Setting the Scene: Galway, Ireland
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 4:00AM | 4 Comments 
Galway is such a lovely city. I feel so at home here and have been so grateful to have all of the experiences I’ve had since I’ve been here.
That being said. I am COMPLETELY in another world. This town is so different from the few cities I’ve visited on the East Coast of Ireland. I honestly sometimes doubt that I’m in the same country.
South Park, Galway, IrelandGalway City is a small 70,000 person city in Galway County which is on the far West coast of Ireland straight across from Dublin (about 2.5 hours in the car). Irish is the language here and most people speak it to some extent. Most of the street signs are in both Irish and English and many restaurants, coffee shops and pubs are Irish exclusively. Meaning signs, language, menus are all exclusively in Irish. At the risk of sounding like a complete retard, I honestly had no idea Irish was still this much alive.
I remember sitting on a bus in Dublin when I was there a couple of years ago and noticing some old women speaking the language. I laughed and wondered what remote part of the country they were from. Now – I know.
Galway is also known as a hippie city. It’s got an incredibly laid back vibe. Everyone walks or bikes everywhere. There are street musicians at every turn playing everything from the Pipes to a giant African drum. Everyone seems to know everyone; it’s difficult even for me to walk down the street without seeing someone I know or have at least seen/met before. Galway’s also a huge university town with two large universities within city limits so there are hoards of young people – which is great.
I live in Salthill, which is a 
My street in Salthill, Galway, Irelandsuburb of Galway City. It’s known as the sort of beachy-vacation home area of Galway. I live up on this hill with a park next to me. My bedroom is on the second story and looks out over Galway Bay. I can see the Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands and the beach from my bed. It’s amazing. Salthill has its own set of shops, stores, restaurants and pubs; so it’s easy to stay really close to home and not miss a thing. It’s about a 20 minute walk for me down the beachfront “Prom” to city center or about a 5 minute bus ride. Not too shabby.
The park next to my house always has people in it. There are youth teams who hold soccer practice, people who come to throw a tennis ball for their dog and groups of teenagers lurking in the corners of the big walls that outline it smoking and drinking and well… being teenagers. It’s a really lovely green park and it’s perfect that it slopes up just in time to hit the deep blue water of Galway Bay. My window faces West towards the park and then ocean and every night I get to watch amazing sunsets off the ocean. I really have it pretty good.
Sunset on the ocean, from my bedroomI’ll get into my roommates more later, but our living situation is interesting. I live with 4.5 boys (Arian is 6 so he’s only .5 a person). They are all about as different from me as possible. We disagree on mostly everything and sometimes I feel like I’m an exhibit in some crazy museum about conservative American rednecks. Our house is big though and quite wonderful. All of our different backgrounds and opinions really add to the uniqueness of this city, and I’m not sure I would trade any of it.
En Route to Galway, Galway, Ireland in My Trips
Reader Comments (4)
You've sold me. I think I am in love and haven't even been to Galway yet. Two weeks. I am SO excited!!! Can't wait to experience all of this!
you paint a lovely picture of Galway :) But my favourite bit is that sunset picture... so lovely! <3
Man, that town sounds really cool. I had NO idea people speak Irish still! Thanks for the info. Love you friend.
@D - Can't wait til you get here! It's going to be so much fun, I'm heading to the €2 store today to pick out tacky green things. You'll be the first person I've met from the twitterverse, so get excited :)
@Maggie - the funniest part, is that I actually took that picture with my iPhone because I was desperate to get it and my real camera was out of batteries, HA! I got some more good ones last night though that I'll post soon.
@LK - You're telling me! I was the same way. The first bar I went into I had to ASK which toilet was the ladies and which for the men. Turns out Mná (pronounced how it looks - men-ah) means "woman" in Irish and Fear (pronounced more like far) means "men". I TOTALLY would have guessed wrong on that one.