G-G-G-Galway

I caught the 5pm bus down to Galway on Saturday evening, as I’d planned. A little piece of advice for anyone doing the same thing; don’t buy potato wedges, chicken and beans in the cafe at Busaras. I paid €9.30 for it, only because I was starving and there was nowhere else/no time left. But also, if you want two seats for yourself stick on Daft Punk through some rather leaky headphones. Whatever smelly fecker that’s decided to sit beside for the journey will soon have a change of heart.

I managed to fall asleep for short periods of time, but I should’ve known I’d never sleep the whole way down. I looked out the window for hours whilst listening to the CD I decided to make at 2am the night before. I stayed awake for most of the way down in spite of myself, which is something I do a lot. I have a problem with authority, especially my own. So I eventually arrived in Galway at nearly 9pm, which was nice. I texted Moyrah to tell I’d arrived. She rung me and said where was I. I said “Eyre Square”. “You sound different, Joe.” “Oh yeah, my balls dropped”. I later discovered that Moyrah, who manages a mobile phone accessory stall thingy, had me on speakerphone in her car and I had just, inadvertently, told all of them that my balls had dropped. As in this was the first ting they’d heard me say. Grrreat. But I didn’t know that at the time, so……

I decided to follow the old adage “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. I went to Supermac’s, Galway’s contribution to the culinary life of Ireland. Supermac’s, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, is an Irish chain of fast-food joints. Like McDonalds only with a few changes to the format to make things a bit more…..well, Irish. Firstly, you can get coleslaw with your chips. You can have pizza with your chips, something that hasn’t occured to “Mackers”. An actual real-life chicken died to make your fillet burger and you can see what looks exactly like chicken meat under the batter. The chips are – SHOCK! – made of potatoes instead of starch. And to top it all off, Supermac’s stays open until the birds start singing, so most peoples’ experience of Supermac’s is in a drunken state. The other fast-food cliches remain; immigrant workers, slippy floors, smelly toilets, badly-constructed burgers, fleece-wearing ex-con bouncers and they never listen to you when you say you want a Sprite with NO ICE.

One cheap meal later, I headed for the pub. Sally Long’s, a long narrow hall of a thing with a snug-type thing to the right, where Moyrah was. I gave her my present; a Trigger Happy TV inflatable phone for standing up and shouting “HELLO?? YEAH, I’M IN THE PUB. NO, IT’S RUBBISH!!!” I know this because, inevitably, Moyrah inflated the phone and did that. Several punters came across and asked her where she’d got it and it was widely acknowledged as the coolest thing since the miniature digital camera. Which I still have.

Moyrah introduced two of her friends to me; Sarah and “Debs”. Debs…..hmmm. Sarah is tall, blonde and chatty; the kind of girl you wouldn’t expect Moyrah to be friends with. Of course, by the end of the night, I understood exactly why they were friends since I don’t know Moyrah as well as I’d like to think. Debs is small, short brown hair and has the cutest little pixie nose. Not in a “The League of Gentlemen” way, more like a…..um…..pixie? Right.

So Moyrah had apparently accumulated €1300 in goodwill 21st money (that’s why I was there, by the way!) so the Milkybars were on her. I sat in a corner, terribly cosy, yappin away to Cormac who was down from colllege in Norn Iron. He’s moved in with his friend Frank and a Frenchman who’ll only speak in Irish. There’s a sitcom in there somewhere. Cormac just came out and – SHOCK! – is experiencing bigotry from the tolerant folks up there. College is going shit for him. My leaving college may not have strengthened my moral authority in telling him to stay, so I didn’t tell him what to do in that regard. He’s moving to Dublin for the summer, maybe things will get better for him then.

By now, I’d met most of Moyrah’s familia and (large) circle of friends and got tanked on Moyrah-purchased drink. We made it out onto the street and trundled along to Cuba. Cuba as in the club, not the communist Carribbean island currently home to Al Qaeda and his band of merry men. Moyrah got a lift there and was in before us, so I actually had to open my wallet and pay 10 yoyos in. Once there, I soon realised the truth. Dublin sucks. It really does. You pay so much for everything and get so little. A Dublin club would be €10 in and for that you get to buy €4.30 pints and stand in a corner cos there’s no fecking seats and no room on the dancefloor. The music is often crap/ridiculous/too loud and everyone is a ponce. But, ladies and gentlemen, this may not be the first time you’ve heard this but Galway fucking rocks!! It’s like it’s on E (good E, mind); everyone’s happy and genuine and beautiful, the atmosphere couldn’t be more electric if it was sponsored by the ESB, the streets buzz, the smells are intoxicating (a load of all sorts of restaurants)…….it’s just such a young place. It’s a rapidly-expanding city on the edge of Europe and to be part of the whole Galway experience was brilliant. I am rather taken wit the place, to be honest. I’d seriously live there. The next morning, I was putting hypothetical possibilities/situations where I could possibly move to Galway. It must be something to do with being descended from the Wesht.

j

p.s. more to follow when it isn’t 4am……..