Made My Way to Dublin

So that was Oxford: I left pretty early the next morning. Took the train up to Holyhead, stopping off in Birmingham for an hour or so. I’d like to go back and check that city out at some point. It has the potential to be pretty cool from what I saw. I got up to Holyhead (on the western coast) around 3pm or so but all the ferries to Dublin were canceled for the day so I had to wait until 2:40am the next day to cross the sea. The left luggage station closed at 4pm so I had to bring my huge backpack wherever I went, which thankfully I’ve pared down on the amount of stuff I’m lugging around so it wasn’t too bad. I ended up walking around the town for a bit and a lot along the seaside. I found some old castles and a beautiful national park. It was lovely; I could have stayed there so much longer but I didn’t want to get caught in an unfamiliar place after dark so I headed back pretty early.

I got dinner in the café in the ferry station around 6pm or so and settled down for a long wait. An Irish guy, David, from Waterford, joined me after a bit. We had a good talk and he was pretty interesting so that was cool. Eventually around 9:30 or so I just got really tired so I dozed for a bit on the seat I was in until 12:30am when the café closed. Then waited in the lobby for an hour before we started boarding the ferry.

Now, when I hear ferry, I think of the little boat maybe twenty yards long that goes to Catalina but this boat was more of a ship. It was huge, I’ve never been on a boat nearly it’s size! There were eight decks just for cargo, which included hundreds of eighteen wheeler trucks. The passenger decks were awesome and there was even a movie theater! I just ended up sleeping at a table for the two hour trip. I was a little worried about the immigration entry because going through it in the UK was slightly terrifying but he just opened up to the page with all the other stamps, stamped it and handed it back without saying a word. There was a bus into the city and the driver was kind enough to point me in the right direction to my hostel.