BootsnAll Travel Network



On High in the Emerald Isle

7:31 AM, 8/28/06

When we last left off, Greg was enjoying a peaceful, restful night of sleep. And that it was, except for the fact that we had to be up by about 8 AM, which is probably nearly the latest we’ve slept in for the whole vacation. As Jacob and I got up, so too did Cody, the Canadian we met. He expressed interest in joining us on our bus tour into the country that day, and we were glad to have him. The kid could really talk, let me tell you, but it’s always fun getting to know people better so it was all good. We went hunting for an affordable breakfast—a challenge in Dublin. Dublin, by all appearances, completely lacked grocery stores. Sure it had it’s convenience stores, but finding a large grocery store that was actually open was right up there with climbing Mount Everest or swimming the English channel. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, finding a grocery store was harder. They had all these little convenience stores, but everything was so damn expensive. Once I discovered that fruit was among the few affordable things, I splurged. I bought two oranges, two apples, and three bananas (which I’d been craving for my aching muscles). I also tracked down a bakery and found a scrumptious baggette. Incidentally, this combination of fruit and bread would comprise my entire diet for the day, save one thing, which I will get to later.

After getting a ticket for Matt, we headed to the bus pickup. The bus tour for the day was part of the combination package we’d purchased the day before and included a trip out to a old monastic site called Glendaloch. I’d elected to wear shorts and a T-shirt for the day, something I’d not done since my first day in London. Big mistake. Despite the apparent sunny conditions, the wind was whipping about at a cool 50 degrees or so. On the other hand, at least it wasn’t raining as seemed to happen often in Ireland. We headed up for the hills surrounding Dublin. The drive was nice and offered the opportunity to see a lot more of the Irish countryside, including some very nice lakes. Only because Jacob and I had never gotten our nap the night before and because we’d stayed out past 1AM, we were utterly exhausted and kept falling asleep on the bus. I tried to stay awake as much as possible, but I kept going cross-eyed and slipping into a semi-comatosed state. The lakes in the Wicklow area outside of Dublin were quite picturesque, though apparently manmade. The tour guide explained some business about them being dangerous to swim in, but it sounded pretty lame to me. I mean, a lake is a lake, and it’s only dangerous if you can’t swim, right? Anyway, after the lakes we ascended into mountains for some beautiful views of more lakes and fields of these lovely purple flowers. (And a less-than-lovely wind that chilled me to the bone).

From there we proceeded to Glendaloch where we took a trail to one of the smaller lakes in the mountains. The forest was the picture of beauty. The trees were sparse, but there was a certain elegance that comes with age within them. There was very little undergrowth, which added to the forest’s beauty. I personally love forests where the ground is grassy or mossy and one can walk freely across the dappled forest floor. Jacob went off to take pictures while Cody and I continued on to the lake. We took a look at the monastic ruins, but they weren’t particularly exciting. Ruins are cool and all, but I appreciate the natural beauty much more. It has a much longer and greater history than anything manmade ever could.

The next stop on the bus tour took us to a small village renown for its Avoca Weavers. These craftspeople still use the traditional weaving techniques and tools from over a hundred years ago. It was a cool thing to see, but honestly I would have rather continued hiking around at the previous stop. In retrospect, we might have picked a tour that was a little more hiking oriented. I didn’t realize that the weaving place would be showcased on the tour and it made in seem a bit more for older folks. Anyway, we returned to the bus for the journey back to Dublin. Jacob totally passed out, but I’d had some coffee so I recovered nicely. This was only a quick fix, however, for after we returned to Dublin (we switched to a new hostel called Isaac’s Hostel), we both crashed. (Though not before meeting a couple chaps from New Zealand who I had a good talk with). After waking about three hours later, we decided to have a little more mellow night and to try and recover some. I did some writing and we uploaded some of his pictures to my computer. We bought some internet time and went hunting for reasonably priced food (but were once again unsuccessful). It had been about 10 or 12 hours since I’d had anything to eat, but I was content with a milkshake from burger king. (It’s amazing how much an entire bagette of bread will fill you up). Jacob ate at a lame 50’s-America themed diner with all kinds of ridiculous signs like “In Case of Fire, Pay Your Bill and Then Get the Hell Out!” Yeah, lame. They were like those jokes that are supposed to be funny but everyone only laughs because they’re so awkward. Okay, so anyway, we didn’t end up doing much, though we did decide we’d be going slightly different ways in the morning. I wanted to make it to Edinburgh the next day, but he needed to stay behind for this store to open in order to buy something for his girlfriend. I didn’t really fancy the idea of waiting until 11 or 12 to leave, figuring I’d get stuck in Belfast or Glasgow. So I decided to take the early train to Belfast and he would catch up with me in Edinburgh in a day. Hopefully we’ll manage that. On a dismal note, I seem to have left my Lonely Planet Western Europe behind somewhere. Jacob has one, but so long as I’m not with him, I’ll be flying kind of blind. Should make for some interesting situations though!



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