Day 89: Tyrrellspass - Galway

We slept well in the apartment, although it was more like a long nap. We were all there: Daddy Edu, Uncle Joan, Aunties Nita and Mariola, and me, of course, who takes up the most space in bed without moving. We went to bed late and had to be out by eleven. They woke me up in a hurry, as if the apocalypse were coming in a bathrobe.

After breakfast, which consisted of coffee, toast, and sleepy gazes, we took a short walk to the golf course next door. Nice course, very green, but no balls for me. What kind of field is that? I imagined a frisbee party, and it turned out to be a serious thing of humans in silence with clubs.

Then car—of course!—heading for Clonmacnoise, a place with a name like a magic spell, but which is actually an ancient monastery founded in the 6th century. And what a place, wow. Spectacular ruins with giant Celtic crosses, roofless churches, and round towers where the ghosts with echoes must have lived. The best thing: they let me in. I behaved like an exemplary monk, sniffing everything without making a noise and without marking any tomb, for the record. That said, there were a lot of people. It seemed like they had put free beer behind a sacred stone.

After the mystical walk, we went back to the car and headed for Ballinasloe, a town with a name like a sip of wine and a soul of a boring Sunday. They ate in a restaurant where I had to smell from the floor, as always. The place was nice, the food looked good, but the town... well, let's just say it didn't try very hard. Everything closed, empty streets, and an energy of collective siesta.

From there, we headed for Galway, which welcomed us with heavy clouds and another new apartment. This one doesn't have stairs, but there are soft sofas and a toilet that was already planning its silent rebellion. We got organized, rested a bit and, when the humans were activated again, we went out by car to the center.

And there began the second part of the day: the Galician drenching, Irish version. Fine but constant rain, the kind that gets into your soul. Even so, the center of Galway was bursting. Music in the street, tourists with ponchos, laughter under umbrellas. We strolled along Quay Street, the liveliest street, full of bars and street musicians who play as if it weren't raining. Then through the so-called Latin Quarter, which has little Latin beyond the name and some paella with suspicions. And finally we arrived at the famous Spanish Arch, a part of the 16th century wall next to the River Corrib. It's called that because in its time it protected the ships that traded with... yes, us, the Spanish. I didn't see a single tortilla or olé, but the name is there.

Almost at ten o'clock at night, and with my guts doing Gregorian chants, we entered a bar with a covered patio. Good music, warm atmosphere, but there was no food. Not a single measly peanut. They had some drinks (very expensive: 32 euros for four), and then we went out to look for something more nourishing.

And we found it: a giant pizza, the size of a car wheel. They bought it in another place and we went to the apartment. There, at last, the humans had dinner while I kept guard next to the pizza box with a martyr's face. Everything seemed calm... until the clogged toilet decided to star in the end of the day.

Daddy Edu, who had already warned the owner, wrote again because it still wasn't working. And then, surprise!: the owner said that we had to leave tomorrow because he didn't like being insisted on. Excuse me? Is that an argument? Since when is being polite but persistent grounds for eviction?

After several calls, messages and a few snorts from Daddy Edu, it seems that someone will come tomorrow morning to fix it. We'll see if they come or if the toilet decides to stay blocked out of pride.

That's how the day ended: between sacred stones, epic rains, cyclopean pizzas and sanitary dramas. The typical holiday Sunday, in other words.