13
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Day 13. 27th June. Blarney, Thomastown, Dublin.
We went to Limerick and composed some limericks, we went to Tipperary, as in the song “it’s a long long way to Tipperary.” ☺
Then we went to a little place called Thomastown. Thomastown in Killkenny County is the town of our Burke ancestors. Raina's granddad lived there until he migrated to Australia. We had a great pub lunch there and watched the colorful characters. The bar was pretty damn full for 1pm. Lol. One man who looked a bit like the ove child of Denathor from Lord of the Rings and Filtch from Harry Potter. He had his little dog in the bar with him. It scurried around and picked up dropped bits all over the pub. Another funny moment occurred when the bar tender left the pub and headed across the road for some groceries, leaving all the customers alone in the bar. Very nice small town mentality there. ☺
Back to Dublin to sort out some packing to head off to Switzerland tomorrow.
And I got a Lime and soda at the hotel bar. Check out the size of the bottle of soda water...lol
14
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Day 14. 28th June. Dublin to Zurich
Just going to put this out there. Dublin’s traffic system is STUPID!!!!! It has massively wide, multi lane streets. Some are one way, some are two way. Some streets swap between one and two way. There is no semblance of a grid. AND THEY HAVE NO STREET SIGNS. Well that is a lie, they have them BUT YOU CANT READ THEM. Actually that is a lie too, they have SOME. But the majority of streets do not have signage. Now throw in Trams and many many angry drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. And also some blind corners. On one occasion when forced to block a tiny portion of the road in order to inch across and change lanes on a one-way street, a passing cyclist while yelling at us actually punched the car. Like, my god, we caused him to have to steer a whole metre out of his most direct path. I’m not very pleased with the nature of Dubliners from what I have seen. But oh well.
Also to hinder us Elizabeth Wooten-Basset’s ongoing disorder is still affecting her to an extent. This morning she was able to help us however clearly not on the most direct route. But she also did not start working till we were a decent way from the hotel. Fun times. But we did make it.
While at the airport, we decided we had had enough of Elizabeth Wootan-Bassett’s treason (well, crimes against us). A quick trial was held and she was found guilty. This meant that she could not be re-homed and she certainly was not going to be transported to the colony in Australia and given a second chance on our next trip. Her punishment? Maybe we had been influenced by two weeks in the UK, but she was sentenced as a traitor. Hung, Drawn and Quartered. Once this was done, her parts were scattered to the four corners of the kingdom, well the airport. A small part was kept for London Bridge. William Wallace would be proud.
A short flight and we were in Switzerland. The airport and train station was an interesting experience. We eventually found a ticket machine that half spoke English and got our tickets. Crossed our fingers and jumped on a train. We got it right, by some miracle. A taxi to the hotel, which turned out to be obscenely expensive then we set out to explore Zurich.
We caught the trams up the city and explored. We looked at some shops, the old town, St. Peters with the largest clock face in Europe. Know what? It is pretty big.
Zurich is beautiful, I love it, a great vibe is going on here and the people are all very friendly and try to help. The English speaking is amazing here, most have had a pretty good grasp of it, and anyone else has spoken it very well. It always shocks me how easy travel is for English speakers. We are so lucky, almost anywhere people will speak English (in the main cities anyway) even when it is not the national language. Incredible.
On the river that runs through the city we saw some sort of women's swim club. It is a floating pontoon with two pools surrounded by decks for longing on, change rooms, showers and massage rooms and of course a bar. It was full of women swimming and relaxing. I so wanted to swim, it was so stinking hot.
Apparently we have managed to catch a heat wave, it is never this hot here, but is for our arrival. Lame. Actually it wasn’t so bad once we got changed at the hotel. Coming home from the airport was shocking being dressed for Ireland.
We went for a fondue dinner, something Switzerland is famous for. It was delicious, so very very yummy. Oh and a cracking good glass of local red for me. (French bubbles for Raina) And the waiters were fantastic colorful Swiss folk. Really nice and funny. :D
Totally loving Switzerland.
Also to hinder us Elizabeth Wooten-Basset’s ongoing disorder is still affecting her to an extent. This morning she was able to help us however clearly not on the most direct route. But she also did not start working till we were a decent way from the hotel. Fun times. But we did make it.
While at the airport, we decided we had had enough of Elizabeth Wootan-Bassett’s treason (well, crimes against us). A quick trial was held and she was found guilty. This meant that she could not be re-homed and she certainly was not going to be transported to the colony in Australia and given a second chance on our next trip. Her punishment? Maybe we had been influenced by two weeks in the UK, but she was sentenced as a traitor. Hung, Drawn and Quartered. Once this was done, her parts were scattered to the four corners of the kingdom, well the airport. A small part was kept for London Bridge. William Wallace would be proud.
A short flight and we were in Switzerland. The airport and train station was an interesting experience. We eventually found a ticket machine that half spoke English and got our tickets. Crossed our fingers and jumped on a train. We got it right, by some miracle. A taxi to the hotel, which turned out to be obscenely expensive then we set out to explore Zurich.
We caught the trams up the city and explored. We looked at some shops, the old town, St. Peters with the largest clock face in Europe. Know what? It is pretty big.
Zurich is beautiful, I love it, a great vibe is going on here and the people are all very friendly and try to help. The English speaking is amazing here, most have had a pretty good grasp of it, and anyone else has spoken it very well. It always shocks me how easy travel is for English speakers. We are so lucky, almost anywhere people will speak English (in the main cities anyway) even when it is not the national language. Incredible.
On the river that runs through the city we saw some sort of women's swim club. It is a floating pontoon with two pools surrounded by decks for longing on, change rooms, showers and massage rooms and of course a bar. It was full of women swimming and relaxing. I so wanted to swim, it was so stinking hot.
Apparently we have managed to catch a heat wave, it is never this hot here, but is for our arrival. Lame. Actually it wasn’t so bad once we got changed at the hotel. Coming home from the airport was shocking being dressed for Ireland.
We went for a fondue dinner, something Switzerland is famous for. It was delicious, so very very yummy. Oh and a cracking good glass of local red for me. (French bubbles for Raina) And the waiters were fantastic colorful Swiss folk. Really nice and funny. :D
Totally loving Switzerland.
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