I’ve moved!

Well, I have been busy the last couple of days! I feel as if I have a lot to catch you up on!

First of all…I got all packed up and took a train from Tullamore yesterday into the Galway area. I’m in a new space…and check out the view of the little garden from my room.

                

I met two young women from Germany this morning who were also staying in the same house with me.  My host here had pointed out the bus stop into Galway City yesterday, and these two ladies happened to have done it before and happened to be going that way this afternoon! Perfect…because that was what I wanted to do today. I went along with them to the bus.

It was sort of a drizzly day…still lots of people in the city!

As I was walking around I heard some chanting…like a protest, and went to see what was going on.

            

I asked one woman watching the commotion, “I’m not understanding. What are they protesting?” She smiled. “It’s a show,” she said.

Then I met a gentleman named Michael,  sitting near the river. (The River Corrib runs through Galway into Galway Bay.) When I saw him he was sitting on a the bridge with a cup for coins. I walked a little past…thinking…and then I turned around. “Would you like some lunch?” I asked him.

Actually he didn’t want lunch, but he did allow me to sit down next to him and he told me his story. He said he’d been homeless for 17 years and…(this is the part that amazed me)…that he loved his life. I could tell by his eyes he was telling the truth. I felt a deep love of people coming from Michael. I asked him how he ended up living the way he is, and he admitted to me that it had to do with alcohol, for one thing, and with his experience in the military for another. I will not forget meeting and talking with him.

There were swans on the River Corrib today.

I said goodbye to Michael and went to see a nearby church where he said he went to mass on Sundays. I found there was a wedding that had just ended and lots of people standing around taking wedding photos. I left them to their day…but I did get this photo of the statue of Mary outside the building.

And some photos of beautiful Galway Bay…