TWO OMANIS IN: Sligo Town, Co. Sligo, Ireland

From Rosses Point we drove into Sligo town, and did a little shopping. Everything was on sale. Including, sadly, the realestate. Due to the euro crisis, things weren't going well for this area of Ireland.

I was grouchy and sick but we ran into the lovliest Iraqi family in Sligo town, who invited (insisted) we have dinner with them. Which we did, and it was splendid, delicious food, halal, and too much to eat.

They claimed to know a few Omanis studying in Sligo town. Beyond this family though, I hadn't spotted another hijab-wearing woman outside of Dublin, beyond glances of myself in the mirror. I had on the only abaya I saw in Ireland, and yet, no one made comments or treated us differently or unkind. I think they respected my husband and I both, in our own clothes. Different experience altogether from kinds I've had elsewhere.

Below, I keep playing the Yeats poem of "the stolen child" in my head, but we never made it to Slish wood. Just a little forest by the river. Saw a few museums though, about the Troubles, and local football clubs.