Radisson Blu, Rosses Point & Cream sauces

So I'm staying at the Radisson Blu in Sligo, which I had gotten a fabulous deal for on bookings.com (If I booked this room today I'd pay $149, but I only paid $75 when I booked this a month ago)

I wouldn't recommend it because of the type of people that stay here (business people with cars), but otherwise it's actually very nice. Just too bad they don't have rental bicycles.  I was told by one receptionist that the local attraction Rosses Point was a 20 minute walk away.  I'm not a slow walker, but after 45 minutes of walking, I could not even see the target!
I managed to take some decent pictures though ;-)

After walking for 45 minutes and still not seeing a beach, I decided to eat something in one of restaurants and to call a taxi afterwards. The eating establishment:

The view and the food (And YES: I needed two glasses of wine to cut through those cream sauces ;-)

Imagine there were NO CARS!

Seafood Chowder

Mussels

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I was starving and the food was good, so everyone was happy. Before the host called me a taxi, he warned me that the driver would charge me 10 Euros just to come out here from Sligo.  When a skinny Paddy in a huge SUV (Paddywagon?) arrived, he did do no such thing, and was a pleasant conversation partner as well, unlike the cabby who drove me from the train station to the hotel, who kept asking me whether I wanted to call him later, so he could drive me to the 'special places', where I could 'spend some money'.  After the second taxi brought me to the beach that I had hoped to reach on foot (only 15 minutes further by foot!)  and dropped me off at my hotel after asking me "Did you have a few?", I realized I had suffered the fate of the Germans already described by Heinrich Boell in his Irisches Tagebuch, namely I had developed a crush on Ireland and the Irish.

Rosses Point

First impressions of Ireland (written entirely on a train)

And that train would be the train from Dublin Connolly Station to Sligo.  Irish Rail has WIFI on its trains. AND that WIFI is FREE! Did you hear that Deutsche Bahn?  Congrats Irish Rail for something sane!

What was my first glimpse of Ireland?  A golf course, unfortunately ;-)

When I had left the Dublin terminal building and arrived at the bus stop (6 Euros to Dublin Centre) it started raining hard

But 5 minutes later the sun came out again, which was a good thing because after arriving by bus at Connolly Railway Station (there are 2 in Dublin), I found out that I had to kill 1.5 hours before the departure of the train to Sligo.

Connolly Station

To kill that time I down to the river, walked one way and crossed on the harp bridge, walked back on the other side and came back on another bridge.  Here are some impressions:

The harp bridge and a tall ship

This tall ship houses the Famine Museum!

Crossing the harp bridge:

coming full circle

Automatic bike rental!

and now it's time to hop in the waiting train and start writing the blog post you are reading right now ;-)  The train travels from Dublin on the east coast of Ireland to Sligo on the west coast, thus traversing all of  Ireland in three hours.

Frankfurt airport and Aer Lingus (or Eire, here I come)

One thing sticks out in my mind about Hong Kong airport:  One always knows where one is in the vast building and consequently one always knows which way to go to get to where one has to.  Not so in Frankfurt airport; it almost seems like the designers wanted the traveler to be utterly dependent on the posted signage.  Another sign of treating the populace like cattle?

There is always something that blocks the view of the layout

Of course, even their wonderful eating area

with a view of the run-ways and plane parking areas can easily be missed because they place some kind of wall around it shielding it from view!


After having my tooth paste carefully inspected (it passed muster!), it was time to board the Aer Lingus plane. By Bus!

However, as complicated as this is, it really gives one an opportunity to get a better look at the plane one is traveling on ;-)

The flight was uneventful since I slept most of the time ;-) Memorable: They had olives for sale as a snack. Wow! Healthy airplane food.

After peering out the window of the plane circling over the Irish Sea, I finally got my first glimpse of Ireland:  A friggin' golf course ;-)

One thing I must never forget because it was so horrible:  The constant and vocal whining and complaining of the silver-haired German Tourist Brigade.  "That is not a window seat!" "What kind of seats are these anyway?" "This is impossible".  It was so bad it moved me to utter in German "It is a two hour flight! Just sit down finally, so the other people can get to their seats."  The silence and contempt-full looks I was treated with afterwards could not have been worse if I had worn a pink triangle or even a yellow star on my tunic.

Things they are a changin' (Neil Young on Saturday)

Here I sit in Frankfurt, and I'm flying to Dublin tomorrow morning at 11 am. I received an e-mail from Seamus asking "Does that mean no concert?" in response to my news of the forgotten Neil Young concert tickets.  And I keep thinking 'too bad I forgot the tickets!' and 'will i remember xxx Euros next year?'.
So I bought 2 Neil Young tickets for Dublin AGAIN.  Which also means I will spent more time in Bray and Dublin than in Sligo, but that as well will be just fine ;-)  I just found my old ticket confirmation e-mail, so with the new tickets, Seamus & I should be able to occupy the seats of the tickets bought in December, which should be much better than the last-minute dregs tickets bought yesterday. I'll find out on Saturday!

Keep on rocking in the free world!

Franks and a missed Neil Young concert

And Franks come from Frankfurt, naturally.  These are my pseudo-uncle Ingo and pseudo-aunt Lissy (Grandfather's adopted son and his wife), who live 12 kms from Frankfurt International Airport. I am expressly forbidden to use the below picture (issues I dealt with a long time ago; see post 'self confidence'), so enjoy it while it hasn't been updated.

 Ingo picked me up at the airport after a 10 hour flight with Air Transat. The crew of that flight was one of the most lovely crews ever encountered during a flight and the flight itself was conducted in one of the coldest planes ever.
On the skytrain in Vancouver to the airport,  I realized that my tickets to the Neil Young concert in Dublin were still at grandma's. Ah well, good thing the tickets for Cologne on July 12th are already in Cologne.

T minus 10 hours (or OMG where did the time go)

Before the flight to Hong Kong in May, the hours could not dwindle fast enough. I was sick of every aspect of Vancouver. The fact that the temperatures were perfect to keep fish fresh did not entice me to stay.  But this time I wish I had more time.  While the actual hours will work great (2 hours of sleep so I can sleep on the plane, and a translation will be done in 2 hours), there is feeling in my gut that there is still some unfinished business, that I did not attend to.  In addition to feeling very much at home with Hans, Denise & Max and feeling slightly worried about leaving Grandma alone for 5 weeks, there are other issues. Ah well; it'll work out fine!

A visual ode to the Queen of Surrey (No, not a peasant opera ;-)

And if you ever heard me sing, you know you're darned lucky it is visual ;-)
And if you don't know who the Queen of Surrey is you should take BC Ferries to the Sunshine Coast more often.  The Queen of Surrey is my bus, namely the ferry serving the route Horseshoe Bay to Langdale on ~90% of the runs, with the Queen of Coquitlam doing the other runs (Doesn't Queen of Coquitlam sound even more trashy than Queen of Surrey?).  If you want to know how old it is, how much it weighs, or how many cars it can carry, check out Wikipedia; I'm sure the topics are covered there.  What is concern to me here, is the ship's visual interaction with the landscape along the travel route. Here is trip on an almost empty evening ferry into a mystical sunset:

Leaving Horseshoe Bay on an almost empty ferry

No cars in sight ;-)

very few cars means very few people!

Inside & outside

Mt Elphinstone beckons

framed seascape

the sun is low

At this time during the journey one of those moments happened that one remembers for the rest of one's life.
I am standing at the very front of the ferry, sailing into the view above. The wind is strong from the front; the air is warm. Beside a very slight thrumming felt through my legs, you can't hear or feel the ferry, almost as being magically pushed over water into the amazing scenery.  A woman to the left behind me is chanting something dreamy not very loud, so being upwind from her I catch little auditory glimpses once in a while.  A definite goose-bump moment; for a moment I feel I am standing on the bow of an Indian canoe 200 years ago.