Well, my friends, my adventure comes to a close. I finally made it home on Monday night, tired
but better for my travels, and then promptly did nothing on Tuesday. Now I’m rested and ready to fill you in on my
trip since I left London.
After bidding a sorrowful goodbye to my flatmates, I caught
the train from Euston Station to Holyhead Port, which is on the west coast of
England. From there I was herded onto a
huge ferry, which was more like a cruise ship than what comes to mind when I
hear “ferry.” What surprised me was the
lack of security. Here I am expecting to
go through the pre-flight gauntlet of checkpoints: I’ve got my passport out, I’ve got two other
forms of ID at the ready just in case, I’ve got shoes that are easy to take off to go
through the scanner . . . but the officials wanted none of it. Just my ticket, thank you very much, and
what’s your name? She didn’t even check any
IDs. My backpack had to go through a
scanner, but I didn’t. OK, I think,
they’re just a bit more relaxed about this than I'm used to. So I join a crowd of other people sitting in
the waiting room and wait for them to call my ferry over the PA system. Instead, a man in a reflective vest walks
through the room and says “Would you all like to follow me now, please?” then leads us all onto busses to be transported
out to the ferry. And no one checked my
boarding pass. It all went very smoothly
and was very easy, but I’m afraid I’m a bit suspicious of too easy and it left
me disoriented (or “disorientated” as one of our Irish hosts said). Anyway, despite my misgivings we made it
safely to port and I managed to get myself to Dublin centre where I found my parents, who
had arrived earlier in the day. It was a
joyous reunion capped by a lovely dinner in the pub attached to the hotel. O’Shea’s gave me a perfectly adequate room and
I was expecting to sleep well that night after all the traveling. But, alas, I found this a bit difficult for when
I had just laid down mine head upon the pillow the live music started up
just below me. It was wonderful music,
to be sure, but a bit loud for sleeping. Ireland,
whatcha gonna do?
Well, we started off early the next morning on our
Paddywagon bus tour with our driver/tour guide Barry.
Our very discreet bus.
He was quite funny and really knew his Irish
history, but are you aware of how narrow the roads are in Ireland? Or of how close the vehicles pass each other
on the road? I’m here to tell you: very narrow, and very close. I am truly shocked that we didn’t scrape the
side of the bus, at least, not to mention hit another car, careen off the side
of a cliff, or hit any of the sheep that cross the country roads willy-nilly. There were moments when I thought any or all
of those would happen. I had to keep
reminding myself that the driver was very experienced at his job and that he
didn’t want to die any more than I did. It was distressing but, after all, I am here to tell
you the tale of our harrowing journey.
And for those of you who are acquainted with my mother, you’ll
understand that if I was a bit nervy
about the driving, she deserves a medal for not having a nervous breakdown. Despite some scary moments on the roads, we had a great time and saw some gorgeous landscapes.
So I’ll leave you for now with this little teaser, and will
post again soon about the places we saw, the people we met, and (for my sister
Michelle) the food that we ate.
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