Ireland Part 2 Galway first night

So as a continuation of the previous post....

After we had checked into the hostel and put our bags down we decided to check out downtown Galway. We asked the girl at the front desk where to go eat and if there were any good pubs to check out. We both decided on the bus we really wanted some greasy food like hamburgers and what ever we ate must involve fries. However we were on the coast of Ireland so we also realized the possibility of some very good fish and chips. She gave us suggestions for both places that we should see. So we start to walk around the city, with dinner as the final destination. Galway is a small but nice looking city, with a mix of old and very old buildings in the downtown area often built with dark grey rock (mostly granite) that is native to the area. 

After wandering around for a while we ended up in the cultural part of the city called the latin quarter where most of the good restaurants and bars were. It was getting late and starting to rain so we decided to look for the restaurant we were told to go to. On the way we look at other restaurants and a lot of them are surprisingly expensive many charge 20 Euro ($30) for a standard dinner, which was interesting because I thought Ireland was a cheaper place to visit and our 3 hour bus ride to Galway from Dublin round trip only cost 23 Euro each...  However despite the price we found the place and it looked to have good stuff and so we decided to check it out. We had not really gone out for a nice meal since Lyndsay arrived (not that there is anything wrong with my cooking) so as we are waiting in what looks like the line to be seated a host comes up to us and asks us which restaurant we want to eat at. Turns out there are two restaurants in one... A sit down restaurant with Wine and expensive menus and fried seafood restaurant that is far more affordable with indoor pick-nick tables and a much better fish selection. Since we wanted greasy we opt for that restaurant and get two dinners and drinks for the price of one on the other side, and oh it was delicious. She had fish and chips and I did as well except my fish was entirely cod and hers a combination of cod, haddock and sale.

After stuffing ourselves we decided to check out more of the city. We went to a famous place called the Spanish arch which was actually very boring.. It was just a 500 year old tone arch all by itself that was not really that impressive but I am guessing it is part of the original wall around Galway. And we saw the coolest thing, a Grey Heron was standing on a handrail outside the window of a Thai restaurant looking in very hungrily. It was almost pacing back and forth hoping that a patron would toss some food out to it. And it did not mind us standing quite close behind it watching it in amazement.

We eventually found ourselves back in the latin quarter because it is the cultural hub of the city and went to a bar called the Kings Head. It is a pretty unique place. Story has it that the original owner was given the property and a lot of other property with is as a payment from Oliver Cromwell. What was the payment for? We when Cromwell took over England he set out to execute King Charles but no one had the guts to execute a King. He sent out messengers far and wide and finally found a guy who would. As payment for beheading the King, Cromwell gave him the building in downtown Galway and several large tracts of farmland. And that building has still been there for almost 500 years, also hence the name of the bar... We sat down and got a drink. Apparently there is live music every night but it wasnt for an hour so we decided we would wait and chat until the band came. I got a pint of a beer called the Galway Hooker. It was fantastic, and I will show you a picture of a Galway hooker in the bottom of this post...  Lyndsay got a Carlsberg and I can confirm that the rumor is true, Carlsberg outside of Denmark are not as good as Carlsberg inside Denmark... Finally it was 10:00pm and the band had arrived, just a guy on an amplified acoustic guitar and a girl with a large African drum. After playing one song of their own the starting asking for requests. And boy they were good, he was asked to play everything from Britney spears to Eminem to U2 to foo fighters and he was really good at all of them. He often new many songs from each band and he could just play it. The girl was mostly for back up vocals as he was lead singer and guitarist but some people requested she do a song, and it was clear she was a great singer as well. We were going to leave after 1/2 an hour but instead we decided to stay until the band called it quits around midnight. All in all it was a very fun first night in Galway.