Hi! Welcome back!
After two nights in Dublin, getting assailed by wind and surviving the flu and the food, I’m ready to hit the road.
Today, I’m writing prior to my adventure, due to the high possibility that once I make it to the other place, I won’t be able to procure a power adapter for my computer, and therefore I won’t be able to continue with these blogs. So! I’m going to at least spell out my day’s intentions here.
I’ll be departing Dublin via bus. For just 11.50€ (13 USD), a two hour journey to the north will land me in the city of Belfast. For those of you unaware, Belfast is the capital of a small country called Northern Ireland, which due to some reason or another, is considered part of the United Kingdom, whereas regular-ass Ireland is not.
Inevitably, it always comes down to some bloodied and storied history: in this case, there was one side supporting “the crown” while the other was like “get that fucking crown outta here!” I believe that religion also played a factor, because I’ve heard terms like “Protestants” and “Catholics” get tossed around. The only thing this means to me, is that the Euro currency I’ve been using in Ireland, and Spain, and most of Europe, becomes useless once I cross the border.
Speaking of which, I’m not sure what kind of border patrol they’ll have set up, whether we will have to step off the bus to get a crisp UK stamp in the ol’ passport, but I’ll be back to report my findings.
*********
OK, so we just crossed the border, and there was no formal checkpoint whatsoever. I’m a tad worried, as this happened to me once before, and it resulted in me being an illegal alien and paying a huge fine.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen here!
*********
I’m in Belfast proper, and it is windy as fucking shit! But I talked to the receptionist at my hostel about not having a stamp, and she said that yes, I have entered the UK, but “it’s all Ireland.” Whatever that means!
Today was a travel day, so I didn’t do much—outside of buy some hummus dip at the convenience shop and have to return it because the pitas were all moldy—but I’ll give you my early impressions:
-A TON of Indian people here. They look to be the biggest demographic, more than Irish people
-I had at least two conversations where people were struggling to understand/speak to me; is there a large Gaelic speaking crowd, perhaps?
-This burger I just had was shit; looks like the food isn’t any better than regular Ireland
-People here are coughing all over the place. There is definitely some sick going around
-I almost didn’t get let into a bar because I was wearing a “track suit.” They told me the same thing in Dublin last night. Never knew that some Adidas pants could be so offensive!
That’s all I’ll leave you with for today. Here is a picture of the bus I took from Dublin. With free USB charging ports (!!!) inside
Be First to Comment