Song: “beautiful day” by U2
Why: because its an optimistic take on the day today…
So, I got about as close to bono as I think im going to get without risking arrest today, but ill get to that story in a minute…
Today was my day I took to go out into the irish country side, mostly because I missed it, and because I didn’t feel like trekking around the city yet again for fear of actually buying more than just a necklace today. Had to be up and early to be at my pick up on time, so it was before 8 when I dragged myself out of bed and started to get ready. It was just a 10 minute walk from niall’s place to where I was being picked up, but I wanted to make sure I was on time and I didn’t know exactly where I was going. I arrived at the pick up well before the designated time, but the bus was already there so I jumped on. I should have gone for coffee or substantial food (more than just the cheese and orange juice I had snarffed on the way, but I didn’t). I would have had plenty of time, because there was a fair bit of confusion over who was supposed to be where since there was two full bus loads of people. I tried to make friends with the girl from Georgia who was sitting next to me, but she was kind of snobby and was totally uninterested in talking to anyone but the people she was with. Her loss.
So after a bit of a confusing start, we were off out of the city. The guide was hilarious, and told the story of molly malone (short story, she was a prostitute) and then tried to get everyone on the bus to sing along with the song (cockles and mussels etc… you would know it if you heard it) and a few people actually did join in. I did not. If you’ve ever heard me on rock band, you know that it was for the best for sure.
As you get further south of the city, the houses get much nicer and they reminded me of the average sort of home you might see in florida almost (style wise that is). Apparently, they also got a lot more expensive, as in up towards 4-5 million euros. Ridiculous especially to think that a house like that would go for around $250 grand in the Cincinnati area. So anyway, we got to see a lot of over price housing (but apparently Ireland is one of the most expensive countries to live in… mostly driven through the roof when the euro was adopted) as we headed along the coast. We had a stop along the irish sea in a place called dun laoghaire (dun lawry is essentially how its
pronounced around here) which was useful for some pictures with the mist and sea in the background and then on to the place I had been searching for – the place where the elusive bono was hiding.Apparently, the rich and famous irish citizens live in a little town south of Dublin called dalkey. Also, apparently everyone knows this, but its not a big deal because I didn’t see anyone sitting outside of enya’s castle (literally a castle on the side of the hill overlooking the sea) taking pictures and attempting to scale the gate. But then again, that could just be cause its enya…the driver took us around pointing out houses of people such as neil Jordan (who directed interview with the vampire) and van Morrison (no one was scaling his fence either… hmm…) and then proceeded to say “and if I just kept on driving this bus right through that wall in front of us, we’d all be having breakfast with bono right now.” Much to my dismay, he didn’t, and therefore no breakfast with bono. I was really looking forward to having a chat about the state of the world with him too. Id like to hear his opinion on the current state of Zimbabwe… ok I don’t actually care, but im sure he has an opinion. Id rather ask if he got to wear the pope’s beanie while he was trying on the sunglasses, but whatever. Sadly no breakfast with bono. Gorgeous house though set on the hill side over looking the sea as well and blocked off from view by a lot of trees. The dead give away that It was bono’s place is that written on the wooden gate entrance was the phrase “everything you know is wrong” as well as a bunch of other odds and ends stuff that pretty typical of him. Anyway, not shockingly, his next door neighbor is bob geldof (the creater of liveAID and more recently the brain behind live 8). So we got to do a bit of irish celebrity “cribs” kinda thing there and I didn’t get to knock on bono’s gate…
I mentioned earlier that the day wasn’t exactly a beautiful day and it really wasn’t. about that point in time it starting pouring down rain and was awful out but at least we were only driving around and not out walking…. Yet. It was still raining when we had a stop off at the avoca hand weavers shop (wool and crafts like that… quite expensive and I didn’t really foresee needing a wool throw or scarf in Egypt – although I needed it later in the day by my standards and I may need it for England as well. Boo) for midmorning coffee and snacks. I had some kind of tart thing that I couldn’t tell if it was peaches or apricots but regardless it was pretty good.
From there it was winding on up into the “mountains” so to speak where it continued to rain and be cloudy and just a generally unbeautiful day to say the least. The driver was jabbering on and on about this and that and I was only half listening so I guess I cant relay any of the irish history that I should have been learning at that point. It was something about glaciers and stuff like that, but the only part I really remember about that was when we stopped at the glacial lake called loughtay which made for some spectacularly gorgeous photo ops.
At that point I had struck up a conversation with a young kiwi named matthew who was living in Ireland for a year on a work visa and just kind of hanging out for the day. He was kind enough to snap a few pictures for me with the lovely scenery in the background before we had to pass go and collect $200. just as a side note, you may be able to see the sandy beach in the background of the picture… the guy who lives down there is one of the Guinness heirs and decided tha
t he wanted to have a beach like Miami beach so he had sand imported from there and made his own beach. Too bad he couldn’t bring some Miami weather with the sand because ive had just about enough of this 60 degree and windy stuff. Seriously, I know that I could never live here because the weather is so depressing with the clouds, rain and cold. Ew. No way jose. Nothing in the world could get me to agree to live here…Anyway…moving right a long. We stopped off for lunch in a place that was essentially the middle of nowhere (not hard to do in Ireland) and I had the strangest vegetable soup known to man. Im not sure exactly what kind of veggies made up this soup, but it was green like pea soup but didn’t taste like pea soup. I think it might have had celery in it because there were a lot of the veiny sort of things in it and I might have seen an orange fleck or two of carrot but god knows what I ate. Its probably better that way as well.
Just a short drive down the road from the lunch stop was glendalough (glendalow – for those of you who are trying to figure out how to pronounce things as I write about them) which is an old crumbling monastery and a lake that you can walk around. Just as we pulled up to the lake the sky totally opened up into a huge down pour. Apparently this isn’t unusual because the bus comes equipped with jamesons sponsored gold umbrellas. I grabbed one, but unfortunately, the bus wasn’t so prepared because the next thing I know the kiwi is huddling under with me. I did have my mini travel umbrella with me so I handed over the big one and used my little one. As you know, im a well prepared traveler these days…
Since we had spoken before and since we were pretty much the only two solo travelers, we ended up hanging out for the remainder of the time and took the scenic walk around the lake together and had a great chat about traveling and such. Always fun to meet new people and find out about other places in the world. Matthew (the kiwi) said that if I ever make it down two new Zealand to give him a shout and he would direct me in all the right directions (he’s from Wellington so on the north island, but geographically right in the middle of the country). Sweetness.
The walk was peppered with rain which apparently couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted us to keep the umbrellas out or not. Before loading back up and setting back on our merry way, small shots of jameson’s were handed out to everyone and I quickly realized why I don’t drink jameson’s anymore… stacey’s 21st birthday came rushing back with the first taste of it. Even now, it makes me sick thinking of it, but I should probably stop now before I have to listen to any drinking lectures from anyone…
For the ride back, I switched places with one of the snobby Georgia girls who was sitting by matthew and we were able to chat the whole way back home, and before the end, we made sure to switch email addresses and the like. all in all it was a nice little trip out of the city to see the stuff that calendars (and apparently movie sets such as braveheart, saving private ryan, Excalibur, king Arthur, and p.s. I love you) are made of.
I had a short walk back to the flat from the drop off point, and niall was waiting to know where I wanted to eat tonight. Hoping to not have to stuff in a huge meal, I suggested trying out one of the local Chinese places, and we found a place right around the corner that had good write ups on the internet. It was not bad… pretty much your standard Chinese food, but it was nice because it wasn’t some ridiculously huge heavy meal like the last few days. The food has been great, but honestly, im not used to eating like this, and I feel bad telling him that I don’t want to keep having these huge meals but then he just looks disappointed. Ugh. But really it was good and I managed to not feel like going into a food coma afterwards.
Since it’s the last night in town, he wanted to make sure to go out (although I just wasn’t feeling it – I agreed anyway even though I did manage to avoid having to have wine with dinner) so I just talked him into going back to the church bar. Honestly, it’s a fun place, and its close by so I was totally fine with that. I really wasn’t in the mood to drink (since I usually don’t drink that much anymore at home anyway) so I took as long as I could between drinks and with the drinks. I managed to string out a baileys and coffee and then just because I had a Guinness (although I am by no means going to become a regular partaker of the stuff… it was mostly just for show. And I only had the half pint anyway) and niall insisted on getting shots called baby Guinness (which is tia maria and then baileys floating on top and it looks exactly like baby Guinness, but tastes much much better). Thankfully I was able to get away with only having to have one more drink (although I did have to repeatedly say no and that I wasn’t drinking anymore… was actually getting quite annoying after a while to be honest) and finally, using the fail safe excuse “im tired” I was able to get out of the bar at a reasonable hour.
All in all it has been a fun little trip to the city and ive gotten to see a lot of things. Its been nice staying with someone here obviously because its helping save money, but at the same time, im really looking forward to moving on and staying with erin and drew instead because they will definitely take no for an answer and wont be making me crazy trying to be perfect hosts. Not that niall hasn’t been great, but I think erin and drew know me a bit better and it will be a bit smoother there. Plus, I love England (not so much the exchange rate) so im looking forward to that.
Don’t quite know what the plan is otherwise. I don’t know what im doing for the morning/afternoon before I fly out because its 70% chance of rain. Ick. Should be fun though making my way to oxford. Ive got to catch the bus somewhere straight from heathrow that will take me directly to oxford and then erin and drew are supposed to be picking me up from there. As I said… this should be fun. I just hope I get into oxford at a decent time and that with all the stuff going on in London for the weekend (wimbledon, some big concerts in hyde park etc) that I don’t get stuck in mass congestions of people or anything.
Heres hoping.
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