Ireland on the Way Out

After a fun night in Galway, a random night in Dublin, and 2 entertaining days in Cork I have left the Emerald Isle and crossed over to Jolly Old England. London, to be precise, via Ryan Air, which was actually a completely pleasant flight with none of the unpleasant surprises I was warned about.  I will be spending 3 days in London before heading to the seaside to crash with my buddy Steve in Brighton for a couple. After that its on to Amsterdam to begin to the mainland (and most sizable) portion of this trek, which I am quite excited for. Already purchased my Eurail pass, so I am good to go on any train, any time, to 20 different countries. I am hoping to take a lot of night trains, thus eliminating the need for hostels while moving between cities.

            Galway held some interesting surprises, none of them bad. Pulling up by bus, I noticed a large gathering in Eyre Square, what looked to be the makings of a rally. Sure enough it was a student protest, not surprising since Galway is home to 2 universities. What was surprising was the focus of the rally. These youngsters were not protesting apartheid, or politics, or war, or racism, or any of the usual fodder for such events. No, the topic that seemed to anger so many students was the possibility of…wait for it…paying for their education. That’s right, apparently Irish students don’t have to pay for their post-secondary education like the rest of the world, and the very idea of tuition fees was enough to stir up the collective ire of three thousand freshmen. I was very tempted to grab the microphone and explain to them how much debt the average Canadian student accrues after highschool, but decided instead to find my hostel.

            An even better surprise was waiting for me at the Roisin Dobe (pronounced Russian Dove), one of the local pubs that I went to with some fellow hostelers. Not only did we get free live music, we were also handed a bag of candies and two free beers at the door! What a country! Sweets and beer! Needless to say a night that starts off that well can’t be bad, and I went to sleep rather impressed with Galway city.

            After booking my flight, I returned to Cork for two last days in Ireland, intent on doing at least one very Irish thing. Instead, I went and saw giraffes. I know, I never would have thought that Ireland would be the place to go see exotic animals like cheetahs, penguins and monkeys, but the Fota animal reserve proved me wrong. After checking out the animals all day with Robbie and Jen (two of the girls I met through SWAP), we all headed back to their flat where I was given a spare bed and a place to store my luggage. The next morning Jen and I headed to Blarney, my first close encounter with a castle. And what a castle! Of course, I had to kiss the blarney stone, reported to give anyone who kisses it the gift of gab (could explain the length of this blog), and we walked around the beautiful grounds. Unfortunately my camera battery died halfway through the day, but you can take my word for it that it is definitely worth checking out. (This is why Facebook should invent a “mental-pictures application). As I write this I am taking the train to Liverpool street, where I will then try to figure out the underground enough to get to my hostel.  If all goes well I won’t end up in Manchester.