Day 14 - Bussing to Galway

This was the day everything started to go downhill. Amy was not feeling well at all. She seemed to have picked up a very bad cold. We got up relatively early, ate breakfast and got ready to check out of the hostel. Before we left we decided to use the internet there to check our email (it was not free but I had not received my housing assignment yet for school so I really needed to). I had been waiting for the email from the University of Edinburgh accommodation people for a while. It was supposed to come weeks before. I had gotten an email from UW saying that everything was ok, just slow. However it was a week before move in so I was already a bit worried.

Well, I had received an email from the housing people. Their email said that they had guaranteed too many people housing and did not have enough rooms. It said that they were continuing to try to find us housing however it was very doubtful that they would be able to offer us any. I was very, very, very upset. There I was in a forign country looking at having to try to find an apartment right before school started in a city I did not know at all. I forwarded the message to my parents and then emailed the accommodation people back.

There was not much time to deal with this new problem though. Amy and I were bussing from Dingle to Galway that day. There are very few buses that leave from Dingle and only one in the morning so we couldn't afford to miss it.

Bussing to Galway was very uneventful. Amy slept. I borrowed Amy's ipod (because I had stupidly forgotten to bring mine) and stared out the window. This bus trip was another double transfer. However by this time we had figured out how to bus. We put our backpacks in plastic garbage bags to keep them dry. We also did not count on making our connection out of Traelee. Nothing is ever on time in or out of that station!

When we got to Galway we found our Hostel quite easily. This hostel was as different as possible from the last one we stayed in. It was huge for one thing. It was also run in a much more regimented fashion. Besides that, everyone staying there was younger. At least half of the people there appeared to be in high school! They were quite noisy and obnoxious in the halls. Luckily the rooms were pretty quiet. Here is a (very poor quality) picture of our room:



That night we went out to a pub for dinner. We walked down the main street to find somewhere. To our annoyance everywhere on the first couple blocks was full or horribly expensive. By full I don't mean all the seats were filled, I mean they appeared to be stuffed and very noisy. We were very tired by this point and just wanted something to eat and somewhere quiet to sit down. We eventually found a nice little place and had baked potatos and baked beans - a very Scottish meal.