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.