Galway Oyster Festival

One of the main reasons that Mom and Dad came to Ireland at this time was to go to the Galway Oyster Festival. Well, let me tell you, we have found that information on the internet in Europe is much less detailed than in the States. We arrived in Galway in the pouring rain and took a taxi to our bed and breakfast. It was not quite as nice as it sounded on the web...in fact it was a dump. Oh well, we decided to take it in stride and head out to the festival. We arrived at the spot to find that it was one large tent and it would cost us 100 Euro each to get in. For our 400 Euros we would hear music, drink Guinness, and eat oysters. Hmmm, again not what we learned from the website. We decided to go into town to see what else was going on regarding the festival. The town of Galway has a stretch of shops and restaurants along a pedestrian only street. It was packed with people and we found a pub that was serving free oysters! First positive thing about Galway so far! We then heard music and a parade was coming down the street. All the people (including us) joined in the parade and walked down the street. We ran into someone we know from Dublin and stopped for a chat. He then recommended a few restaurants and we went to make dinner reservations. As we started inquiring about reservations, we found that they were all booked. We were getting nervous (and hungry). After 3 or 4 inquiries, we found one place that would take us at 9:00 p.m. Whew. We went back to the B&B to get out of the rain and relax until dinner. See the following blog entries to see how how evening progressed!