Ireland

Tuesday 14 April

This time next week I’ll be sleeping in my own bed. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have just under a week left of my trip and I’m definitely looking forward to coming home. Sometimes it seems the past four months have gone amazingly quickly and other times it seems like I’ve felt every single day, every single hour, every single minute…

I’ve spent the last week in Ireland – 5 days in Dublin and 3 in Belfast. I spent a couple of days wandering round Dublin, getting my bearings, going on walking tours etc. One day I went on a bus trip to Wicklow, with a bus driver who looked like Father Ted, swore like Father Jack and sang like…Elvis.

He kept singing throughout the trip: various Irish songs that were about the areas we were visiting, other songs that were appropriate to the conditions (e.g. “Singin’ in the Rain”); and other completely random songs (e.g. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” or his Elvis impersonations…). He had a reasonable enough singing voice, but unfortunately he didn’t know all the words to any of the songs he was singing (da da da crazy little thing called love…”)

Then, on the return journey he wanted to have a Eurovision sing-a-long. He started off with an Irish song, then he chose Spain. So the Spanish people on the bus had to sing a song. Then they got to choose a country. Good idea, but unfortunately, no-one else wanted to sing… So he sang songs from all the countries.

It was a long journey…

Then yesterday in Belfast I went on a day trip to the Giant’s Causeway on the north-west coast of Northern Ireland. And had an interesting bus driver there…

Only this time, he was more like a strict school teacher. We weren’t allowed to talk on the trip so he could do his commentary, and asked if we were sitting by someone who kept on talking, we should go up and tell him so he could have a word with them. We had to stay in the same seats all day, and those who had changed, he made them stand up and switch back to their original seats. He kept getting angry at people who were late back to the bus. We ended getting back to Belfast an hour later than planned and all the way back he kept saying “I’ve never been this late before” or “I’ve never had such a stressful trip as this.” I thought we were all going to get a detention or a letter sent home to our parents.

I think I preferred Father Ted.

Anyway…I did like Ireland, both parts – the Republic and the North – and I’d like a chance to explore a bit more of the country some other time.

I’m writing this on the ferry from Belfast to Stran…something-or-other and then I’ll catch a bus to Manchester where I’ll stay for a night, to Sheffield for a couple of days, London for a night then I’ll be spending the next 24 hours in the sky…

See you soon!

Oh – there were some music shops in Ireland…