Four Countries to One Post

Leaving Scotland was hard.  Harder than it should have been.  Staying with a family, a Christian family, was wonderful, and so hard to give up when I know how long the trip is ahead of me.  I wouldn't give up this opportunity for anything, but there was so much security and warmth with the Green family.  Sometimes the guitar would be pulled out and we'd get to sing along with worship songs.  And there's the conversation..about important things, like God, and end-times, and the Bible...and about equally important things, like clothes, and sweet shops, and actors.  Leaving home was emotional, and so of course leaving this home too was emotional.  Still, now that I'm sitting again in Dublin on my bunk in our latest hostel, I am excited about what's to come.  Excited and maybe just a little apprehensive.  I've been trying to gather as much French as I can from our Rick Steve's French book, and actually I'm rather pleased with what I've retained so far.  Still, I'm somewhat certain that once I'm in the position to use it, I will simultaneously lose it all, so I'll be keeping the book close at hand.  But enough of that. 

Let's talk about the walk to the US Embassy.  We had great fun!  I am quite sure that the Dublin city map is not drawn to scale.  It's been a wonderful map to have...we almost never have to ask for directions, but the distances seem to be off.  On this day, we had to go to the US Embassy so that Elizabeth could get new pages in her passport.  Problem A: It was pouring rain.  And when I say pouring, I am understating it.  Problem B: The passport area of the embassy closed at 11:30...and we were leaving at 10:45.  Which leads me right into problem C: The embassy was located at the very edge of the map.  Let's just say it was a longish walk in murderous rain to be pulled off in less than forty-five minutes.  We were absolutely soaked (except for a few dry specks here and there) when we passed it, and just as soaked when we realized our mistake, saw the embassy back across the intersection, and ran as fast as we could.  We must have looked pathetic when they let us in.  It was 11:30.  They sent us up to the passport people and we waited.  For about half-an-hour.  They took her passport, and then came back saying that their connection was down and they couldn't do it yet.  We were to come back at 3 o'clock.  That gave us a little under three hours to kill.  So, what to do?  Walk around in the pleasant weather?  Right.  We went across the street to a bistro, ordered cappuccinos, and sat there for about 2 hours and 30 minutes.  Of course, we got bored after about 30 minutes, so we pulled out my notebook and played MASH.  Hee.  Talk about a blast from the past.  

We finally were able to go back to the embassy and got everything taken care of.  Needless to say, we were relieved to finally get back to our hostel and stay there.  Until later that evening when we met Valerie and Emilio and a couple of their friends for dinner.  It was a fun evening.  Later on we had dinner, but first we had wine and cheese, as you see in this picture.  The guy right next to me was just some random guy who decided to be in our picture.  Anyhoo...

Hem hem.  Well, it's taken me a while to be able to type all this out, so now it's Monday, and we're leaving Ireland tomorrow.  We'll fly to Paris and from there catch the train to Madrid.  We're a little uneasy about working all the details out, but thankfully once we're done with this flight, we should be sticking mostly to train rides,

which will simplify things a bit.  Hopefully.  A couple days ago we went to Wicklow, which is a beautiful area just south of Dublin.  Don't have too much to say about it, but Elizabeth should have some pictures of it up soonish.  On our way back, we stopped in a small town for food.  We had brought sandwiches, so we just stopped in the restaurant for some coffee and garlic bread.  We came out with a fantastic picture that was on the bathroom door.  I thought you'd all get a kick out of it.  Of course you will.  Because I did.  Today we went to the Aran Islands just south of Galway in Ireland.  We went to the largest of the three islands, Inis Mor, which is still fairly small.  We rented bikes once we were over there and got to bike around the island a little, taking in the sights and enjoying shockingly good weather.  It was really very beautiful!  I'd love to stay there longer sometime.  Unfortunately I've gotten sick again (my body seems determined to get me sick once a month, and always when I'm preparing to do something physical, such as bike around an island or venture into the pyramids), so some of the biking was rather difficult, but I managed.  I'm feeling much better now, so I'm hoping today was the worst.  We had an excellent lunch after seeing Dun Aonghasa (that's a picture of me holding on the part of the fort...the cliffs were lovely), a semi-circular Celtic Stone fort built around 2000 B.C.  We felt this was acceptably old, since 500 year old buildings just don't cut it any more.

Not after dozens of ancient ruins in Egypt.  Anyway, I later decided I wanted to become a permanent attraction here, and therefore found a new home and proceeded to move in.  I know it looks a little small in the picture, but obviously that's just an illusion.  Of course, then Elizabeth reminded me that we still had a lot more traveling to do, so I agreed to postpone my move.  The lunch we had was at a little cafe that served homemade items.  We had tomato soup, a chicken sandwich, some bread, and a slice of chocolate cake.  It was by far the best tomato soup we've ever had.  And the other stuff was amazingly good as well.  They're not kidding when they say homemade.  So now we're back at the hostel, planning our stay in Spain, and taking turns reading Breaking Dawn (we bought the book in a book store

a few days ago and we've almost finished it

 now).  Pretty soon we'll go make some dinner and try to catch some sleep before our early morning tomorrow (catching a bus to the Shannon airport so we can fly to Paris...etc. etc.)

Toodle pip, sah!

Okay, well this post just keeps getting longer and longer.  Now we're in Spain.  Finally.  And quite a journey it was.  We arrived in Paris by plane and had to take the bus to the metro to the train station...I think.  Hurdle 1 was catching our final plane ride until near the end of the trip.  Piece of cake...we're practically experts at airports now.  Hurdle 2 was finding the bus route...not too hard.  The people at the airport spoke English.  We arrived at the metro and I had enough French to muddle our way to the right route there, completing hurdle 3.  Arrived at the train station where we were to make our reservations for Madrid.  This was to be hurdle 4, but we hit a bump: the train leaving that evening for Madrid was a different train station.  See, not only will they not allow you to reserve things online, but you actually have to be at the appropriate train station.  They want to make things as difficult as possible.  This led to hurdle 4a, taking the new bus to the new train station.  Again, rudimentary French kicked in, and we made it there.  Now for the fun part.  We got there and were told that there was a problem with their computer system.  If we went to the train twenty minutes before it departed, we could get our tickets there.  So we did that.  The man at the train said they were full.  No room for us.  Back to the ticket room we go and say they won't let us on.  "No," they say, "there should be room.  They should let you on."  Back to the train we go.  "Nope, we're full."  Back to the ticket office.  Man calls manager.  "Okay," says he, "they'll let you on now."  Back we go to the train.  No, we're full.  Back to the ticket office.  "Yes, sorry," says the man, "he called back and said they're full.  We can help you get another train tonight."  So I wait in line and get up to the desk again.  He can't get us one for that night, and he doesn't speak enough English.  Passes me on to his colleague.  Her computer isn't working right.  She passes me to another colleague.  At this point, I have long since moved from broken French to hysterical English, and by the time I get to this man, I'm completely losing it.  Don't you people understand?  I HAVE to get to Madrid!!!!!!  "We have one available tonight.  You'll have to transfer to Irun in the morning and will arrive in Madrid tomorrow afternoon."  Oh.  Gee.  That was so hard.  I can see why you people had to jerk us back and for fifty times before arriving at that brilliant solution.  Okay, you laugh now, but I don't think this situation will ever be funny to me.  It's the first time on this trip that I felt completely hopeless about the rest of our time here.  I just wanted to curl up into a ball and die.  It wasn't until we reached our hostel in Spain that I began to feel better.  And I now have a permanent complex over train stations.  We had to go to a few today to make some reservations and I thought I was going to hyperventilate.  And the best part?  We get to back to France later in the trip.  Oh goody.

Now we're in Spain.  It's actually September 11th now.  I know, this crazy post just spans tons of days.  Oh well.  We took a walking tour of Madrid today, which was laid back and fun.  Not a whole lot to say, since today was our first day.  Yesterday we just took it easy.  In fact, we even ate at Starbucks, which is right next door.  After all the craziness getting here, I just needed something familiar.  Tomorrow we're going to Toledo, and then the next day we're headed south to Granada.  That's all for now then.

Did ew know...?

King Phillip III of Spain died because he was too lazy to move his charcoal heater.  He had called for a servant to move it, and when no one came, he just sat there until it killed him.

Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

P.S.  Yes, I realize that some of the pictures are not properly situated, and also that sometimes the words are arranged strangely.  It's a constant irritation...both Elizabeth and I have problems with pictures on this website, though they're completely different problems for each of us.  Without going into too much detail, let's just say we get the pictures arranged as closely as possible to what we wanted, and leave it at that.  If you try to fix it more after that...well, it's just not pretty.  And that's all for now.  Thank you for tuning into Lod's Little Venting Session.