After I left Cork I headed to Killarny, which was I nice small sized place to chill out for a couple days. I went on a tour of the Ring of Kerry, a scenic drive around one of the wesetern penninsulas. Amazing! It just reinforces the fact that I need to come back here on a bicycle and investigate things properly. The annonying American students on my bus would not have been an issue if I had my own transportation. I have been in Galway for the past 2 days and have spent most of the time drinking in pubs.
When I first got to town I found a hostel and in my dorm were a couple of gals from Vancouver who I got along with right away. With a bag of free beer in tow we had a little party down in the common room and then went down to the pedestrian street and it's numerous pubs. Made it back to the room by 3 am or so; the morning was a bit rough, so I went for a stroll, ending up at the King's Head Pub for some fish and chips and some hair of the dog. Turns out there was a rugby match (Ireland vs Wales) coming on so the pub filled up quickly. I had gotten into rugby a bit when I was in Australia so I stayed to watch. Ireland lost, unfortunately, but the couple I was sharing a table with invited me to hang out with them for the evening. And I drank some more- finishing up at an early 1 am this time. I have every intention of actually exploring the city today and perhaps catching a bus tonight. My hostel reservation in Dublin is for the 15th so I probably have time for one more stop before I go there. Sligo or Donegal or Belfast.... I have no idea. Maybe I will just show up at the bus station and see what is leaving next. No beer today, though, I think.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Feeling Green on the Emerald Isle
I didn't make it out of Bristol until Monday morning (long story mostly involving a lot of drinking). I crossed on a ferry yesterday landing in Rosslare Harbour in the southeast of Ireland, and once again had a very entertaining ferry crossing. A fellow who got on my train when I transfered in Cardiff ended up on the same ferry as me and boy was he drunk. He managed to maintain this state right from about 10:30am when I first saw him until we docked at 6pm. Very impressive. Apparently he had not been back to Ireland for 25 years or so and thus required a coping mechanism. He started chatting up an older lady who was sitting near me in the bar area of the ferry. After he left I got to chatting with her. Her name was Mary Murphy and she had her brother in her suitcase (in the form of ashes)- he had passed away around Christmas time and she was bringing him back to be spread around the river near New Ross. A very nice woman. We also chatted about the drunk fellow who ended up falling down the stairs on the ferry but in the way of a capable drunk, he got right back up again.
The man-way to get off the ferry was broken so we had to get on a shuttle bus to take us to the terminal. Once on the bus, the drunk man started singing Bob Dylan. Another drunk man sitting closer to the front thought this wasn't very patriotic so he started singing an old irish tune. If you can picture it, I was sitting next to Mary and her dead brother while two drunken Irishmen tried to outsing each other as I finally made landfall in Rosslare. Mary and I looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable laughter. What a welcome!
In other news caught a bit of a cold in Bristol which is now growing into a sinus-consuming beast so after spending the night in Wexford, I caught the bus to Cork this morning to hunker down and recover for a day or two. On the agenda is hot whisky and Australian soap operas, which seem oddly popular out here. I recognize all the shows from when I was working in the outback and would finish my morning shift at 1pm in time for the afternoon heat. The best way to cope was air conditioning and bad television.
Hopefully I can be on my way in a day or two- not sure where yet- perhaps Killarny or Limerick...
-A.
The man-way to get off the ferry was broken so we had to get on a shuttle bus to take us to the terminal. Once on the bus, the drunk man started singing Bob Dylan. Another drunk man sitting closer to the front thought this wasn't very patriotic so he started singing an old irish tune. If you can picture it, I was sitting next to Mary and her dead brother while two drunken Irishmen tried to outsing each other as I finally made landfall in Rosslare. Mary and I looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable laughter. What a welcome!
In other news caught a bit of a cold in Bristol which is now growing into a sinus-consuming beast so after spending the night in Wexford, I caught the bus to Cork this morning to hunker down and recover for a day or two. On the agenda is hot whisky and Australian soap operas, which seem oddly popular out here. I recognize all the shows from when I was working in the outback and would finish my morning shift at 1pm in time for the afternoon heat. The best way to cope was air conditioning and bad television.
Hopefully I can be on my way in a day or two- not sure where yet- perhaps Killarny or Limerick...
-A.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Gypsies!
Well it has certainly been a busy week. After London (saw the real crown jewels!), I took a train through the channel tunnel to Paris, only 2 hours and 15 minutes away, and settled into the city of love for a couple days. I can say that I love Paris but I am not in love with Paris, primarily because of the gypsies continually trying to creatively separate me from my money. The first trick someone tried on me involved a young woman "finding" a ring on the ground and asking me if it was mine; then when she had my attention and distraction she asked for money. First of all I saw that the ring did not come off the ground but out of her hand. Secondly, if she had legitimately found this ring, and because I did not claim it, the logical thing would be to keep it and pawn it for money, so again, obviously a scam. The same scheme was attempted on me near the Arc de Triumph. That poor man had barely got the ring out of his sleeve before I rebuffed him rudely. The funniest part was it was an identical ring.
I have to admit that they did catch me once though. I was heading to a food stand under the Eiffel Tower and hadn't eaten all day because I tend to forget about nourishment when I am traveling. Tired and starving, I was approached by a "deaf" woman with a clipboard who indicated by pointing that she was raising money for a deaf charity. Now in my defense I have encountered real deaf people actually raising money in a similar fashion in Canada. I took the clipboard and filled out a space beneath the others already there and as I was handing over the 20 pound note I had left over from the UK, I noticed that all the other names had been photocopied. My brain was a bit slow to react so it took a few extra seconds for the synapses to fire and by that time she was long gone. Alas. Suffice to say the woman aggressively begging beside the food stand got a particularly dirty look from me after she refused the fries I offered her.
The rest of Paris was amazing, but the Louvre was my absolute favorite- it really helped that I was there in the low season so I wasn't completely overwhelmed. Much of the museum is practically empty compared to the chaos in front of the Mona Lisa and to a lesser extent, the Venus de Milo. What really bothered me though was the people who walk up to the painting, take a photo, check their display to make sure they got a good shot and then walk away. Kind of defeats the purpose of coming to see the real thing, don't you think? I took a photo but ended up deleting it because it just didn't do justice to the actual painting (the numerous Mona Lisa postcards, mousepads, notebooks, etc at the giftshop would have done just as well anyway). Even behind glass I couldn't take my eyes away and probably stared at it for a good 15 minutes and still came back for another look before I left the building.
I left Paris on March 2, showing up at the train station to see what might suit my fancy. The next train to Caen (in Normandy) was leaving in 15 minutes so I hopped on that and transferred to a small local and ended up in Bayeux, home of a very famous medieval tapestry dating to the 1060's detailing the Battle of Hastings and rise of William the Conqueror (first king of all England). I was also hoping to take a bus to Juno Beach yesterday where the Canadians landed at D-Day but it is some sort of school holiday right now so there was only on bus per day and I wanted to catch the ferry last night. I was originally going to take a ferry all the way to Ireland, but that crossing was seasonal (and 21 hours!) so I opted to go back through the UK and then get a Sail and Rail ticket to Dublin. Plans changed again when a man had a heart attack on the ferry just as we were leaving port so the departure was pushed back an hour and I didn't get into Portsmouth, UK until 10:30 at night. Luckily for me, an older couple and their adult daughter that I was visiting with in the bar invited me to stay at their friends' place where they were also staying. The daughter's husband picked us up from the ferry terminal and that is how I ended up in Bristol this morning. There is a birthday party I have been invited to tonight so I will be checking that out and then moving on tomorrow.
The plan is to take a train to Fishguard from Bristol and then ferry to Rosslare in southern Ireland. But we will see how that turns out. Hurray for random wanderings!
-A.
I have to admit that they did catch me once though. I was heading to a food stand under the Eiffel Tower and hadn't eaten all day because I tend to forget about nourishment when I am traveling. Tired and starving, I was approached by a "deaf" woman with a clipboard who indicated by pointing that she was raising money for a deaf charity. Now in my defense I have encountered real deaf people actually raising money in a similar fashion in Canada. I took the clipboard and filled out a space beneath the others already there and as I was handing over the 20 pound note I had left over from the UK, I noticed that all the other names had been photocopied. My brain was a bit slow to react so it took a few extra seconds for the synapses to fire and by that time she was long gone. Alas. Suffice to say the woman aggressively begging beside the food stand got a particularly dirty look from me after she refused the fries I offered her.
The rest of Paris was amazing, but the Louvre was my absolute favorite- it really helped that I was there in the low season so I wasn't completely overwhelmed. Much of the museum is practically empty compared to the chaos in front of the Mona Lisa and to a lesser extent, the Venus de Milo. What really bothered me though was the people who walk up to the painting, take a photo, check their display to make sure they got a good shot and then walk away. Kind of defeats the purpose of coming to see the real thing, don't you think? I took a photo but ended up deleting it because it just didn't do justice to the actual painting (the numerous Mona Lisa postcards, mousepads, notebooks, etc at the giftshop would have done just as well anyway). Even behind glass I couldn't take my eyes away and probably stared at it for a good 15 minutes and still came back for another look before I left the building.
I left Paris on March 2, showing up at the train station to see what might suit my fancy. The next train to Caen (in Normandy) was leaving in 15 minutes so I hopped on that and transferred to a small local and ended up in Bayeux, home of a very famous medieval tapestry dating to the 1060's detailing the Battle of Hastings and rise of William the Conqueror (first king of all England). I was also hoping to take a bus to Juno Beach yesterday where the Canadians landed at D-Day but it is some sort of school holiday right now so there was only on bus per day and I wanted to catch the ferry last night. I was originally going to take a ferry all the way to Ireland, but that crossing was seasonal (and 21 hours!) so I opted to go back through the UK and then get a Sail and Rail ticket to Dublin. Plans changed again when a man had a heart attack on the ferry just as we were leaving port so the departure was pushed back an hour and I didn't get into Portsmouth, UK until 10:30 at night. Luckily for me, an older couple and their adult daughter that I was visiting with in the bar invited me to stay at their friends' place where they were also staying. The daughter's husband picked us up from the ferry terminal and that is how I ended up in Bristol this morning. There is a birthday party I have been invited to tonight so I will be checking that out and then moving on tomorrow.
The plan is to take a train to Fishguard from Bristol and then ferry to Rosslare in southern Ireland. But we will see how that turns out. Hurray for random wanderings!
-A.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
