I don’t have any pictures. I should have made some attempt to catalog it – but we got on the train at 7:00. We couldn’t get reserved tickets so we were watching the train station board to get the platform. And when it finally showed up we were quick. We had to be about the first people on the train. We settled into primo seats around a table. Sat back to relax and realized that we were in reserved seats. There was nothing on the outside of the train to indicate reserved seating – and by the time we realized it we have lost our first to the train advantage. SO we sat where we were.
There was a couple who walked by us – and I’m pretty sure we were in their seats and they took pity on us. So we waited for any other potential seat takers. And we waited. Eventually we realized that the train was overbooked. People were sitting in the aisles and we weren’t the only ones in reserved seats who hadn’t really reserved. But we got lucky and we got the seats, which was super lucky!
So we had a nice ride on the train all the way to Holyhead (Wales). We arrived around 11 – but that was OK because we had plenty of time to get on the boat. It left at 2:40 am. Really it was us, the mail and about 8 other foot passengers. We and the mail were sober.
The girls mostly remember people telling jokes on the way from the train station to the boat. I was getting afraid on the walk to the boat that we would be walking onto a boat from 20 years ago with benches for seats – fortunately it was a very nice boat. It was just a terrible time to travel. We were very happy to get off the boat in Dublin (no hassle in immigration), into a taxi and walk out into Cabinteely!
Filed under: London
I’m glad that I was pretty good about maintaining the blog while we were traveling – now we’ve been in Ireland for a week and I’m working to remember what we did in London. We decided that we’d try a mix of sightseeing and shopping. (I thought we’d get our shopping done day one – but apparently that only whetted the appetite and the girls had things they wanted to go back and actually buy.)
We started on London’s South Bank. It’s a great place to see Big Ben, London Eye, the Thames – and there was some sort of festival going on so we got to see fun sculpture and arty, mini-houses, which were very much like the arty ice fishing houses we saw in Minnesota a few years ago – only not so cold. There was a huge hay fox. I took a close-up and a picture with Kate in it for perspective. Also we had a really nice lunch. Much nicer than we should have had – but we were making up for McDonald’s the day before.
Then we headed back to the other side of the River. We walked by Big Ben, Parliament (where you have to say – look kids Big Ben, Parliament – from European Vacation). It was a beautiful day and we took plenty of pictures. There’s a great picture of Aine in front of a horse at White Chapel.
We were going to walk to Buckingham Palace – but we decided we’d seen it before and Trafalgar Square would be better. Our timing was perfect – we got there, got some cute pictures and were able to duck into the Tate Gallery for the 10 minute rain shower. From there we headed back to Picadilly Circus, the toy store and up around Oxford Street. It was kind of fun to walk around that area since I used to work on Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road so I’ve done the walk a lot.
Eventually we made our way down to Covent Garden. We’d been there before but it’s always fun to see the people and the buskers. Then we decided we’d wind our way back to Euston Station – where we planned to get the train/boat to Dublin. Our funny bonus sight was walking by Pineapple Express. I shouldn’t even admit that we’ve watched it. I can’t even tell you where it is – but suddenly everything looked a little surreal and I realized I’d seen the street before – on TV.
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