Txting European boys - 17 euro cents per message...

...time spent deciphering Irish slang words and phrases - priceless.

Day 16 - on Saturday, we spent some time exploring Galway.

Galway is nicknamed "Ireland's Cultural Heart." it's a little beach town that the Irish love to relax and play in.

it's also common destination for Irish people to have hen & stag parties (bachelor & bachelorette). i've seen some crazy things on 6th street, but these people go ALL out with their costumes.

this is a picture taken in the main pedestrian walk in the middle of the city.

it's lined with tons of shops, cafes and pubs.

look at the gold ring hanging from the red building on the right side of the picture. can you see what that is?

it's a Claddagh ring! Galway is where they originated. needless to say, we all got one from one of the many jewelry stores here.

after some brief shopping, we visited St. Nicholas' Church.

it's tucked into the middle of the city, so it was hard to get a good picture of the outside of it.

this is a shot of the altar from the middle. it wasn't very grand of a cathedral, and it really wouldn't be

something to write home about, BUT

Christopher Columbus prayed here before he left for the new world! cool, right?

other than that, we checked out the Latin Quarter...

which was pretty lively.

it definitely gives Galway some cultural credit.

and the Spanish Arch (which is so small that we kind of blocked it when we posed in front of it, ha)

there were lots and lots of swans by the water front. they made for pretty pictures.

(which would be even better if the colors showed up correctly)

other than the standard tourist attractions in the city, we lucked out and the Galway Speed Boat Festival and races were going on. it was sort of a mini Docklands Festival (which we went to in Dublin, remember?)

or maybe you feel like learning Falconry over the weekend. you can also do that in Galway at Ireland's School of Falconry.

because "flying a hawk is the experience of a lifetime"

(needless to say, we were more than a little amused by this)

that night, we scoped out a good spot to watch U.S.A. v. England in the World Cup

(U S A! U S A!)

we stayed in the most lively pub that we found...which happened to be where a group of about 20 Irish guys were having a Stag Party.

infiltrate Irish stag party? check.

we hung out with them for a while haha

one of them had a guitar and they drank, watched the game and sang songs all night (which later just turned into drunken slurring)

they sang mostly American songs (including a bit of Garth Brooks) but we also learned some new drinking songs like Dirty Old Town

i got a pretty good recording of them singing Molly Malone, but this is just a quick video to give you a taste of the mayhem (i have no idea what song this, i have to show it to an Irish person to figure it out)

this picture is captioned "i don't usually trade clothes with people at bars, but...."

and we'll just leave it at that :)

once the game was over, we left that party and met up with some of the other people on our trip that had come to Galway for the weekend.

Good times were had by all :)