Arrival! On the Ground in Dublin, Ireland and Bangor, Wales

When you last left your intrepid hero (me), I was in Boston, on my way to the airport and thence to Dublin and Wales.

I will say this for the Boston airport: their international terminal is one of the worst I’ve ever been in. I love to walk around before long flights, so I don’t get so jittery. But it was a mere 10 minutes from one end of the terminal to the other, and no wings or branches or anywhere else to go. Ah for the days of flying out of Chicago O’Hare. Now there’s a place you can walk around in!

And not only was there nowhere to go, there was also a distinct lack of places to plug in a computer or USB devices. I did eventually fine one such area, in the middle of the terminal, and far away (relatively speaking) from the gates on either end. So with my flight delayed, and my absurdly early arrival, I did manage to get some work done, though I couldn’t concentrate for very long.

The flight itself was delightful. It was my first time flying Aer Lingus, and my first impression is very good. The plane was only about 1/3 full, so I abandoned my window seat in favor of one of the middle aisles, where I could actually stretch out my legs and nap.

My pre-ordered, $20 3-course meal was excellent. It came with dessert (cheesecake) and a small bottle of wine. And, the appetizer was an individually-wrapped Tillamook cheese slice, which made me absurdly happy.

My pre-paid 3-course meal included: a roll, Tillamook cheese slice, salad (with a tiny bottle of olive oil), cheesecake, a cup of spring water, and chicken stuffed with tomatoes. Not pictured: a small bottle of red wine.

Even though I’d eaten in the terminal (actual restaurant food, something I never do when I travel), I was hungry by the time they served me. I ate everything, even the salad. The chicken was absolutely delicious. The “regular” passengers got a good meal too (I peaked at the trays as they went by), but they didn’t get dessert or the small bottle of red wine.

After they served us, I napped for about 3 hours, which is all the time we had before we started our descent into Dublin. I didn’t want to miss my first glimpse of Ireland from the air, so I found an empty row, grabbed the window seat, and watched out the window as we flew into Dublin from the west, over the fields of Ireland.

I somehow thought that, since Portland is pretty green, I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by Ireland.

I was wrong.

Ireland from the air is simply stunning. The fields are these shades of green that are so deep and vibrant, it almost hurts to look at them. And *everything* is green, especially from an airplane.

As you get lower, the green starts to have accent colors: grey for the roads, white for some of the houses, and here and there some other colors. I tried to take a photo for you out of the window, but between the airplane’s speed, and the wings in the way, you can’t see anything in the photo.

But trust me when I say – it was incredible. For a few minutes, I wished I could stay in Ireland and not go on to Wales!

It was a brilliant sunny day when we landed, and it felt good to stand outside the airport at the bus terminal and breath in actual fresh air. Double-decker buses came through fairly often, which surprised me – the only time I’ve seen them is red ones in London. But there are double-deckers here in Wales, too, and it makes sense – how to you build buses to accommodate more people? You can’t build them wider, or longer. So, you expand them upwards instead!

The bus dropped me off about 45 minutes from the Dublin Port, and it would have been closer if I hadn’t missed my first stop. This was my first view of the River Liffey as I got off the bus:

The River Liffey, facing upstream towards downtown Dublin

Even though my flight had landed 1.5 hours later than planned, I had left myself plenty of room (5 hours) between when my plane landed and when the ferry left for Holyhead, Wales.

So I walked downstream along the River Liffey for a bit, then turned north and finally east again to get to Dublin port.

This historic ship on the River Liffey is also a restaurant. Sadly, it wasn’t quite lunchtime when I passed it on my way to the Port.

It *felt* like a very long walk, even though I only had two bags – my backpack and a small Nike gym duffel. That gym duffel got awfully heavy after a while, and I had to be super careful about crossing streets. Even now, after almost a week, I look the “wrong” way first nearly every time.

Luckily for me, although my phone doesn’t work in the UK, and there was no free wireless nearby, the GPS on my Google maps still works just fine. Which is creepy, when you think about it, but also useful. You can’t search for anything on the map, since the search function uses the internet, but you can see where you are, and zoom around if you know where you’re trying to go.

Right before I turned down the last stretch of road to the port, I finally had a close-up view of the ocean.

View of the Dublin Port Inlet, North Side

It was one of those perfect moments: warm sun on my back, a breeze in my face, and the smell of salt and the sound of water lapping all around me. I could have sat there a long time, but I was afraid that if I sat down, I’d fall asleep and never get up again. And so, after taking one last close up of the boats at anchor, I kept walking.

Boats at anchor in the Dublin Port inlet, North Side

I slept for a bit at the ferry depot, and so I missed the Jonathan Swift coming into port.

Going out of port, though, I was wide awake. I’ve never been on an ocean or sea-going ferry before – just little 20 minute ones, and even that only once or twice. The inside of this ferry was amazing.

On the passenger level, they had a coffee-shop and a hot food shop, a duty-free shop, a bunch of tables, chairs, and booths, a small arcade, a bar, and a mini-theatre with big screen TV and movie-style seating. I didn’t get any pictures, but you can take a virtual tour here.

Deck plans for the Jonathan Swift Irish Ferry. photo credit: IrishFerries.com

I was afraid that I might be seasick (I get motion sick sometimes), but the waves were perfectly calm, and it was still a gloriously sunny day. I went up on the outside deck for most of the trip, and ended up sharing an out-of-the-wind nook with a retired British gal who told me stories of how she and her family went caravanning all around Europe, Scandinavia, and the Mediterranean.

Her theory for why the Brits drive on the left side of the road makes a lot of sense: it’s because, in medieval times, you held your lance (if you were jousting) or your sword (if you weren’t) in your right hand. So naturally, all horse-drawn conveyances left your right arm free to attack the person coming at you, and when cars were introduced, they followed the same protocol.

Every time I think about that conversation, I imagine two cars driving down the road towards each other, with the drivers brandishing a lance at each other as they close the gap.

Unfortunately, since the open-air deck was on the back of the ferry, I didn’t see much as we approached Wales. But what I saw from the train was spectacular!

Like Ireland, Wales is green, green, green. And the train carried us through farmlands, with lots of sheep (and baby sheep!) and neat old bridges and – well – pretty much everything you ever imagined about the Welsh countryside.

Before the ferry left Dublin, I’d been chatting with a white-haired lady on her way to Rhyl to  pop in for a couple of days on an elderly cousin. And as it happened, we were on the same east-bound train. She even watched my bag for me at the train station, while I went back down the platform to purchase my ticket.

So as I’m soaking up the scenery on the train, Olive Christine and I are chatting about this and that. Religion, a little bit, and her cousin, and the countryside, and all sorts of inconsequential things. It felt good to have an interesting, talkative seat companion.

The train ride, like the ferry ride, was over too quickly. And yet, it was already 5:15 pm (local time), and I hadn’t even arrived at my B & B!

On the map, the Garth House isn’t that far from the train station. It is, thankfully, all on the same road (the A5), and all downhill or flat. And it was still a beautiful afternoon, and the road went right by the university, as well as several grocery stores. But I was thankful to reach the B & B (that gym bag had gotten heavy again), and more thankful still that Les, the manager, was expecting me.

The Garth House is a lovely red brick building, the last in a row of three identical red-brick buildings. There are 5 or 6 rooms on the 2nd floor, but only 2 up here on the 3rd floor, which is where my room is. This is what the room looks like from the door:

My room at Y Garth, shot from the door.

As you can see, the room includes a dorm-width bed, shower, sink, and behind the closed door is a toilet.

Off to the left of this picture is a little under-eves nook, which looks like this:

Under-eves nook, Y Garth guest room

To be honest, the first night I saw this room, I was a bit dismayed. I’d gone from having a whole house to myself in Vancouver, to a 3-bedroom apartment in Beaverton, to a house and then a studio in Boston, and finally this room. It felt incredibly small, and it still does, in some ways. I’ve been in dorm rooms that are bigger.

However, the price is right (30 pounds per night, breakfast and wifi included), and the location is excellent – it’s a 5 minute walk to the central bus station, 20 to the train station, and 10 to High Street, with all the shops (and ATMs).

As the week has worn on, the room is growing on me. The only thing I’m still not fond of is the bed – it’s comfortable enough, but much too narrow. One of these nights I’m going to turn over in my sleep and roll right off one of the sides. And – it’s still weird to look out your shower into your living space. Even weirder to step right out and practically run into your bed.

The best thing about the room (aside from the en suite bathroom) is the view out my window:

View out my window at Y Garth

I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking out this window, as I face this way on my bed when working on my laptop. There are several birds that fly from bushes to tree to deck railing, and I finally figured out how to open the left-hand window more than half an inch. (As it turns out, the instructions are right there under the window. Who knew?)

The other great thing about this room is that it’s very close to the pier, which is where I went on my very first night here. Bangor is located on a strait, with the Isle of Anglesey on the other side, which means the strait ebbs and flows with the tides.

On my first night, the tide was almost completely out, like so:

Sunset over the Menai Strait, low tide

Although it looks like there’s water in the foreground, it’s just wet mud reflecting the setting sun. The actual water of the strait is past the mud bank in the picture.

The funniest thing about the tides is that, when it goes out and leaves the mud behind, the boats that were anchored there are no longer floating in the water – they’re resting on the mud! Even after several days, I smile every time I see a “beached” boat. I know that in less than 12 hours, it will be floating free of the mud, but they look so silly anchored to a mud flat.

The most stunning part of the pier, however, is the actual pier itself. It’s one of the few original, non-reconstructed Victorian peers in the UK. And I am particularly proud of this picture I took of it, which is almost perfect enough to put on a postcard.

Sunset on the Victorian Pier at Bangor, Low Tide

You can’t see them from this angle, but there are benches all along the pier, and they’re inscribed with “in memorium” messages, which I love to read. There’s a tea shop at the end of the pier, too, but it was closed by the time I got there, and I haven’t been back yet.

By the time I finished exploring the pier on that first night, it was getting dark, and I couldn’t ignore my hungry tummy any more. At the end of the parking lot at the pier is an Italian restaurant, and that’s where I went for dinner. It was good food (I hadn’t eaten all day, and any food would have been delicious), and a good view of the sunset across the strait. It was dark by the time I got back to the B & B, and I was asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.

That’s the thing about dealing with jetlag – you just don’t sleep much, keep going until a normal bedtime (10 pm, in my case), and make sure you have plenty of time to sleep (at least 10 hours). And when you wake up, your body is magically adjusted to the new time zone. Because hey – your alarm wouldn’t be going off if it weren’t morning. Right?

More to come this week: exploring Bangor, difficulties with wifi and clients, and a Saturday adventure to nearby Menai Bridge and Beaumaris.

Until next time,

~ Felicity