Galway Shopping Trek

My roommate Karla and I decided to spend the day shopping in Galway. Also, two of the quilt show exhibits were located in churches off the university campus. We took a cab to Galway Cathedral, where we saw the Last Supper quilt, and then walked to St. Nicholas Church to see the Christmas quilt exhibit. After that, we ventured onto the aptly named Shop Street. We were delighted to find an open-air crafts and farmers market. The weather was nice, and we had a delightful day.

Today I'm going to try to keep Ms. Verbosity in check. I took a lot of pictures of miscellaneous things that caught my eye. Most of them are self-explanatory. I'll just make a few notes that will make sense when you look at the pictures.

One of the things I forgot to mention after I had to retype my post yesterday was that there is a very large quilt of the Last Supper (perhaps 6 feet by 18 feet) located in Galway Cathedral. It is a quilt pieced by color value and the pieces are about one inch square. It is a work of art for sure. It's really the only quilt that convinced me to post multiple pictures, mainly because it's too special to wait until I get home. I hope you're able to imagine its splendor from these images. In one, I'm holding my finger up for scale. I've also pictured the entire quilt and a bit of the quilting of Jesus' face on the opposite side. It's hard for me to tell on my iPad how well you'll be able to see the quilting, so I'm hopeful that it works out. If not, I'll post it again when I have more editing capability.

Here are a few more of my editorial comments:

Is there anything more impressive than the stained glass in the cathedrals and churches of Europe? Nothing, except possibly the hunky Irish men. . . the ones that make me feel like an ancient druid. As we were strolling the market, I stopped to ask questions of a few people. Honestly, these folks were so charming that I had to take their pictures just to recall the good feelings and pleasant conversations I had with them. You will enjoy them for their hunkiness.

And may I just say here that I seriously need a grandchild.

The only thing I like more than hunky Irish men is cats . . . and my sweet husband, Mike.

Wexford Strawberries. I restrained myself from telling the young man selling them that they couldn't possibly compare with Oregon berries. As I've said before, we in Oregon are snooty about our berries. We don't have much more to be snooty about, and so we are particularly possessive about our berry snootiness. I'm sure you understand. Some people have sunshine and warm climates. In Oregon, we have strawberries in June. Neh, neh, neh.

The open air market had me pining for Erik and Mae. They would have loved seeing all the wonderful stuff there. Gorgeous vegetables and huge artichokes. Also delicious looking hummus and other Mediterranean delights.

As I've said before, I love the streets of Europe, no matter where I happen to be. It is like being in Disneyland . . . only much, much better. No tickets are required.

We finished our day by having lunch at a nice little restaurant called Maxwell's Bistro. I had a goat cheese salad with pureed beets, roasted peppers, hunks of grilled eggplant, and luscious mixed greens. The goat cheese on top had been broiled, I think. It was warm, while the rest of the salad was cold. It was so delicious that I nearly burst into tears.

And I think that's all I need to tell you for today. We're back at the hotel. We've been told that there's some sort of concert going on tonight and that we would be well served to stay in our hotel. Our tour bus driver, Michael, told us that the food at the hotel just across the turning circle from us is pretty good. That's our plan for the rest of the day.

My feet are hurting from all the walking we did, and I have an early start for tomorrow's scenic hill hike. Keep your fingers crossed for dry weather. I'm going rain or shine, but shine would definitely be preferred.