After the initial rush of activities that took place during our first two weeks here in Galway, things have definitely started to slow down. Over the past few days we have stayed at home quite a bit more than usual for some "chill time" which usually includes a late breakfast, a few movies, and eating through packages of breakfast biscuits. Sarah has been conquering some all-white jigsaw puzzles that she found online, while I've been blazing through my little book of word searches.

We're not a total loss though...on Wednesday the 19th we took a day long bus tour of Connemara, which also included a 2 hr stop at Kylemore Abbey, an absolutely gorgeous building tucked into the side of the mountain. Check out this Google pic:

Kylemore Abbey

The tour itself was a great experience...the Connemara district is stunning, with very few houses to disrupt the mountain scenery, and wild Connemara ponies grazing along the little roads. Hopefully we'll get some pictures up soon.

This past Saturday we did another day trip, this time to the largest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore. The island was charming, quaint, and (in my opinion) looked like the Ireland you see in the movies. Since we only had about 5 hours to tour, we ended up renting bikes for the day so that we could get from one end of the island to the other. This ended up being the highlight of Sarah's day and the demise of my own. Sarah, the athletic one, tore off down the road and enjoyed the scenery as she peddled along by the coast. I lagged behind, white knuckling the handlebars and trying to focus on our upcoming lunch break instead of on how "firm" the seat of my bike was. Sarah says the view from the cliffs at the end of the ride was absolutely worth it. I'm not so sure. The only thing that salvaged the day was coming across two horses on the bike ride back to the ferry. I stopped, leaned my bike against the little stone wall by the road, and fed them Sarah's sandwich :)

Yesterday we stayed at home to wach the All-Ireland Football (basically soccer, except you can pick up the ball) match between Donegal and Mayo, followed by a nice hike to a look-out spot with Celine. Dinner was Bacon and Cabbage. I could cry with how delicious that stuff is.

Pictures to come soon...and comment below if you have any ideas of things to do in or around Galway...we find that we have exhausted our list of activities and are struggling to fill these last couple of weeks!