Here is a picture of the Westwood House Hotel that we stayed at while in Galway. For some reason remembering the whole house / hotel part was particularly difficult and would get us into a bit of trouble when trying to take a cab back to the hotel from the King's Head, but we'll get to that later. For now it's just the beginning of a snap happy day. For our tour group the ongoing joke was that one of us would crash the ritzy wedding being held there, which our tour guide added wouldn't be the first time tour members would have been involved in such a debacle. However, to my knowledge, nobody did anything more than get sloshed in the bar... that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sorry about the black border around the picture, I was a bit rushed and didn't take adequate overlapping photos of the sky so that I could crop it properly.


Before I get too far, Helen randomly took this photo that makes me laugh. The tufts of grass are so huge that at first glance it makes me look like I'm hiding amongst them. My own personal picture of a leprechaun and it's me. Fun-nee.


Our first task of the day.. a long drive. Basically we were headed to Celtic Crystal. It's a family run shop, husband slowly working the cash register but quickly working in jokes about his whip cracking wife, and wife playing tour guide to the tourists. This stuff is apparently only available for export, can't be sold within Ireland, and is all handmade. They actually had a 'master' crystal-smith?.. available who demonstrated how they use a variety of grinding stones and water to carve their designs from memory. The speed and fluidity of this guys movements while making the glass were pretty darn impressive. Likewise, the products at the store are expensive. Helen and I both ended up getting little goblets for our mothers, which I can tell you they both loved.


Next stop, Connemara Marble. Again, we went to this shop, full of cute 'little' things made from, you guessed it, connemara marble. This particular type of green marble took something like 700 million years to form. Apparently they were digging it up and carving it up like nobodies business until someone stopped to ask.. "Hey, where are we going to get more of this stuff when we run low?", which is why you can't buy more than a small amount now. No more green church columns for you! They were all out of clover cuff links or I would have bought some for myself, so I ended up getting a few worry / power stones for friends and family. The first two shots above are some random store across the street from the marble shop. In fact it's only significance is Helen's bladder, which had to be emptied there. I do however, like the lego guy getting attacked by badly drawn pigs, apparently designs from the 9th century couldn't include arms, or realistic animals.. hehe.

The last shot is only for old folks so pay attention. This bridge was apparently used in some John Wayne movie I've never seen called The Quiet Man? Something to do with a bicycle, I dunno. But for those of you that have seen it, or are old enough to care, there ya go!