TLDR – Saturday day trip to Galway with Wes, Cari , John, Maddex, Roxi and Dad.
Headed to Galway
Sitting at the dinning room table using his tiny Mac book Wes booked our tickets Thursday night. He booked for a Saturday train ride to Galway on the west coast of Ireland. The plans was for Wes, John, Cari and I to take Mila and Maddex with us Saturday for a day trip to Galway. Saturday morning before we were set to leave Mila decided she was sick and did not want to go, Khaleesi was not interested either, claiming sick as well; guess we’ll take Roxi! Out the door at 0800 for the LUAS. Nice to have Roxi because we bring the stroller. I am not sure what to do with my hands when I’m not pushing a stroller; problem solved.
We took the Greenline to the Redline (30 minutes), Redline to Heuston station (10 minutes) Then boarded Irish rail train to Galway (2.5 hours). Was a bit of a long journey; Kids were great the whole time. Roxi took a bit of a nap in my arms on the train ride. I posed her a bit while she was passed out; fun. Maddex and Cari played Stardew valley most of the ride. Cari was teaching Maddex how to play and Maddex was making a new best friend.
We made it to Galway
We’re off the train time to explore Galway. The first stop on my list was the playground in park in the middle of town, Eyre Square. once we crossed the street from the train station into the square the kids saw the playground and started running. Sad face; the playground was fenced off and closed. Not sure why but it was closed. No park, guess we should do something else. Around the corner, Cari visited her fist Irish pay public toilet. Cari and John figured the toilets were hosed out or something as a cleaning method. Behind us we explored an underground mall of sorts and picked up coffee for the Mills and a no sugar slushy for the kids before we walked above ground and explored the no car shopping streets.
At the end of the no-car streets, we walked through a narrowly spaced street market of sorts with food and stuff vendors. It was a bit of a challenge to make it between the stands with the stroller, but we managed to snake our way through without running people over or buying anything. Around the corner, there were a few more vendors along the street. One of them Cari and Wes stopped at for a bit to check out a cactus stand. They miss their cactus collection back home is the story they are telling.
Back to the no-car street, we walked a bit then turned down some random ally that looked safe enough. It looked like we not be mugged exploring it, well thats what Cari said. Near the end of the ally, we came upon a glass wall overlooking a walkway into some ruins from the 1600-1700’s. We took the walkway and explored the exhibit for a bit. Maddex made it all the way down inside of the ruins on the gravel walk way. Roxi and I stayed up top, because of stroller and stairs is bad math.
Enough adult stuff, we crossed over the rapidly raging river and found a playground for the kids to play in. By now Roxi has asked to use the toilet 5 times and not gone. The sixth time, in the grass at the park, she pees for a good minute. Finally, that problem is dealt with for a bit. We played in the park until Maddex needed to the toilet. We snuck into the Jerry Inn and used the lobby washroom for him. Bodies drained we walked to the big huge cathedral thing in upriver a bit.
Cari and the kids are starting to run low on energon. We were going to ride back on the 1900 train. We called going home earlier as an option and voted to take the 1700 train home. With a quick stop at M&S for snacks and junk food, we boarded our train headed for home. On the way home Wes was measuring the speed of the train using his phone and science and it turns out the Irish rail trains run around 160kph at the high speed runs. Never would have guessed they ran that fast. Turns out they do. Roxi and I played on our phone. Maddex and Cari played more video games – they sure had a blast bonding over their game. – another great adventure.
The Rest of the pictures
