on the bus ride from Bantry to Cork we had a full bus so i had this really nice lady sitting next to me. we got to talking during the ride which made the ride much more enjoyable and it was a pretty horrible ride. the roads in Ireland are... i can't even describe how horrible they are; i don't get motion sick that easily especially if i sit in the front, and on that ride i felt like i was about to puke. this lady (i either don't remember her name or i didn't get it) helped me be able to get to the train station without getting lost which without her i would have. so i found my train and got on it, the irish rails not much better than the roads. it makes it very hard to write when bumping about. unfortuantly i got to dublin about 4 in the afternoon, it takes a lot longer to travel in Ireland than you would think. i arrived just too late for the parades, but i did get to see them on the tv that night, i'm kinda glad i missed it tell you the truth cause there looked like there would have been so many people and unless i had already dropped off my bag at my hotel i would have been too worried about it to enjoy the parade; plus the commentary on the telly told me the meaning behind the parade it was off of a book called Brilliant by Roddy Doyle written especially for the 2011 st. patricks day parade. and it was a brilliant parade from what i could see. i missed that but i did get to meet my second amazingly helpful Irish person this time it was an elderly gentleman who sat next to me on the Luas (tram, trolley type thing) he was defiantly an old school gentleman, he didn't have any of the gaudy st. Patrick day garb on he only had i think it was a bundle of shamrocks or clover (whatever the traditional way to celebrate St. Patrick's day is) pined to his coat, we got to talking and he found out i'd already gotten myself slightly lost trying to get around, Dublin is not very good at posting maps or even street signs, and their streets change names like 5 times a long the same road very tourist unfriendly. so he gave me directions to my hotel and he was getting off at the same stop so he got me on the right street and told me to walk straight never left or right only straight (i thought of horse and his boy at this time "straight ahead you'll find king lune straight ahead, go straight always straight.) my hotel was about 15 to 20 min walk up a hill dragging my bag behind me!! the hotel was amazing though i had a gloriously warm night and there was a continental breakfast in the morning. on the way to meet up with Grace again in the morning(would have stayed with her but her hotel was booked up, thought my hotel was pretty close but i was wrong) first thing i got a map from the receptionist, it lied to me though. so i was pretty sure of the way back to the Luas but wasn't completely sure so i asked someone it turned out he was walking there too so we walked together, his name if i'm remembering correctly is Berkan (i'm sure about the first 3 letters anyway) he helped me buy my ticket for the Luas and i think if i would not have been able to finish paying for it he would have helped me, he is even a university student a composer of piano music he is finishing his 4th year at their music school and will be going to the royal music academy in london next year. it was fun talking about th differences between country and cities he agrees with me that country is much better. we parted ways at the end of the green line after he pointed me towards the shopping district where i was to meet grace. we did a little shopping then had a simple lunch and looked at the map to see what we wanted to see, initially i wanted to see the writers museum but it was way to far from where we were so instead we decided on kilmainham gaol which looked a lot closer, we were wrong. after walking for about 3 hours we got to the point where it was supposed to be and it wasn't there. this is when i decided that should anyone want to go to dublin i'm going to tell them stay in the city center, if you want to go somewhere outside of it figure the buses out or forget about it, it ain't happing. that's all there is to it dublin is way to chaotic for anyone to figure out how to get around unless you live there or can read gaelic. their signs are in both Gaelic and english but about half the time the english is faded. this is all i have to say about dublin love the people dislike the place, although it is the only big city i've found with that much green vegetation.
next plane flight
from dublin with love
No comments:
Post a Comment