After much advice from everyone in Anna's family individually, we
decided a day-trip to Howth, a coastal city famous for its coast and
lighthouse, would be a good way to spend a relaxing final day in
Ireland.
We bussed our way to the city center after worriedly leaving Anna's
house because the alarm system makes lots of weird noises when we
tried to leave.
Howth is a beautiful seaside village with a dockland area and a famous
hike with lighthouse. Its about a 30 minute train ride from the city
and though we jumped onto the wrong train to start our journey, we
made it there in good time.
I'm really realizing that all the traveling and sightseeing is
exhausting so I'm starting to be better about taking time for naps.
The hike we went on was beautiful and took us up above the city so we
had some superb views of the sea and the enormous rocky crags jutting
from the water. The area has a huge array of birds as well and they
were happily floating about above the land and sea.
The hike up to the top of Hoath hill was a random one-lane road past a
number of cliff-side villas with beautiful flowers spilling over the
high fences. Atop of the hill one can look down ragged rocky cliffs to
see the seaside below. We decided to take a rest at the top and found
a great patch of grass to lie on. There was just enough sun in between
bouts of cloud-cover to keep us warm but after a while the hunger lead
us back to town where we went to a "chipper" (a fish'n'chips shop) to
get the traditional fish'n'chips meal consisting of battered and fried
cod and potatoes.
A note for all you language lovers out there. In the UK and Ireland
chips=french fries while crisps=chips..
We needed to get packed up for our journey to Scotland the next day so
we headed back to the city. Jackie proceeded to the house to rest up
and I stayed in the city to visit a few more galleries and locations
before meeting with an alumn of UCSD for drinks and an interview.
We met around Grafton street, a huge shopping area also hosting a
number of offices. Describing myself via email as being in jeans, a
black shirt and rainbows, Suzanne a UCSD Roosevelt College graduate
from 1996 found me amongst the huge crowd outside of Kehoe's an
after-work hot-spot of a pub.
Suzanne was originally from the east coast and saw San Diego as
somewhat of an escape during here college years. It was a little
tougher than she expected to be so far form home for college (no
internet or cell phones remember) but after that and a year abroad in
France she is definitely one to wander. After obtaining a masters
degree in Denver, she moved to D.C where she met her husband.
Eventually he moved to London and she joined, moving to Dublin
together about a year ago for new job opportunities.
It was a great evening and, as Americans abroad, we spent a good
amount of time comparing the political and social environments of the
US and places in Europe, comparing the drinking cultures and talking
about traveling. After a few drinks of Guinness and some Thai food I
had to catch the last bus of the night home.
After four hours of sleep, we got up at 330 to get to the Dublin
airport for our early flight to Edinburgh. Of course security only
took us about 20 minutes so while we were prepared for huge waits, we
ended up as the first to arrive at our gate and sat in the freezing
airport, too cold to sleep but too tired to do anything else.
--
Sent from my mobile device
No comments:
Post a Comment