Yes, I made it to Lisbon!... and the ship actually left again today to head to Cadiz, Spain. That was fast. Anyhow, I decided to stay with the ship instead of traveling overland from Lisbon to Cadiz––remember how I did that from Antwerp, Belgium to Le Havre, France? Well there was the option to do it again here because the ports are so close together, but I decided not to because it seemed expensive and I had a hard time figuring out train/bus routes that would actually take me where I wanted to go. Over half the students on the ship decided to go overland, so it's pretty quiet here for once, which is nice. Hopefully this means that I can finally get caught up with the present on my blog!
Ireland, Day 2 (9/21):
After spending so much time in cities over the past couple of weeks I was itching to head to the countryside. And where better to do so than in Ireland? So I decided to go to Glendalough (glen-duh-lock), a little former monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St. Kevin, which is located about an hour south of Dublin in the county Wicklow. There aren't around any public buses or trains to Glendalough, but there is a private bus similar to the Diamond Express (not nearly as cute though) which goes to Glendalough and back twice a day. It leaves Dublin at 11:30am, so on the morning of the 21st I packed a couple of bags, spent a little time exploring the area of Dublin around the bus stop, and then was on my way!
I had actually found out all of the information that I would need ahead of time, during my last day at Le Havre, so I was fairly confident that I knew where I was going and what I was doing. The one snag in this plan was that I wanted to spend two days in Glendalough, and this necessitated some kind of lodging. There is a youth hostel in Glendalough; it is a well-reviewed and generally pleasant-sounding place. It also does not accept debit card reservations online. So having been unable to secure a place to spend the night ahead of time, I boarded the bus with a feeling my mild trepidation. Would the hostel be full when I arrived? Hopefully not, because then I would either need to find the least-expensive B&B I could or go head back to the ship on the 5:30 bus that evening, which would be no fun.
So the bus pulls into Glendalough and drops us all off right in front of the visitor center. Convenient! I get myself a map and ask the woman at the desk where the hostel is located. She instructs me to go back to the main road, turn left, and just keep walking until I find it (apparently you can't miss it.)
It is a beautiful day; the sun is shining, and I have finally left the city! With a spring in my step I meander down the road, past a few stone buildings, over a little bridge, and past a small cluster of food/souvenir stalls. There isn't much room on the side of the road to walk, and I hug the edges as I climb a small hill and find myself passing an area of alternating fields and trees, leaving behind the small patch of civilization in the valley. The iconic round tower of Glendalough and the ancient graveyard at its feet rise up on the other side of a field to my left, and I snap a few pictures before hurrying on, anxious to see whether I will have a place to stay for the night.
My description makes it sound like I was walking for a while, but it really only a few minutes (like I said, the place isn't very big) before I rounded a corner and found myself facing a large and cheery yellow building with the sign, "Glendalough International Hostel" painted in flowing blue script on the sign out front. I had arrived!
The interior of the hostel is very nice; there is a large lounge area with a wall full of DVDs for rent, and down a side corridor is a several-room dining area. I approach the reception desk hopefully. The lady behind the front desk says that yes, there are beds still available (spiffy!), but that check-in is not for another few hours. I could leave my stuff in the side room and take a walk if I wanted, and she would put my name down for when I return. With a feeling of triumph, I march into the side room she is indicating. There are no lockers, and the room itself is not locked/watched like the places that Jazlin and I had left our backpacks while traveling in England had been. Huh. That doesn't seem particularly secure.
There are two other people in the room, and a whole pile of backpacks sitting on a fold-out table in the far corner. I ask the people if that is where one leaves ones stuff. Yes, apparently so. Now I look at the little fold-up backpack I had brought with me, which isn't very heavy but I would still rather not have to wear it for the next few hours, and decide that if anyone is really dying to steal its contents then they can go for it (I believe it contained some clothes and a sketchpad.) I transferred everything of actual value to the medium-sized blue satchel I had purchased in England and now carry everywhere with me.
Then I deposited my bag beside the heap of backpacks and set out to explore Glendalough!
I'm not sure my every move is worth recounting from here (if it ever was) so I'll just say that I got some food from one of the street stalls that I had passed earlier, found a the trail leading to the upper lake, and followed it through the forest. As it turns out, Glendalough is a very popular tourist/day-trip destination, so although the town itself isn't very big, there are tourists everywhere––especially during the peak times of day (like at that moment) when you would be hard pressed to take a picture along the path and not have people dotted all along it. Which was fine with me, because they were a generally freindly bunch, and there were a large number of Spanish-speakers to try and eavesdrop on (not that I do that!)
At one point I saw another path diverging in the wood, which everyone else was walking past (yes, I had a Robert Frost moment there, thanks for noticing.) It was mossy and pleasant-looking, so I ambled down the hill and started along it. After about a minute, the path was much less noticable. After a couple minutes, it was almost gone entirely. I kept going for a little while after that, relishing the thick green moss beneath my feet and the feeling of being able to look in every direction and not see any people. This lasted for only a few minutes, before I saw that another small group had also discovered the trail some distance back, and I headed back to the main path and continued toward the lake.
I spend a while exploring the area and sketching the lake before heading back into town. The lady at the hostel had informed me that the hotel in town had free WiFi (you have to pay for it at the hostel), and I was itching to try to call family members who I hadn't spoken to in weeks, so I took out my iPod and the headphone/microphone set that I had borrowed from someone on the ship and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours talking with my Dad and my grandmother in Minnesota via Skype.
By the time I got off the phone it was getting dark, and I still needed to get dinner. The food stalls were now closed, as was the barbecuing that I seen from a distance earlier. Fortunately the bar attached to the hotel was open, so I ordered a bowl of smoked salmon and seafood chowder, which was very tasty and contained what I thought to be a very liberal amount of fish for the price.
By the time I finished that it actually was dark out, and I pulled out my flashlight and I made my way back to the hostel, enjoying the quiet and the feel of the night air (while mentally acknowledging that traveling at night is right up there with traveling alone in terms of the number of warnings we have received in our pre-port lectures. So traveling alone and at night would definitely be admonishment-worthy. Heh.)
So of course I made it back to the hostel. Yes, by stuff was still there, sitting all by itself in the corner of the side room. I had to interrupt the reception lady during her dinner, but she was nice and I got keys and borrowed a plug adaptor to recharge my iPod (yes, I felt very silly for forgetting my adaptor on the ship.) I also figured out the machines to get a couple of internet cards. You see, the reason that I had actually borrowed the headphone/microphone on the ship and was now making sure that I had internet and that my iPod was charged was because the 21st was my grandpa's birthday and I was planning on surprising him with a call at dinner. Of course, Ireland is 8 hours ahead of the Pacific Northwest, so dinner time for them would be about 2am for me. But I was a woman on a mission! So I headed for my room (an 8-bed female dorm to which none of the other three occupants had returned yet), set my alarm to 2am, and went to bed early (well, early for me.)
That is technically the end of the 21st, but I will mention that I did indeed manage to wake up, find a place where my 2am phone call hopefully wouldn't disturb anyone, and say happy birthday to my grandpa––surprising people is always fun, and it was nice talking with my grandparents again.
Goodness––I know I always say this, but I've got to curb the descriptive rambling on my next posts, or I'm never going to get to Portugal!
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