Katey's great-grandmother, Kate, was born in the Limerick/Cork area before emigrating to Michigan.

We headed back to our hotel via the tram to get ready for our only full day in Dublin tomorrow before we fly back on Friday. 🛫