Galway

 Photos by Brittany Petersen

At 12:01 p.m. on Easter Sunday, I find myself sitting alone on a bench overlooking Galway Bay. The church bells just finished tolling the noon hour. The air smells of smoke -- I don't know why -- and rain has been spitting and drizzling since I got off the bus half an hour ago. It's cold, and damp, and I wrap my coat tightly around me, pull my wool cap down over my forehead, and take out my notebook and pen. What am I doing here?

I don't know anyone in this city; on a whim, and with a desire to see something of Ireland other than Dublin, I bought a round-trip bus ticket for the day. I could have gone on a tourist guided bus to see castles or cliffs, two things I love. But my success in my first few days of solo travel bolstered me to the point that I dared strike out on my own to experience the real Ireland -- whatever that means.

I had intended get on the first bus of the morning, but it failed to stop as I chased it down the street, so I waited an hour for the next one. I had also intended to spend the bus ride reading and gazing out at the central Irish countryside, then hire a bicycle in Galway to ride along the western coast. Fatigue (thanks to a pub crawl the night before) ensured the bus ride was little more than an uncomfortable nap, and the rain and my failure to ensure the bike shop is open on Sundays led me here, to this bench on Galway Bay, where I'm writing down my thoughts and trying to figure out what to do next. There's no tour guide to gently nudge me on to the next site, no travel companions to either complain or provide cheer.

I realize I have no plan. I don't know anything about Galway, except that it has a bay. It's a lovely bay, and the tide is out, revealing rocks reminiscent of Hawaiian lava rock. But now I'm not sure where to go. I curse myself; maybe I should have just done the guided bus tour. At least I would have known what I was looking at.

My fingertips are getting cold, gripping the pen. I scribble some notes, glancing up at the bay, and the longer I sit, the more I write, the better I feel. I remind myself that I'm in Ireland, a place I've been dying to visit my whole life. I'm really here, by myself, sitting on Galway Bay with a notebook. It's like I've been imagining the movie of my life, and this was an important scene. I wanted to feel completely out of my comfort zone. And here I am, uncomfortable. I decide to stop feeling sorry for myself and find some lunch.

As I'm recovering my cool and formulating my next move, a man walks up to my bench. He asks if I'm sketching, and when I reply that no, I'm writing, he asks what part of America I'm from. We chat for awhile about the Irish people and the American people. He says the Irish don't talk about themselves. Even the fact that, when he asked if I was a student, I said I'd just graduated with my master's degree, was evidence to him of American over-sharing. He likens it to bragging, and I realize my role in this conversation is to nod and smile and accept his wisdom on the people of the world.

After he rattles on about the musicians in Galway -- in a town of about 50,000 people, there are 200-300 professional musicians, he says -- I ask whether there's anywhere in town I can eat lunch and see live music. He considers my request and suggests a hole in the wall called Crane Bar, which he says features live music every Sunday. I thank him and wander into Galway City in the general direction he pointed. With nothing else to do, why not? After just 10 minutes, I find it.

Crane Bar in Galway

I enter through the front door and take it in: dark wood, low benches, walls lined with photos and posters of musicians. It's empty save for two barkeep (I assume they're a married couple) and a man on a bar stool. He sits staring into his pint of Carlsberg, his long ragged hair stuffed under a wool cap, his back hunched under two or three coats. The bar advertises no food, but I decide that walking in the front door committed me to at least a drink, so I order a cider and settle onto one of the benches to warm up and write a bit more.

Halfway through my bottle of Bulmer's, I'm starting to feel a little silly. The barkeep owners seem friendly enough, but not very chatty, and I'm not about to get into it with the guy on the stool, who hasn't said a word since I arrived. I'm not even sure he's moved. I use my notebook to hide in plain sight, and no one bothers me, to the detriment of my social receptivity.

Finally a man walks in with what appears to be instrument cases. He orders a Guinness and sits on a bench near me, readying his instruments, a mandola and an Irish drum and a tin whistle. I'm excited for a few minutes, but it wanes as we sit there, each sipping our drinks, and he makes no moves to start the jam session alone. We chat a bit, but I'm acting withdrawn and shy, and he seems content to sit in silence. I'm encouraged enough to buy a Guinness and stick around long enough to see whether anyone else shows up.

They do. After an hour, the bar is filling with people. They're mostly locals speaking in thick brogues. Half a dozen musicians situate themselves on the bench I'm sharing with the first musician. Two girls from Sweden sit behind me, and we strike up a conversation. One of them carries a fiddle, and they inform me they'd met the husband barkeep (who is also the owner and an Irish tin whistle player) the day before, and he invited them to the bar to listen and play along. We talk and laugh and then the music starts, and it's stunning. There's no ceremony to it; one of the musicians picks a tune and starts on the melody, and they're joined by the rest -- the mandola and drum, two tin whistles, a guitar, a rotating cast of violinists and even, after awhile, an arm bagpipe, which I later learn is called the uilleann pipes. In between songs, they chat and sip Guinness and Heineken and red wine.

By 15:00, the bar is packed and the music is lively. From my place in the middle of the action, on the musician's bench, I record a few of the songs* on my handheld voice recorder and order another half-pint of Guinness, wary that I hadn't eaten lunch but not wanting to leave what appears to be the best party in Galway.

At one point, the scruffy patron on the bar stool stands and bellows that he'd like to read a poem. The bar hushes, and he stands, holding a small black book in front of him, and reads. His words slur together, and at the conclusion of each line there's an exchanging of glances between the rest of the bar's patrons, hands covering smiles. But we listen respectfully, and when he's done, we nod and smile.

Finally I uproot myself to find lunch, but not before exchanging contact information with one of the Swedes. I step carefully around stools and bodies on the way to the back, but the scruffy patron stops me and looks slightly to the right of my eyes.

"You get prettier every time I see you," he slurs.

A man behind him laughs, and I smile and thank him. Then I slip out the back door, like the locals do.

* I didn't bring the cord to connect my equipment to my computer, so I'll post the recordings when I get back to the States.