Back Across the Irish Sea

Posted on 2007/09/21 22:36:00 (September 2007).

[Tuesday 18th September]
I spent this morning working from the Dublin office, met Bartek for lunch, then after that headed over to the port to catch my ferry back to the UK.

I had originally planned to walk to the ferry port, but as it started to look like I was cutting it a little bit thin I decided in the end it was better to get a taxi - especially as I remember the roads around the port didn't seem that well suited to pedestrians.

Of the several taxis I took whilst in Dublin, at least two of the drivers exhibited somewhat-less-than-PC opinions about things. I don't think this necessarily indicates that the Irish are any more prejudiced than the British, but perhaps just that they are more avid about voicing their opinions. On Sunday night one had "warned" me against going into a bar near where he'd dropped me off, as it was apparently Dublin's biggest gay bar. Today the taxi driver decided to have a go at immigration. I think I did a fairly good job at politely disagreeing with him - I mentioned that I had lived abroad, and if I had the right to do that, then why shouldn't other people? He didn't seem to have a good argument to counter that, although probably wrote me off as a lefty English ejeet, and was glad to see me getting on that boat back to the UK.

My ferry left at 2:30 in the afternoon, and unlike the trip on the way over, today the Irish Sea was much more amenable, and it was a very pleasant crossing. I decided to treat myself, and upgraded to Club Class - a mere 10 quid extra, and it came with much nicer and more spacious seats, plus some complimentary drinks and nibbles (and the chance to get away from all of the rest of the riff raff on the boat - oops, did I say that?).

The ferry arrived in Holyhead at 4:30, and I then had an hour before my train left. I decided, somewhat ill-advisedly in retrospect, to take a wander around the town centre in Holyhead, perhaps with the hope of finding something to eat on the train. It was a thoroughly demoralising experience - I don't think I'd ever really been into Holyhead properly before, and it turned out to be a really dilapidated and generally depressing place. There were two supermarkets - a smallish Co-op and a Lidl, but I couldn't bring myself to actually buy anything at either of them.

The first leg of the train journey took me from Holyhead to Crewe, taking just over two hours. I then had to change at Crewe - another depressing experience (although thankfully quite short) to get on the final leg of my journey back to London.

Although I had made something of a stand with this trip by very deliberately not flying, towards the end of the journey it did occur to me just how long a trip it is by the land and sea route. My iPod was quite helpful in alleviating the inevitable boredom, although towards the end I had watched all the TV shows I had stored on there, and resorted to listening to all my songs on shuffle, and skipping the vast majority.

I finally got home just after 10, and it was great to see Chie after a few nights away!

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