"I'll come home to my parents, confess what I'd done and I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son"

Ahhhh that moment when your 30 days of solitude evaporate! However, contrary to the song lyric, I'm pretty sure I'll continue to play the "Wild Rover". My parents came for a visit, and since I'm on vacation for the next week anyway, what a band of traveling companions we quickly became?! Also because they had a car, which makes exploration a little easier.

My lovely parents proving to their AirBnB host that they actually did visit the bar he owned.

I'll ignore the part where they got lost on the way here... you know, it is hard to drive on the wrong side of the road and all. It was great to see them! Met them at the Spanish arch then took them to lunch at Kai, pretty much my favorite restaurant here. Unabashedly, here's my food pix.

Oh yeah, that's a beef noodle salad and a coconut dream cake. You know, the 2nd of which isn't keto, but it's a day of celebration, right?

I showed them around Galway, taking them up the canal, through shop street, Eyre Square, you know... pretty much all the main sights from Ed Sheeran's "Galway Girl" video. That I've mentioned it 2 times in 2 days must surely be some sign of it's earworminess. And they liked it! Not "they wish I lived here forever" liked it, but more of a "I understand why you did this" liked it. If my mom could figure out how to comment on this site, I'm sure she'd say something here.

After lunch and some sightseeing, let's just fast forward to the next day. For myself, I'll remember hearing about how they got lost in their car trying to find their AirBnB ad nauseum, but no need to recount that harrowing ordeal. Let's skip to the fun stuff! (for me)

Next day was a day full of adventure exploring Connemara, which is a beautiful region of the west of Ireland. Even if you don't have a car, you should absolutely figure out a way to see this at some point in your life as it's ridiculously beautiful. Here's some random pictures from various spots:

But, sequence break, before we got out to the gorgeous rolling hills, mountains and lakes of the region, we stopped at a place called "Brigit's Garden" [sic]. Actually, I guess since you actually spell the name that way here, I shouldn't be adding the typo modifier, right? Whatever, I'm American.

[Stefon voice] This place has everything, prehistoric huts, gardens for fairies to play in, wishing trees that had wishes written on them like "I Want a Transformer and BMX Bike for Christmas" and "Don't Let Matt Go To The Bathroom".

Really hoping that wish on the left comes true. Side note, apparently my father wished for approximately the same thing for me...so... not sure if that helps or hurts the chances.

You also get to sit on a throne... you know, they may have melted the iron throne, but this one surely counts for something (does this count as a spoiler alert? people should have watched GoT by now...)

And just so I have the random nice pictures from this place saved here at some point, here's a few more.

After this, very unlike me, we had a full day of planned activities! Next was off to Clifden on the west coast to get a seafood lunch, which was delicious! Fish pie for me and a beer.... man, these days are getting less and less keto.

You have to love the fake spelling of "Conn O' Mara" for the beer, but hate the artwork, right?

After that, we drove down to the Connemara Smokery. You know what? I love smoked fish. I've never been to a smokery before. Nor did I know how smoking was done. And apparently, for 5 bucks, you can not only learn this relatively useless knowledge, but taste more than 5 bucks worth of their ridiculously expensive products (a pound of their smoked wild salmon, for instance, costs 75 Euros). Here's a couple of pics of the presentation and the guy showing off his unique slicing method.

What I'll say about the smokery tour is this-- the fish was delicious, you got to try mackerel, smoked salmon, gravalax, mousse, and after it was done you could eat the leftovers if you ran quickly in front of the kids. But on the con side, I'd say that the guy doesn't need to tell you 70x about how good of a value his crazy expensive fish is, and explain all of the dozens of options available at the shop. All in all, it was gorgeous here, and since my charming father drove the hideously windy roads that no doubt almost gave him a heart attack, worth it from my perspective!

One more stop before heading back, Kylemore Abbey. Here's a cute "family shot" by the place

Always the camera Dad, always the camera.

What I'll say about the Abbey is this-- if you really like gardens or hearing about old recipes for dinner parties, great! Pay that money and go inside. If not, you should definitely drive here and "Do it for the Gram", but feel free to just go to Leenaun or Leenane after you take the pic and save yourselves the 10 Euro a head (if you get the Student/Senior discount, which obviously I took advantage of!). For those of you who like gardens and recipes, here's some pics though.

Look, I really don't like gardens or gardening, so not putting up sheaves of pics here.

Anyhow, after this, it'd been quite a long day, so we drove back to Galway. My pops wasn't feeling tip top, so I took my best girl (factually correct!) out on the town for dinner and a drink. Here's a few pics of a great last dinner in Galway at Dela with me ma.

You have to love a few things: First and foremost, my mom willing to pose in a picture with a beer called "White Gypsy". Second, the delicious pork belly and beef fillet in the 2nd two pictures. Third, that-- not pictured because I'm not a paparazzo-- saw the chef from this place eating across the street! That I knew who he was and recognized him from the one time I saw him at a festival 3 weeks ago is some tribute to my stalkerness.

Now, I'll skip over the "me driving my mom home down scary, dark, narrow country roads" part, as I have to leave in about 5 minutes anyway to pick them up now... suffice it to say though, their place was definitely not in Galway city and definitely not easy for a tourist such as myself to drive to.

Random Things:

-Never be surprised but the ability of your parents to speak about things you would be shy about with total strangers.

Presented without comment.

wtf is "alt-gin"?

Moment of Zen