At home abroad: May 5, 2008

May 5, 2008

It's all about timing

Today I left the house happily (2 hours early) to go to my class in Dun Laoghaire. I do not have a car and as I might have mentioned before the public transport here is somewhat funny. If you do not live on the dart line for instance you need to travel all the way into town, then cross town for the nearest dart stop and then travel back south on the dart.
Well that was my intention today as well, but once I had purchased my ticket and started waiting for the train I found out that the trains would not run all the way to Dun Laoghaire and there were no connecting buses from the last stop.
I have to admit I am very inexperienced when it comes to taking the Dublin bus, but as it was the only solution left to me I ran out of the station and found a stop for a bus to Dun Laoghaire. The bus then took me on a lovely round trip of the southern parts of Dublin that were still unfamiliar to me. I had plenty of time to take in my surroundings as the bus stopped every 2 -3 minutes (no I am not making this up;). We did reach Dun Laoghaire after 59 minutes (yes I did not keep staring at my watch) and sadly way too late for my class (I am sure there are faster bus lines though). I went for a walk then waiting for the dart service to resume and would have kept quiet, if I would not have been greeted by this lovely advert on the train.

Well really it's all about timing sometimes;)

Intro

In Ireland I was once told a story. A Spanish man travelling in Connemara asked what the Irish word for mañana would be. He was told “Oh no, we don’t have a word describing such a hurry here.”
I tried to keep this story in mind on my way from Cork into Dublin on Sunday evening.
It seemed to me like even the roads were in a hurry. Cars where changing lanes like mad and honking was the only accepted way of communication.

Ireland is a lovely country, people are friendly, the weather is mild, the countryside is gorgeous and in general not much is working in this country, but Irish people are way to relaxed to keep complaining about this too much, which is a very good skill to acquire when you move here from lets say one of the Scandinavian countries.