Sunday, and I know it's Wednesday already. I will catch up.

Today was our last full day in Galway. I think we were hoping to feel a little more settled here, staying for 3 nights, but the nature of the hotel and what we were doing with our days kind of prevented that, for me, anyway. I know that people really like Galway, and I can see why. If I ever get a chance to come back here, I'd like to be situated differently and not during race week.

But c'est la vie. Today is Ronnie's birthday and we planned to go to the races to celebrate. The weather forecast was very uncertain, which made it hard to plan, and even though it didn't rain, it was chilly and the crowd was rather sparse (don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people- it just wasn't packed). Ronnie looked beautiful in her dress and fascinator, and I had my new blue blazer and tie, so it would have been more fun had it been more of a scene. We stayed to watch a race, and then headed back to check out the town.

It's a nice little city. Lots of pedestrian streets, as they seem to do well in these old European cities. We had lunch in a nice little patisserie and walked around. Lots of shops and pubs and street musicians. I could see it being a good time. We parked in what they call here a multi-storey parking lot, which was almost big enough to park cars in. Someone was nice enough to jump out of her car and help me back into the tiny little spot off the narrow lane. And I'm a pretty skilled parker, even with the left side thing. Can't imagine how Americans from suburban communities handle it.

Then back to the hotel. The hotel. The fabulous g Hotel. It's an odd place. We've come across this kind of thing before- a hotel with pretensions and intentions of being a 5-star hotel, but just not quite able to put it all together. It's a couple of miles outside the city center, which is fine, but it backs up on a shopping mall of some sort and shares a parking lot with something resembling a Lowe's and a movie theater. So unless you pull in front and get valet parking, you go into the mall parking lot and park by the lift.

The lobby is very glitzy and there are a series of salons with cocktail tables and chairs and finally a room with a bar in it and even more finally a restaurant. On the other end is a nightclub of some sort. It's all done in pink and silver. Our room is huge and luxurious, with a double shower and a strangely long space between the bed and the sitting area (the TV, which is in the sitting area, is easily 20 feet from the bed). I must note that, for the most part, the people working in the hotel were very nice and more than helpful. Just couldn't recommend it for the price.

The "nice" front of the fabulous g Hotel

The trash from my car in the only kind of bag they could offer me at the fabulous g hotel, relaxing in the lobby

They do have a nice spa here and Ronnie was able to get a birthday massage. Then we had a very nice dinner in part of town that was absolutely mobbed, so we walked around and then had simply had enough of it, so we went back to the room.

The next morning I walked around again. Here's the town square and an old cemetery nearby.

Across from the cemetery, there was a vicious argument going on between a young man and woman, the woman sort of running away but still interacting with the guy, and eventually stopping. He was just screaming at her (I'm wasting my f---ing life on you!), I think about someone hitting on her and her not doing enough to discourage it. I really didn't want to get involved (and I was across the street anyway) but I did keep half an eye to make sure it didn't get violent, which it didn't.

And then we headed out of town.