One Final Farewell to Europe

I’m sitting at (my new) home in Buenos Aires, but I don’t think it’s time to talk about Argentina yet.  That’s because I still have one last entry about Ireland to write.  I think that I’ve put it off this long, I returned from Ireland two weeks ago, because I don’t really have a lot to write about with respect to my final two days in Dublin.  But, of course, why should that stop me?

I got up on my last morning in London and headed back to Victoria Station, where I’m pretty sure I ended up at some point on every one of my days in London on this trip.  This time around, the purpose of the visit was to catch a train to Gatwick Airport.  The trip took about thirty minutes and cost about twenty pounds.  That seemed kind of expensive to me until I saw a sign at a shop around the corner from my hotel that advertised direct cab rides to Gatwick for fifty-eight pounds.  After that, twenty pounds seemed like a bargain.

Once again, I flew Ryanair.  Once again, I kept all of the bad reviews in mind but didn’t have a single problem and enjoyed the cheap flight.  My favorite moment was when we were waiting at the gate and people were lining up to get on the plane, since the seats are first come, first served.  The line was so long that it was keeping some of the passengers from getting into the gate area.  One of the Ryanair employees asked everybody in line to sit down since seats in the gate area were one of the few things for which Ryanair didn’t charge extra.  I laughed, but I didn’t get out of line.

I got back to Dublin and retraced my steps from about ten days prior in order to get to my hotel, which was a block down the street from the hotel I had stayed in upon my arrival to Dublin on my first visit.  This time, I finally crapped out.  I had liked all of my hotels on this stay, but this one didn’t do it for me.  The water pressure in the shower sucked (which is the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do).  It was on the fifth floor without an elevator.  There was no wifi.  It was too hot.  Oh well, it was only a couple of days.

 Now, the reason I don’t have a lot to say about Dublin this time around is that I had figured out what I liked on my first trip to Dublin.  I ended up going back to the same bars and restaurants that I liked the most on my first trip.  One new place that I went to was The Brazen Head because I had read that it was officially Ireland’s oldest pub, opened since 1198.  It was a pretty cool place but looked like pretty much any other pub on the inside and, like everything else in Dublin, was mighty expensive.

Other than that, there’s not much to write about on these final two days in Dublin.  My last meal in Dublin was at a place called Flannigan’s (if I remember correctly) on O’Connell Street.  For the first time in Ireland, I finally got a beef & Guinness pie.  It was the best thing I had eaten on the entire trip.  The sauce was thick and beefy and it came with mashed potatoes and pureed vegetables.  I shouldn’t dwell, but if I hadn’t known that I was coming to Argentina for some fine, fine beef, I’d have promised myself to eat nothing but beef & Guinness pie for the rest of my life.

 That’s pretty much all I want to write about.  The trip home was pretty uneventful, which is always what I am looking for on an overseas trip.  No delays, no cancellations, no excitement whatsoever.  I got back to the States and I was only nine days away from Argentina (where I am at the moment).  For the next several entries – Buenos Aires.