I am so serious. This city never sleeps. Went to bed with a huge, post football party going on at every bar on the street. Woke up to the party still going on. Seriously, drunks staggering down the middle of streets, trash everywhere. It even inspired me to write an Irish poem about it. Or I was inspired by the Irish House Party last night.
Dublin Sunday Morning
Beside the lovely Liffey, it didn’t make no diffy.
Dublin’s kind of iffy Sunday morning.
Trash and drunks all over, mixed in with poop from Rover
I didn’t see one clover,
Sunday morning.
Hope you enjoyed that. You will see in my pics from my early morning walk exactly what I am talking about. And there is another NSFW verse about something else I saw that you will have to ask me the next time you see me.
After my walk and breakfast we headed out to use the second day of our HopOn/HopOff (HoHo) bus pass with Big Bus Tours. Here’s what I have to say about Big Bus Tours…never and I mean NEVER use this company. There is another HoHo bus company. BigBus drives red buses, the other guys drive green. Use them. Let me explain.
There is a marathon going on today in Dublin. The finish line is on our street actually a block from our place. We realized yesterday that this would mean that some stops would not be available today due to the race. So we checked the company website and their app. Both said that the only thing that was rerouted would be the two stops near Marion Square. I have a screen shot that says these ae the only low numbered stops that were going to be affected. So we (just Kathleen and I) walked quite a few blocks to the other side of St. Stephens Square where we had seen the bus drop off and pick up yesterday. But guess what? The bus wasn’t dropping off or picking up there. So I called the phone number I had for them and asked. She said that because of the race, they were picking up and dropping off on the other side of the park. So with my bad knee and Kathleen neuropathy killing her legs we walked back across the park (it sucks to get old). When we got there, there was a bus. We asked the driver whether he was the red or the blue line (they have two routes) and said “I am neither. We aren’t using this stop today. You will need to walk to Stop 2 (about 10 minutes away.” Normally, no big deal but the way our bodies were working today—a very big deal). So I called the company back and was told that the number I was calling was not really the bus company but rather a number in a tourist agency and they would take a message. (No wonder the woman didn’t know about the St. Stephen’s Green bus stop change.) I asked for the number of the actual bus company and she said, she didn’t know it and even is she did, she wasn’t allowed to give it out. Please excuse me here but “WHAT THE HELL????”
But we did it anyway only to get there and find out that the stop only picked up Red Route (which we had done yesterday) riders. If we wanted blue we would have to get on and go three stops up and change busses. What the hell…again! See what I mean about this company. We took the bus to the next stop and were told it would be 20 minutes until the Blue bus came and we just gave up and walked back.
And one other thing. On the back of every bus was the ad at right. Only problem was, it wasn’t true. We rode four different busses and my brother and his family rode four others. On only two of them were their live guides. The rest had almost unintelligible, recorded (with music) narration. Boring with a capital B.
On our way we had a nice lunch, picked up some art and postcards for family and friends (yes, we still do that) and headed back through the marathon mess to home. On the way I stepped on a piece of pavement that was dry but had water and mud underneath it and shot straight up onto the other leg of my jeans that had just been washed. So now we are home washing them again and hoping they will dry tonight before we have to pack them to board the ship tomorrow. No dryer in this unit.
I am finishing this at 4:35 am Dublin time on June 3. We are off to the ship in about five hours. I am not sure how often I will be able to post while on the ship but I will try to do it on a somewhat regular basis. Our stops include Belfast on the 4th, then Reykjavik on 6th and 7th and Akureyri on the 8th & 9th before we head to Cork on the 12th and finally back here to Dublin on the 13th.
Paris is cafe culture, Dublin is pub culture, and that’s the best place to solve all the world’s problems: over a pint! One of the great joys of living, I think. The problems of the world seem to disappear. —Liam Cunningham
So many great pictures. I remember the Ha’Penny bridge! On one of my visits to Dublin, it was the 4th of July…You would have thought you were in the US the way they celebrated!!! It was great!