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The rushing water sparkles when the sun can dodge one of the clouds trying to block it. Children laugh and scramble amidst teenagers sitting and chatting on the lawn of a park. Ireland’s west-coast city claims itself to be “probably the best place on Earth” according to a sign leaning on a gift-store window. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it is pleasant. Just exceptionally pleasant.

I manage to not have a real conversation with anyone (beyond “Guinness, please” or “I’ll have the beef stew”) for over 48 hours. I am incredibly solitary, but it’s not a bad thing. I begin to wonder if this is a change my travels have wrought in me. I am utterly alone, but not the slightest bit lonely.

My biggest complaint about Galway is actually with the lodgings. The first hostel I stayed at just had young people watching movies all night and evening, and in my room there was a family with a young child! I was shocked, mostly because the typical hostel environment is really not a good one for kids, but also because of the inconsideration it showed for all the other people in the room. Inevitably, the kid woke up screaming and asking for his mom on the bunk below him several times that night. Hostels with age limits (the good ones are typically 18 - 35) are definitely the way to go. I resolved to change hostels in the morning.

Of course, you know what happens next. All of my top choice hostels were full, so I ended up at a place I hadn’t vetted much. I got boarded with another family, though with slightly older kids, whose complaints were actually words (“I’m hungry” or “It’s cold in here”) but they were still loud enough to make it through my ear plugs. It also turns out that this second place was family-run, which I would usually find exciting, except that the teenage son did nothing but watch TV very loudly in the hostel’s common area all day. So there was really no place to talk with anyone from the hostel who wasn’t in my room. Talk about killing the hostel vibe.

I spent a lot of time in Galway just walking around and taking in the sites - their mall is built around the city’s old stone wall! - and I really enjoyed my time there. But after two nights of subpar hostel experiences, I decided to move on. Sadly, all of Limerick’s hostels were full. I resolved to go back to Dublin, as I believed that some things between that city and I had remained unsaid.

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When Sean departed this morning my plans for the rest of the trip ended. I was free to go or do whatever I wanted. No reservations anywhere, no tickets booked. But where to?

My first thought was simply to head to London early, but that would mean something like 10 days in that really expensive city. Dublin isn’t the cheapest place either, so I started looking at adding other cities to my list.

I had originally wanted to include Iceland in my travels, but then the recession caused there government to collapse, and I thought better of it. They’ve stabilized a lot since I was doing my planning, but the prices for flights is outrageous! Each leg of a trip to or from the UK or Ireland to Reykjavik is over $2000! After taxes I was looking at something like $5000 for a round trip, despite its relative proximity. So that was a no go.

I had gotten recommendations for other cities around Ireland, so in the end I decided a $20 bus ride to one of those places was my best bet. My original plan was to make a loop from Galway to Limerick to Cork and then back to Dublin, but once I got to Galway today, I liked it so much that I’ve decided to stay here for a few days at least, and see what happens from there.

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Neon lights reflect off the puddles forming between the cobblestones covering the street. Signs advertising Guinness cover the fronts of numerous pubs. And we’re walking through it all, hopping from one pint to the next.

Dublin is alive.

There are some people milling about during the day, but at night the city sparkles with energy. We got a brief tour of the highlights by Sinead, a friend of Joe’s sister from school. She brought us to The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in the city, and to Dawson’s Lounge, the smallest pub you could ever imagine. Sadly, that was Joe’s last night, and he headed home the next morning.

The next day Sean and I went to tour the Guinness factory - it’s a really impressive and well done tour. They had some of the most creative and unique uses and placements of video screens I’ve seen.

Later, Sean and I bar hopped and took a recommendation to go to Mssrs Maguire, a multi-floor pub that is all wood paneling, with a young crowd. I could easily see it being my classic haunt if I lived in Dublin.

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