There and Back Again

Pondering: Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. (James Joyce)

I’m on board a train to County Cork, Ireland. This is hour one of a 3-hour train ride. Once there, my sister Myra and I are joining a tour to visit the Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone, circle the Ring of Kerry in Killarney and much, much more. I am excited but I am also very tired. I haven’t been sleeping very well. We’ve been in Ireland three days now, and each day we have had an early morning call. Today was particulary early as we had to be at the Heuston Train Station in Dublin by 6:20 a.m., which meant getting up at 5:00 a.m. and leaving the hotel at 6:00 a.m. I wish to sleep in a bit more one of these days.

Dublin, Ireland has been great although I can’t understand the map to the city. Myra and I got lost twice in two days and she’s fairly good at reading maps. It is very much a bustling city and reminds me of San Francisco. I am looking forward to this trip to the southern part of Ireland so I can see the Ireland that it is featured in calendars and travel magazines - very green, very country.

Yesterday, we played tourist all day. We did the Hop-On-Hop-Off tour in the morning, hopping off at the Guiness Storehouse where we had a pint of stout for lunch. We also hopped off Christ Church Cathedral where a nice lady took a picture of my sister and I in the rain, with the cathedral looming behind us. We also visited the Dublin Writer’s Museum. Dublin boasts of some really good writers and poets including William Butler Yeats who wrote:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

Other notable writers are James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett, and of course Oscar Wilde among many others. It was very interesting reading their history and viewing their letters and first editions of their great works. Made me wish I too could be as great as them with my words.

In the afternoon, we shopped for a raincoat because it looked like it will be raining the rest of our days in Ireland. Alas, we couldn’t find anything we liked and so we headed home (after getting lost) bummed and tired but excited still.

Best end this entry here, the food trolley is here! Maybe a bit of food will wake me up…