Ceol agus craic i nGaillivh

So after this weekend, I have officially decided that my friends and I have this incredible gift of attracting really odd situations. 

But before I dive into that discussion, I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!! I had the privilege of spending Thanksgiving with some dear friends in Galway. We figured fish and chips and a pint at the pub would be a good way to spend the holiday while in Ireland :-)

Galway was a wonderful city! It had the bustling feel of Dublin, but with a small-town, relaxed edge. We spent most of our time wandering and shopping, but we also managed to toss in a visit to the craft village in An Spideal, a smaller town in the Gaeltacht. We met a friend of Grainne who owns a T-shirt printing shop and also got to chat with a jeweler- I think we were the only tourists to visit that day :-) We also got to check out the Saturday morning market in town which was a fun experience as well. While the weather may not be ideal, I am loving traveling through Ireland this time of year- since there aren't many tourists, we've had some great opportunities to chat with locals!

So back to my aforementioned decision. I feel like I come back from weekend trips with some of the randomest stories- most of which happen to occur in pubs:

Case #1: On Thursday night we decided to check out a couple of pubs in town, in search of music sessions mostly, and ended up spending most of the evening in a quieter, relaxed place with some good musicians. There was a group of older guys at the table next to us, and one of them kept giving us side-glances. I made the mistake of yawning loudly, which gave him an excuse to start a conversation with us, "Was that a yawn I just heard?" After a bit of chatting, our new friend Oliver handed me a cell  phone and told me to say "hello" to a friend. After a bit of protest I said "hi" and the person on the other end mumbled a bunch of stuff I couldn't understand. I passed the phone back over to Oliver and his son grabbed the phone and ran outside with an annoyed "That was my wife!!" So apparently Oliver used me to teach his son to never lie to his wife about his whereabouts; he had to explain why an American girl was using his phone while he was supposed to be at home watching TV- oh joy. After some stories and Oliver sneaking pictures of me with his phone, we decided it was a good time to take our leave...

Case #2: The next night, we ended up running into our friends from Cork. It was so fun to see them and it made the island of Ireland feel a bit smaller :-) After running in and out of pubs for a bit, we decided to head back to the pub where we met Oliver the night before- we figured he wouldn't be in the same place twice. However, guess who was sitting at the bar when we walked in! I darted past him hoping he wouldn't recognize us- I guess Oliver had had more to drink than I realized the night before since he didn't give us a second glance :-) I had a blast with my friends at the bar that night- the craic and music was great! The band sang a lot of traditional songs and threw in a couple of unaccompanied songs as well as an amazing rendition of "Danny Boy." 

After a few hours another musician came in, armed with an electric guitar and a variety of songs. More and more people streamed into the pub and a pretty drunk guy ended up next to Mary Claire and I. He was really into the music and kept dancing around and asking us to dance with him using the line, "You'll win 'em all!!" Oh dear. He was super nice, but I don't think he realized how awkward it is to turn to a girl and shout, "Abra cadabra, I'm gonna grab ya!" I think that was when we decided to look for another pub :-)

The city was mad busy with people everywhere and after a quick walk-about we decided to head back to the hostel. 

Case #3: That night I had this really weird dream where people were running around and talking super loudly; but then one of the guys in my dream said, "We don't want them all to wake up to two half-naked guys sleeping together!" followed by Mary-Claire's voice explaining that all of the beds in our hostel room were full. What?! I turned over and opened my eyes to two guys talking to Mary-Claire in the top bunk of the bed opposite me and glanced at my watch- 5:30am. I blinked a bit and then one of the guys turned towards me and told his friend, "Another one's awake!" By then, my friends were all sitting up in bed and chatting with these two confused Irish guys named Davey and Trevor. They walked over towards my bed, introduced themselves, and Davey said, "You're small! I'll share with you!" and proceeded to climb into bed with me. Well that definitely woke me up!- I sprawled out and told him, "I'm small but I take up a lot of room!" So instead Davey found my hairbrush and started brushing my hair while Trevor started scratching my head like a dog- like I said, random! It turns out that the hostel had double-bunked our room and there weren't enough beds for the guys. Lucky for us they were super nice guys and not some creepers barging into our room (thank you Lord)! Davey and Trevor decided to hang around and chat for a bit and Trevor ended up climbing into my bed to talk about cars and ask whether I would shoot him since I'm from Montana. So while we were talking, Davey grabbed one of Lacey's books on peace and conflict studies and asked, "Is this your diary?" He opened the book up and "read" "Dear Diary, today I met two hunky, sexy Irish boys named Davey and Trevor..." At around 6 they left to find another room after shaking our hands and saying how nice it was to meet us. After they left, we all kind of looked around at each other and laughed ourselves back to sleep.

Like I said, I feel like these kinds of situations just follow us wherever we go! But I'm loving being able to tell these odd stories and have definitely been using them as shock factors in emails to loved ones: "Hi Mom! Galway was great! I have a story for you that ends with an Irish boy in my bed. Love, Sara." 

Anyways, I just wanted to relay a weekend full of friends, music, and fun and wish you all a wonderful day full of laughter :-)

Slainte/Cheers!!