Highlights: Buail isteach! (Gaelic for, "Come on in!")

Since we arrived in Belfast on January 24^th, we have not had a chance to venture outside of the Belfast city limits. All that changed this week. Dave had to attend a conference in Galway, Republic of Ireland, and I got to tag along with him. Monday morning we woke up before the sun and finished our packing. After dropping off Toby at the boarding facility, we taxied over to the train station and headed south for a mini vacation. Traveling into the countryside treated our eyes to herds of animals with new babies, and lusciously green rolling hills. Oddly enough, as we traveled through the middle of the island, we noted that the landscape reminded one of the scenery found along M-115 driving in northern Michigan. One of the biggest differences we noted about the trains themselves in Europe was that they travel on time (opposed to the Amtrak which gets frequently delayed). The only stops we made were scheduled station pick-ups, which allowed us to arrive to Dublin on time. (We knew we had arrived in The Republic before we saw a welcome sign because all of the signs started appearing bilingually in Gaelic and English.) We had to stop in Dublin because the train from Belfast to Galway does not go all the way through; one must travel to Dublin, and then take a trolley to the second station to continue on the journey. We were told to look for “Lewis” (the name of the trolley). Looking and looking, we stumbled upon a trolley that was about to depart called “Luas”. After stepping onto the trolley, which happened to be the correct one due to shear dumb luck, we realized that “Lewis” was actually “Luas”, and we had jumped on board without paying. Not being able to do much about our trolley hopping, we traveled onto our connecting station and got to the next train with barely two minutes to spare. Quite out of breath at this point, we were glad we had a two hour train ride to relax and play travel Scrabble in between watching the Irish Sea flow next to us along the tracks. Fast forward a couple of hours, and we arrived at our hotel on Galway Bay (coincidentally also the name of the hotel) in the village of Salthill on the outskirts of Galway. The hotel was a lovely resort, this week packed with over one hundred very smart people dedicated to the management and control of invasive species. While Dave spent most of his days sitting shoulder to shoulder taking notes with stiff-shirted colleagues in presentations about the economic costs of invasive species, I relaxed in the atrium, went for a run along the coast, and participated in a hotel-sponsored water aerobics class. The water aerobics class was simply a hoot. It was me plus four other 90-something women who put my athletic ability to shame in the water. We were led by Anna, a strict instructor with a thick Russian accent. As the class grew to a finish, Deloris, one of the nonagenarians, led us facial exercises to make our faces more beautiful, which involved saying the letters A, O, U, & X very slowly ten times. When Dave wasn’t in meetings and I wasn’t relaxing by the pool, we had delicious meals and drinks in Galway over the course of the week. Every morning we were treated at the hotel to a full Irish breakfast, including gluten free toast, roasted potatoes, poached and scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, cereals, and yogurt to highlight some of the feast. We ventured into town for dinner, though. One of the pubs had U.S. dollar bills thumb tacked to one of its walls, and I was told that the reason for this was that the U.S. dollar was cheaper than wallpaper. J We also visited another establishment, The King’s Head, which got its name from a former owner in the 1600s who was the axe man to King Charles I of England. The current owners have tried to keep it as authentic as it was 400 years ago, with coal fires in each room of the pub and exposed cobblestone in certain parts of the floor. There we were also treated to some traditional Irish music along with some traditional Irish Guinness. Another shop we stopped in was the only shop in the world which makes authentic Claddagh rings. Apparently other stores in the world are licensed to manufacture and sell replicas, but this store is the only official maker of said ring. We bought one of the rings, as we didn’t know when the next time would be to buy a real Claddagh ring in Galway. After our time in the city center of Galway, we escaped back to the beach at the hotel and had fun beachcombing the abandoned sea shells mixed in with dried out seaweed. Once the tide rolled back in, effectively erasing the beach, we boarded a bus on the last day for a conference-sponsored “field trip” on the Corrib Princess to take a river cruise. We saw some fascinating ruins and breathtaking scenery as we trolled down the waterway. Post-field trip we changed into nicer clothes and feasted in the closing conference banquet where we dinned by candelabra light on four courses including poached salmon (Sarah) and Irish beef sirloin (Dave). The feast was so grand it reminded us of Thanksgiving dinner in April. As Thursday’s celebratory dinner ended and Friday’s sun rose in the sky, we packed our things and prepared to say goodbye to our four day vacation on Galway Bay. After over two months in which we made a stressful move and relocation and made an adjustment to a new culture and life, this was a much needed and welcome trip out of our usual routine and schedule to relax and recharge. Feeling refreshed, we look forward to the next three days appearing on House Hunters International, and then sending Sarah back to Michigan for a week for more House Hunters International work. Looking forward to a good night sleep back in our own beds.