Good morning Dublin!
We awoke today at 6am (11pm in Utah) got dressed and packed, pulled our sheets and duvet covers off our cute beds, and left our room. We dropped our bed stuff off downstairs and left Abigails Hostel. We crossed the street and bridge a ways, and were "lucky" enough to be able to hail a van taxi that was able to take all five of us, plus luggage, to the Irish Ferries port.
The route there was super crazy and more complex than I thought it would be (its possible our cab driver took some sort of back road), but we knew we were in the right spot when we saw our ferry, the Ulysses waiting at the port. Actually, what I thought would be our little ferry was actually big enough to be a port. It was like our ferry ate a cruise ship! There are all sorts of crazy awesome things on here: cinemas, restaurants, many fancy spiral staircases, arcades, large cushy sitting areas (like the one I'm sitting in now that CLAIMS to have free wifi), and a lookout deck. So far, standing out on the deck to watch the ferry first start moving, turn around, and slowly make its way out of the harbor has been my favorite part so far. It feels great to have the wind and the spray of the water play with your hair and fill each breath with an exciting part of life; its stuff like this that just makes you want to thank everything upstairs that you are still here.
We waved goodbye to a gentleman on a fishing boat on our way out of the harbor, watched the colors change in the freshly churned water below us, stood in awe of losing sight of all land around us, and then went back in to explore the ferry. Apparently while I was walking about a lower level, Lydia saw me and ran to the outlook on the floor above. Apparently she completely overlooked the enormous glass window that covered the outlook and slammed her forehead against it when she ran to greet me below. Oops.
We spent a few hours swapping iPods and taking goofy pictures on Abby's computer, Aslan the Red. I am crazy excited to say that my travel-mates have absolutely phenomenal taste in music! Seriously, I am one of the most music-picky people I know, and I never once came upon a song that I didn't love on any of the ipods I was handed. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the greatest signs that you click well with other personalities. Finding pleasant travel partners: check that one off the list!
It was hard for a while to not fall asleep, especially in that cushy warm room aboard the ferry. Fortunately, in the process of swapping stories and music, we all stayed awake.
When we spotted the shores of Wales, we packed up and headed back onto the wave deck. There we watched the ferry slow down and back into the port (I kept wondering how well the captain could parallel park the ruddy thing if he could back in and scoot sideways so well).
After we collected our luggage from the lower carousels, we walked onto the tram that took us to a darling Welsh train station. Ever since we arrived in Dublin, we noticed that all the signs were first written in Gaelic and then English underneath, but now all the signs were first written in Welsh, and then had English translations underneath. I loved these signs because while the English portion had the same meaning as the Welsh words, a bit of our stoic American instructions were lost literally in translation. For example, one of the exit signs had the American equivalent of "To emerge into the town." I have done a lot of exiting places, but when was the last time I emerged into a town? Or YOU for that matter? hmm, theres some food for thought...
A little more looking around at the station revealed a large brick wall that led up to the nearby foot bridge. It was overgrown with ivy and flowering plants. There was a tiny tunnel that went through the right side, and the rest of the wall was filled with bright blue doors. I almost had to duck to get through the tunnel it was so short!
Our train arrived shortly thereafter, and we were on our way within a half hour of our arrival. We decided long ago that we wanted to take the complicated travel system of a ferry from Dublin and a train from Holyhead, rather than just flying from NYC into Cardiff, so that we could see what we hoped would be a nice, scenic view. It could not have been a more perfect wish come true. I can honestly say that the ride I was about to take would be more beautiful than anything I could have imagined. Every time I looked up from reading and decoding the darling letters my little sisters snuck into my backpack, I saw a new breathtaking scene: deciduous forest, river, tunnel, ocean with miles of beachfront, time-weathered tiny houses, hearty ponies up against the stone wall, a hedge-fenced field of sheep, a fluffy-tailed orange fox running through the field at the Caer a Gogledd stop, a green field of grazing goats, a flash of modern life driving along old fashioned and winding stone roads, and then a gigantic castle flying the Cymru flag and taking up the entire train window, then suddenly vanishing as we flew through a dark tunnel, an incredibly neon yellow house among a collection of many earth-toned brick homes, a patchwork-quilt hill divided into multiple shades of green fields and trees, a man laying happily in his orchard talking on a cell phone, a claustrophobia-inducing wood mill, and heavy gray clouds over everything. one moment the only thing I can see from my window is a hill of flowers right up close, the next minute, II am looking across a deep valley, with multiple fields of sheep and dairy cows, grass, and trees as far as the eye can see. Then out of nowhere, an immense field of bright yellow flowers. the bushes that are everywhere here really look like they are floating on the sea of rolling yellow. And then, people. Just normal people, wearing ordinary clothes, reading ordinary books, doing pretty ordinary things. I know I seem crazy naiive, but to see a place that looks as different as this from the place I'm familiar with, it is easy for me to assume that the people who live upon a land like this must also be equally different. It would be a lie to say that I don't envy them a bit for calling this gorgeous place home.
An interesting thought just struck me: I really love not being in a place where I can be contacted. Only four people here know who I am and are interested in traveling with me, and thats it. The last few days, I sometimes catch myself worrying about if someone from Utah is trying to get a hold of me because they need me to do something, if they are getting frustrated that they can't but I have no way of knowing or answering their needed request. But as I sit here, staring out at the beautiful country of Wales, I am suddenly struck with the idea that I am really glad that there is no way for me to be contacted or distracted from this place, and that there is really nothing that I can do to change that. No one can summon my thoughts to anywhere else. I am here now. I dropped off my load of past responsibilities and many of my worries at the gates of the Salt Lake airport. A time will come when I will have the chance to check emails and skype home and be updated on what is happening in Utah, and while I also look forward to that time, I am experiencing something incredibly unique. For right now, I have no phone, no internet, no email, no way for people to drive to where I am, no long term snail-mail address, nothing. And for right now, I am really okay with that.
After about four and a half hours, our train pulled into our station: Cardiff Central. The weather was quite gray, a bit chilly, and a little windy. We walked our gear over to where we thought we were supposed to meet Tom, our professor, but he was nowhere to be seen. After we looked around and waited for a bit, we started coming up with alternatives. None of us knew where our house was, as not even Tom knew which house we would be assigned until the day before, and none of us had phones or internet. We knew that we had to contact him though, so I set to the task of finding a phone. I did some people watching for a bit, taking notes on who would be most likely to actually offer help to us. After just a few minutes, I mustered my courage and walked over to the rail guard that I had picked from the lot. I told him that we were a school group just coming in from the States and were trying to meet with our professor, but couldn't find him where we were supposed to. He then offered to let us use his personal cell phone to call Tom. He punched in the number I read off to him and handed it to me. I have to give the credit here to the people upstairs: Tom answered his phone right away. He told us that he had run into an extra turn style that he hadn't remembered being there before, and so needed to meet us at the far North exterior doors. I thanked him, hung up, and returned the phone to the guard with much thanks. Before I left him, I had one last question for him: "which way is North, please?" He looked at me half surprised, half sheepishly as he admitted that he had no idea which direction north was in. I assured him that it was no problem, thanked him again, and met up with the group to relay the message.
Gretch, this next bit went well thanks to you. While I relayed the message to my group, I pulled out my compass and had North all ligned up by the time I had told my group what Tom wanted us to do. With that we walked around the busy train station to get to our doors, and left.
Sure enough, there was Tom and the majority of the other students in our program. They gave us a kind welcome, and then said we would be on our way to the house. Tom told each of the students who were already there to walk with each of us new students and give us a detailed tour of the town we would be walking through. Before he turned to lead the break-neck pace that we all hope we will be able to match (seriously, someone new gets left behind every day, and he never looks back), he took my violin from my shoulder and started off. Matt gave me my tour during the two-ish mile walk from the train station to our first house.
It was nice, but looked pretty similar to everything I had seen in New York and Dublin, so there wasn't much new to note. oh, except for the whole streets that were pedestrian only, and the covered strip mall areas. Those were pretty cool. But the closer we got to our student housing, the dirtier it got. It's not ridiculous dirty, but a lot dirtier than Dublin, and not much dirtier than New York.
Along the way, Lydias rollie had a wheel that stopped working. She tried carrying it for a while, but was moving super slow. I didn't want to leave her and Jessica alone, so Matt and I waited for them. It wasn't long before Matt just picked up the suitcase on the side handle and walked it home. Non-interested stud points right there. :)
When we made it to the house, Katie (Tom's wife) greeted us with a wonderful welcome-home gift: a huge pot of pasta and pesto with cheese and a side of diced apples for dinner! This was a happy sight indeed; making dinner was off my to-do list for the day!
Because that house was already full of people who had moved in earlier in the day (they all flew into Cardiff earlier), we took our dinner outside and happily ate on the curb. Tom then took off in a flurry upon his travel bicycle to go find the key to the second house some of us would be staying in. When he returned later, while we were updating things with the wifi that was available at that house, he asked for volunteers to go live at the other house. Almost everyone had set up rooms in that old house already, so my whole group and one other girl volunteered to come to the second house. Tom warned us that it was just barely coming out of construction, and had not yet been cleaned, so there was sawdust and sheetrock dust on the floors, and that most of the mattresses were on the ground. And he wasnt sure if all the faucets or appliances worked. We did not want to impose on anyone, though, so we gathered our things and walked out with him. As this was our final confirmation that we were willing to go, he turned around and walked outside. But as we followed him to the block's walk to the house, he stopped in front of the door, turned around and smiled. He then told us that all of those things he had told the whole group about this house was true, but he also told us that we had chosen very wisely.
The front door was unlocked, and we walked into a freshly renovated, three floor flat, with new carpet, all new appliances (including dish washer, two ovens, and washing machine), new couches still in the plastic, a gigantic living room adjacent to the spacious kitchen, with a tiny courtyard back yard! We have three bathrooms (no shower curtains yet, but locking doors), enough rooms for everyone to have a whole bedroom to themself (complete with closet and a large window). Yeah, it had sheetrock dust over everything and the covers were still on all the sinks, appliances, and mattresses (thats right, ladies and gentlemen, NEW mattresses!!) but I have lived in a house under construction before, so that was not a problem. I took a room on the second floor, one of the few (unknown to me at the time) with a bed frame. I then took the plastic off my mattress and covered it with all the sheets and duvet covers we had gathered from the first house before we left.
Once we had been there for those few minutes, we all left again to go to a local mart to get enough food for the next day. We didn't want to do our big shopping until we had time to go to Tesco (the UK equivalent of Walmart) so we would get much better prices on everything. While there I got some croissants for breakfast the next day, we split a large loaf of bread, some Peanut butter, and jam, and some bananas.
By the time we got home, it was getting pretty late, and we were told that the van would leave at 6am the next morning. So we each made some lunches for the next day, showered, got into pajams, said roommate prayers, scripture study, and finally got to fall into a very much longed-for sleep.
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