*Flashback* to arriving at Reus airport in Spain with Mel and trying deperately to get our passports stamped, but all the officials either 'no hablo ingles'ed us or didn't understand that we didn't want to be illegal immigrants... the airport was the size of a garage and all the other passengers just scampered, so after holding our passports out to anyone who'd look (we really just wanted a pretty Spain stamp to add to the collection) we hopped on a bus and forgot about it. This bus turned out to be the last straw in a series of frustrating getting-lost-due-to-not-wanting-to-lose-face-by-asking-silly-questions moments which made me promise myself for the future that I would prefer to look like an idiot and keep asking for help rather than get lost and stranded in completely the wrong corner of town on a Sunday afternoon when everything is shut and no-one is around to ask for help and no-one speaks the language and it's really hot and we're tired....
ANYWAY we only remembered about our no stamp situation when we got to Barcelona airport to leave the country, but there was no problem and we got a neat little rectangle stamp with an aeroplane in it so you should have seen how happy we were about that, especially Mel whose brand new passport needs some serious decorating!
After we said Hola and Grathyas (yes you have to lisp it) to the very fair and freckly Irish flight attendants we decided it was time for a can of magners Irish cider to get in the mood on the plane, and we touched down in Dublin at about midnight in some lovely chilly drizzle. The signs were now in English and Gaelic, and we felt like we were cheating when saying Hello and Thankyou to people, it just felt too easy. We liked Ireland straight away when the customs official looked at us sternly and said there's one important rule for Ireland, and that's not to break any hearts! And then the taxi driver took us on a chatty tour of the city at the deserted hour of 1am and told us that 'if you can't be safe be careful!' Of course it sounded so much better in their accents.
Met Zoe in our hotel and she fed us up with a selection of Tesco goodies like coleslaw (Irish coleslaw is amazing! And I'm not usually a massive fan) and some special mint chocolate I've forgotten what it's called. Next day after annoying Zoe with our "top o' the mornin to ye"s we caught the DART into town and had a nice cooked Irish breakfast with mugs of tea in the Temple Bar district.
Dublin felt a lot more like home than anywhere I've been so far, maybe because the cars are back on the left side of the road for the first time since Thailand and there were trams, normal shops, & obviously English being spoken. Actually the switching of the side of the road just made us more confused because we just about got used to looking the other way first before crossing, standing on the other side of the escalators, going up the other side of the staircase... and now we just look wildly both ways, confused, and hope for the best.
Dragged the others to the Dublin Writers Museum which I really loved, (first admission price we'd paid in a while, Mel & I managed to admire all of Barcelona's sights from the free outside ;) it told the life stories of Jonothan Swift (Gulliver's travels) James Joyce (Ulysses) Oscar Wilde (Importance of Being Ernest etc) Yeats, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot etc) George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) Bram Stoker (Dracula)... who were all Dubliners.
Sun was out today; jeans and tshirt weather. Unfortunately for my budget we went into a bookshop and I came out with Marion Keyes and Oscar Wilde short stories to really get in the Irish mindframe, and that night I ate the best meal I'd had in a long time, a guinness & beef stew with mashed potato and Zoe gave me her onion ring cos she can't eat the gluten, so all in all it was a very stereotyped irish day! We went out to Temple Bar district that night which is full of touristy Irish pubs and clubs and restaurants but it was lots of fun and we met some "fairmen" (firemen) who taught us the lingo: What's the craic? (pronounced 'crack') Te craic is rapo! Or te craic is deadly! Or they just say 'Craic?' and you nod and say 'Deadly.'
Zoe had her auntys car so we drove around for the next few days, went across to the west coast to Galway and down to Cliffs of Moher from there, the roads were so narrow and windy with grey stone walls either side and boxing up the paddocks. Weird stone hills in County Clare covered in wildflowers, bog and peat and sheep with black faces (baa ram ewe..) ruins of castles and walls on the hilltops. If you got stuck behind a tractor on those skinny lanes you're stuffed for hours!
The cliffs were awesome and so windy at the top, I felt like I could fully lean into the wind and not fall over (but I probably would have.) They were 200m+ sheer drops down to the rolling Atlantic ocean which seemed to swell in slow motion and then shatter up the cliff face.
ANYWAY we only remembered about our no stamp situation when we got to Barcelona airport to leave the country, but there was no problem and we got a neat little rectangle stamp with an aeroplane in it so you should have seen how happy we were about that, especially Mel whose brand new passport needs some serious decorating!
After we said Hola and Grathyas (yes you have to lisp it) to the very fair and freckly Irish flight attendants we decided it was time for a can of magners Irish cider to get in the mood on the plane, and we touched down in Dublin at about midnight in some lovely chilly drizzle. The signs were now in English and Gaelic, and we felt like we were cheating when saying Hello and Thankyou to people, it just felt too easy. We liked Ireland straight away when the customs official looked at us sternly and said there's one important rule for Ireland, and that's not to break any hearts! And then the taxi driver took us on a chatty tour of the city at the deserted hour of 1am and told us that 'if you can't be safe be careful!' Of course it sounded so much better in their accents.
Met Zoe in our hotel and she fed us up with a selection of Tesco goodies like coleslaw (Irish coleslaw is amazing! And I'm not usually a massive fan) and some special mint chocolate I've forgotten what it's called. Next day after annoying Zoe with our "top o' the mornin to ye"s we caught the DART into town and had a nice cooked Irish breakfast with mugs of tea in the Temple Bar district.
Dublin felt a lot more like home than anywhere I've been so far, maybe because the cars are back on the left side of the road for the first time since Thailand and there were trams, normal shops, & obviously English being spoken. Actually the switching of the side of the road just made us more confused because we just about got used to looking the other way first before crossing, standing on the other side of the escalators, going up the other side of the staircase... and now we just look wildly both ways, confused, and hope for the best.
Dragged the others to the Dublin Writers Museum which I really loved, (first admission price we'd paid in a while, Mel & I managed to admire all of Barcelona's sights from the free outside ;) it told the life stories of Jonothan Swift (Gulliver's travels) James Joyce (Ulysses) Oscar Wilde (Importance of Being Ernest etc) Yeats, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot etc) George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) Bram Stoker (Dracula)... who were all Dubliners.
Sun was out today; jeans and tshirt weather. Unfortunately for my budget we went into a bookshop and I came out with Marion Keyes and Oscar Wilde short stories to really get in the Irish mindframe, and that night I ate the best meal I'd had in a long time, a guinness & beef stew with mashed potato and Zoe gave me her onion ring cos she can't eat the gluten, so all in all it was a very stereotyped irish day! We went out to Temple Bar district that night which is full of touristy Irish pubs and clubs and restaurants but it was lots of fun and we met some "fairmen" (firemen) who taught us the lingo: What's the craic? (pronounced 'crack') Te craic is rapo! Or te craic is deadly! Or they just say 'Craic?' and you nod and say 'Deadly.'
Zoe had her auntys car so we drove around for the next few days, went across to the west coast to Galway and down to Cliffs of Moher from there, the roads were so narrow and windy with grey stone walls either side and boxing up the paddocks. Weird stone hills in County Clare covered in wildflowers, bog and peat and sheep with black faces (baa ram ewe..) ruins of castles and walls on the hilltops. If you got stuck behind a tractor on those skinny lanes you're stuffed for hours!
The cliffs were awesome and so windy at the top, I felt like I could fully lean into the wind and not fall over (but I probably would have.) They were 200m+ sheer drops down to the rolling Atlantic ocean which seemed to swell in slow motion and then shatter up the cliff face.
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