The Luck of the Irish

By the Irish Sea
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My friend Eoin invited me to Ireland and since I had a host it was hard to refuse. However, getting there was going to be the trick. I started on a bus from Prague to Frankfurt, leaving Prague at 5:00 p.m. and arriving in Frankfurt at 1:00. Then I waited in the train station for another two hours. The train station was cold. I began my wait in a little walled in area where other travellers and a few homeless people were resting. I was on my bench for about five minutes when a guy wobbled in, hiccupped, and said something to himself. Clearly he was drunk. The only bench that looked like it had a significant amount of room on it was mine (mostly because I wasn't laying down). So the inevitable happened, the guy sat down next to me. The whole time he talked to himself, swore often in German, and constantly was looking through his pockets. I was getting uncomfortable and figured this guy must be schzophenic, so after another five minutes I got up and began to do laps around the train station to keep warm. The train finally came at 3:15 and I took a quick ride to the Frankfurt Airport and asked where the check in was for RyanAir. Well the check in was at a different airport. So I got on another bus, with several other people who had also made the same mistake and an hour and fifteen minutes later arrived at the correct airport. It was now 6:15 and I had to wait two hours until I could check in. I had now been up about 23 hours and was concerned about falling asleep and missing my flight. There had been a dad and his teenage son on my bus who arrived at the airpor too late and a frantic young traveler who had done the same. The dad/son combination had dealt with the situation gracefully. I was concered the other guy might have a breakdown, he was really shook up. In the end I stayed awake until I borded at 10:15 slept for an hour and a half during the flight and fairly painlessly was able to meet up with Eoin where we had a great lunch at a little diner and then he went back to work and I went back to his flat where I started a load of laundry and slept for the next 14 hours.

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After recovering from my sleep deprivation Ireland has been very enjoyable. I have checked out the sights of Dublin. Walked along the seaside, had a few good meals and two good pints with about eight members of Sinn Fein. Unfortunately I couldn't follow there talk about politics too well. For one thing they were very sophisticated in their understanding of Irish politics, where of course I am not. Also the bar was loud and the accents made it difficult to pick out what I might have understood. Nonetheless there was very good conversation about travelling and the night was fun.

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In a few hours Eoin and I are going to Belfast so I can get more of a feel for the history of the independence movement and Monday and Tuesday I'm going off to the west to see the countryside.