Ireland 2020

Earlier this year, after thinking about travelling to Europe and visiting my friend Eve, who lives in Cambridge, we met in Dublin for our first trip together. Eve looks like a model and has the most beautiful red hair I’ve ever seen. She’s funny and we could talk for days. Our love story started at a summer camp we both worked at one year when I was hired in mid July (after getting fired from my job at a tennis club). She was the “weaving” expert (I think she taught the kids how to make bracelets) and I was the receptionist (sorting mail and answering approximately one phone call a day from the boy’s camp across the lake). We became quick friends and bonded over our schedules and making fun of each other. 

At the end of the summer, when I heard of her and another friend’s plan to stay in my city for a couple of weeks at a shitty hostel, I invited them to stay with me instead. My parents weren’t around for the majority of the summer and were renting a place close to downtown with an extra room. They were on board so we all travelled back to the city together and planted ourselves at my parents’ house to finish off the last couple weeks of the season. It was largely uneventful until one night, my sister came home to us watching a movie in bed and eating all the Oreos from the package, as you do. She started crying and accusing us of being selfish assholes, after only having met my two friends a few times in passing. I still think of this memory and laugh. Eve was terrified.

We stayed in touch for a long time and grew to be closer friends when she did a semester of school here. Since moving, we’ve kept in contact largely through mailing each other cards and messaging on WhatsApp. When she relocated to Cambridge on a year-long trip for a job, she insisted this would be the ideal time to travel with her in Europe. I resisted at first but eventually booked my vacation and tickets. We had narrowed our choices down to Scotland, Italy, and Ireland as she had seen enough of England and had already been to Portugal, Poland, Spain, France, etc. She’s well travelled and just gets up and goes places. I often marvelled to her about how crazy it was that as adults, the world allowed us to travel. The idea of walking through an airport alone scares me and the fact that anyone would trust me to keep important ID and my carry-on felt so strangely grown up and unlike who I was as a person (fundamentally immature and at odds with international travel). I only found out recently you can bring nail clippers and razors on planes. This whole time on trips requiring I take a plane, I’ve been refraining from shaving. 

When I arrived at the airport, I went through customs alone (because I was travelling alone) and made it out into the general waiting area. I found the car rental desks and sat down on a bench only to have a loud Irish lady position herself next to me while taking a phone call. It sounded dramatic. I brought out my computer and waited for Eve by watching an episode of Stranger Things. She texted when she had landed so I went to the arrival waiting area for her to come through. It had been probably six or seven years since we last saw each other and it was so good to see her again. It wasn’t exactly as if no time had passed because we had both gotten older and better (hopefully).

We got our bearings and picked up our car rental which only Eve could drive. Also, it was a stick. I tried to get into the driver’s side first because of my not being accustomed to driving on that side of the road. I made this mistake a few times. Eve’s driving skills impressed me the whole trip.

I was responsible for navigating out of the airport and onto the highway’s straight route we would be taking to our little hotel in Galway. It couldn’t have been simpler but I somehow managed to bungle the directions and set us up in what seemed like hundreds of roundabouts. So many countries have been burdened with roundabouts and I can’t get over it. The exits all look identical and to be able to notice the signage while also driving feels too difficult for me. Like you’d be slowing down while everyone who knows where they’re going passes you on the other side of the road.

Eve handled driving and my navigation skills like a pro. We made a quick stop to this little fry up spot in a small town. It was nice to sit down and catch up on what seemed like years when we didn’t see each other face to face. She admitted she was nervous about how we would get along. I said she was nuts to worry. Maybe we were on our best behaviour because we hadn’t seen each other properly in ages or maybe we were just happy to be on vacay. But it felt easy to chat with and overcome all of travel’s little hiccups with her. She’s a true partner. 

It’s crazy how driving can take so much energy out of you when you aren’t the person doing the driving. I imagine I was also jetlagged and Eve didn’t have the same problem. She did, however, have to deal with my talking and choosing what music we listened to in the car which I bet is like having jet lag every day. 

When we got to our hotel, we managed to successfully find the hard to pinpoint parking garage underneath a mall and walked with our luggage to the front desk. The lady there gave us the option to upgrade to a two-bedroom apartment across the street instead of the one-bedroom room we would have had if we stayed put in this old, creaky house. We were a bit confused but decided to go with the bigger option, only briefly wondering to ourselves if it was all a scam to get us away from the cooler one bedroom experience. It wasn’t and we walked across the street to the apartment building, following a woman who had taken the same deal we had. We had previously seen this woman outside but she had come back to the original building to ask for clarifications on the instructions given by the front desk person to “cross the street.” The lady was also given a map to point out the location of the apartment building we were looking for. The front desk people decided it would be best to send her ahead with a member of their staff who knew where to go so we followed along happily. Once in the building, Eve and I took the stairs which were brutal given the large luggage we both were carrying. Once on our floor, we met the lady from before who had turned around from the only door that could have conceivably led to our respective apartments saying, that our rooms “weren’t there” and “we were likely on the wrong floor” like she was. As I was pretty sure we were on the right floor and 100% sure this woman was an idiot, Eve and I decided to gamble on the door the lady had insisted led to nowhere, the only door available to us, and walk through. When looking ahead, you could see a sign indicating the exact way to get to our apartment doors. The lady from before bustled in behind us saying she didn’t notice the sign and thought she was in the wrong place because there was a cleaning cart in the way. We separated from her and made our way to our apartment for the next three days.

The space was lovely and huge and we each had our own bedrooms and bathrooms so we could shower at the same time. There was a giant kitchen and living room with floor to ceiling windows where we would sit in, in the mornings after Eve had made us tea and coffee. The space felt way too big for both of us and we expressed gratitude to have it as a place of rest after packed days of walking. 

Galway was beautiful and cold. We were there in the midst of winter and the wind from the ocean and piers made it feel cozier when getting into the car to drive somewhere or walking into a place for brunch. Every restaurant in Ireland had cold, unheated bathrooms. This confused me. Do they not want you to linger too long in bathrooms? Why not? We ate so well in Galway. We couldn’t pick a bad restaurant. It felt both like a bit of a tourist destination and full of students and locals. 

The rest of the first day flew by, because I was on my time so we picked a spot to eat that was recommended by an Irish colleague and walked there before it got too dark. We had pasta and ate out of these edible, compostable bowls. We left and went to a pub for a pint of local beer. It was both mine and Eve’s dream to have a pint of Guinness in Ireland and she believed it was more crucial to have it in Dublin where it was made. Instead, the first night we had this reddish beer from Galway that we liked. We drank at a pub and felt familiar enough in the streets to walk home with little directions from our Google Maps. I still stayed glued to my phone in case we took a wrong turn but as I said, the streets were easy to navigate.

The next day, our plan was to remain close because we had bigger plans the rest of our time there and we didn’t want to blow our load too quickly. Also there was a lot to look at and explore and it was again one of those cold but sunny days that make it nice to walk around in. We had brunch at Ard Bia and spent a solid five minutes debating whether or not we should buy their cookbook and totes and cute stationary. We decided against it because we travel light and didn’t want to be carrying around all that shit all day anyway. I knew I’d want to have a break but not right after brunch, you know?

We walked around to a couple of places and went into this woman’s store who was so lovely and a great first person to meet on our trip (besides the lady from the apartment but she wasn’t Irish, I don’t think). Her store is called My Shop…. Granny Likes It: https://www.myshopgranny.com/. She had this cool dog whose vibe I couldn’t put my finger on. At some points the dog wanted to be pet and at others, the dog would growl a bit at us so I decided to wait for it to approach before giving it too much attention. She was great. The wares in the store were sweet and I bought some Irish cards. The lady took out some paper and asked us if we wanted advice on where to eat and shop. She wrote us a bullet list for our reference and helped us locate each of the spots on our Galway maps. Irish hospitality at its best, if that’s a thing. I remember her often and fondly. She even asked us if we wanted to go to her trivia night which I’m now regretting having missed. What were we doing this night?

We continued on our journey and bought some expensive chocolate from this bougie chocolate place and looked at this enormous bookstore that felt as if it had a million rooms but it was more like 3–4. I didn’t buy any, though. Self-restraint.

We eventually walked on the Salt Hill coast route which felt as if it took ages but it was beautiful and took us a bit out of the city part. It brought us closer to the part I called “over the river” Galway or like the part of Paris where Notre Dame is where you have to go over a bridge to get to it. In my head, there was a line of demarcation and it was defined in real life by the water and bridges. At Kai, we had some tea and some fancy cake Eve ordered and decided where we wanted to go next. I was tired so I probably suggested we go home for a power nap which I did. Eve worked out, I believe, because she’s disciplined and needed to burn the extra energy off. I slept soundly during every nap and mostly woke up feeling great. We had some conversation about dinner and both landed on Tartare (https://tartaregalway.ie/) where we ate a vegetarian dinner and shared a bottle of wine. Eve inspired me to eat more vegetables and less meat on this trip and I was in a better mood and had more energy, despite my jet lag, to thank her for it. We had potatoes and a cheese board.

Eve was more intent on going out to drink but I can stomach about ¼ of the alcohol that she can and would slow down at night after all the walking. I tried to keep up, I did but I would feel my eyes getting heavier and would be blinking to stay awake. We went to this cool-looking pub I imagine would get considerably busier as the night went on but I didn’t have it in me. We ordered more red beer and went off to get fries and onion rings at a chips place before bed. Bed was so sweet that night. We crashed hard.