Remember Last Friday?

So. Thoor Balylee. This is an old Norman Tower which William Bulter Yeats restored with the help of his wife, George. It's set in the western countryside of Ireland, pretty removed from everything. It was a very green drive out to see it.

I could go into a lot of detail... but I'm tired and it's almost a week later. Suffice to say it was really cool. The tour started out with a narrated slideshow, which included some readings of Yeat's poetry. I haven't had much exposure to Yeats, but what I heard I really liked. The tower and the surrounding landscape inspired much of his poetry, and looking around it was easy to see why. 

The whole house is preserved as a museum, and we climbed all the way to the top on the infamous winding stair. It was definitely reminiscent of climbing the Chartres Cathedral Belltower, which my family may recall. Standing on top of the tower was an incredible experience. There I was, wind whipping my hair, a square stone tower hundreds of years old beneath my feet, looking out over a crenelated wall at a breathtaking panorama of rivers, trees, hills. Completely amazing on its own, and add to that the fact that this was the inspiration, the actual setting, for so much renowned poetry... well, it was one of the coolest ten minutes of my life.

Look at that, I actually did go into detail! I spent a lot of money there, too. I found a Celtic Book of Days that was just beautiful, and filled with quotes from mythology and old manuscripts. I also bought a matted photo of the tower, along with a book of Yeat's poetry and a few postcards.

So that was last Friday. I'll try to update soon with some more detailed Galway Trip tidbits. 

We discovered a new place in the Temple Bar area tonight. Well, we ran into a few of the guys from our program, and they took us there. It's called Gogarty's, there's actually room to stand, and they have live Irish music every single night. I'm looking forward to going back and spending more time there. The other highlight of my Thursday out on the town was an Italian Ice Cream place. I had lemon, and it was amazing.

Sorry that this is all so out of order and confused, but I'll hopefully tell you more about my week soon. I'm taking the ferry to Wales tomorrow, so I want to get some sleep tonight.

-Grace