Our first visitor and our second ( and our third)

This week has been race week in Galway. This involves 8 days of race meets at the Ballybrit racecourse and at least 10 nights of drunken madness in town. All beds are booked and drink prices become inflated!

I (Emmett) have the pleasure of working for the City Council which means that I got 1 and a half days off just for race week.

Emmett (supposibly the wordy one) has run out of steam so rather dangerously I get to tell you the rest. Well as Emmett mentioned he had time off, paid by the way how ridiculous is that? Anyway it was perfect because the stunning Mel got into town on Tuesday night and Emmett had Wednesday totally free.

So we showed Mel the sights, that took about 20 minutes, see Galway is a great place to live but it's really not that exciting when a couple of weeks ago you were in Rome. I think the highlight was bread in a can (see below). Anyway it was great to have a friend over and we caught up on some of the goss over a pint or two.

It was a good thing Mel tried out the couch because our friend Jess needed a pad in town for Thursday night. Emmett had arranged for us to go out with Paula, a friend from Macnas, and her friend Anne. Unbeknowns to us Paula had a cunning plan to beat the in town bar prices, it was called "bushing'. Bushing is a term derived from the popular Irish passtime of drinking in bushes but now it simply refers to any type of outdoor public drinking. With the term comes the traditional bushing drink, Buckfast. Buckfast is a dark sticky wine that tastes like cough syrip and clocks in at an impressive 14% alcohol, it's made by monks and costs less that 5 euro a bottle.

Buckfast in hand we headed to the Spanish arch where half of Galway was already bushing, and Buckfast bottles were everywhere. Buckfast is an unsual drink, most forms of alcohol wait until the next day to make you feel ill...

After about 3 hours of bushing (much more than we'd expected but our hosts had a stamina to be feared and respected) we finally headed back into town where we ran into Galway's inner city liquor ban. Most cities ban the alcohol, Galway only bans glass, and this is despite the fact that drinking in public is illegal. The worst part of the getting through the glass ban barriers was that they make you pour any remaining glass encased alcohol into a plastic cup, you really don't want to know what "bucky" actually looks like.

We hit one pub, danced a bit and then Emmett went a funny colour so I took him home. All through the city other couples were repeating the ritual, for some the men were past it for others the woman. On the way home we found guest number 3 for the week, she was sleeping on the fourth floor landing in a summer dress, no shoes and no handbag. Her name was Michelle and while not intially thrilled that I'd woken her up she was soon tucked up in the lounge armchairs fast asleep. Emmett took the distraction Michelle created and acted upon the nasty colour he had turned in the pub.

And that was our big night out for race week over, Emmett worked the whole next day like a real trooper.



Mel and I as we wait for her train in sunny Galway.

The next section is entitled "Weird Food we have found in Ireland" by E.P. Geoghegan.

Hidden in a can that is like a sealed up Pringles can we found bread rolls.



They actually go "pop" with the pressure! Once cooked they make good hot bread to go with soup.




And next the product Aimee found most exciting (Emmett found it odd tasting).



Yes spaghetti shaped like Superman ( in flight, standing etc) and also the Superman "S".

Well we love you,
Stay safe,
Aimee and Emmett.