Ireland trip report, Sunday

Our flight didn't leave until very late (around 8 p.m.) so we had the better part of the day to continue sightseeing. Our plan was to leave the luggage at the hotel so we could go hiking along the coast. The best laid plans......

So we got up, took showers, got dressed, and only then realized how FILTHY the room was. Seriously, there was actual dirt in the sheets, and all over the laptop we'd taken out the night before.....there was mildew in the bathroom, and the worst water pressure I've ever ever experienced. It would have been better if I had just had Mike run the sink, get a wet washcloth and wring it over my head.

We went downstairs and rang the bell to see about leaving our luggage. Again, no-one around. We left to find some breakfast. We did find a really cute little coffee shop that served full breakfasts with eggs, as well as French toast and other yummy delights. After pumping ourselves up with breakfast and coffee, we returned to the hotel. Tried again to find someone, but alas, apparently we were the only people in the whole building, or so it seemed. I waited downstairs while Mike went up to gather up our things. He found a cleaning lady (much to my surprise - see description of room above) who, not surprisingly, was from some Eastern European country and didn't speak fantastic english, and had no idea about whether we could leave our bags there. When the cleaning lady came downstairs to start vacuuming, suddenly about 4 people appeared to hang out with her while she did her work, but none of them seemed to work there. They seemed fairly bemused at the idea of the manager being anywhere to be found before mid afternoon. At this point I figure that if we left our stuff here this random gang of "the cleaning lady's friends" would probably be more than happy to take all of our things and sell them on the black market or something. I just wanted to get OUT of there.

So.......we went for a short walk along the pier in dun Laoghaire, then lugged our stuff back to the train station. Not surprisingly, the train frequency was even less on Sunday morning than it had been on Saturday evening. So of course, we wait. Train finally comes, and we head back to the train station in Dublin, since they have a "left luggage" service according to our map.

We get off the train in the station, follow the signs for left luggage, and end up at a bank of about 12 lockers. All full. You're not surprised, are you? I wasn't, at this point. I go to the information desk, ask if there is any other place we can leave our stuff. He says no, not really, maybe I could ask his friend who works at the bar. So I go to the bar and the girl who works there says, somewhat reluctantly, that she can't guarantee the safety of anything we leave there, but there is a second bar area that's not open to customers and if we want to leave our bags behind there they "should" be ok. At this point, we don't really feel like we have much choice, but we're dangerously close to just hopping on a bus back to the airport and sitting and reading for 8 hours........but we leave our bags. And then - surprise - wait for 20-30 minutes for the NEXT train to take us back to where we started.

We got off in Dalkey, actually, which was an adorable little town, with a cute little town center with a couple of castles, and several pubs, shops, and restaurants. Of course, no cute shops open on Sunday. We stopped and had a pint to boost our spirits. Then we took a really nice walk along the coast south to Killiney. It was really neat; some of the steep hillsides and their villas had a very Mediterranean feel, while looking out at the fishermen and the island with sheep and castle ruins felt very Irish. There were a ton of people out walking with their kids and their dogs on some really nice paths with great views of Dublin bay. We climbed up to the top of a hill with really nice views, then clambered down and walked into Killiney. We stopped at a pub called the Druids Chair, which seemed to be very popular. The only food they had was toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, but it was way past our lunchtime and I had no idea if there were any other food options in Killiney (we had already found out the night before that there weren't any lodgings, I wouldn't have been surprised if there was no food either) So we had our toasted sandwiches and our cider and guinness and people-watched. Not so much craic here, at least not for foreigners like us. We weren't sure how far we were from the train station, so we set off walking. Made it to the station, then - surprise - waited for 45 minutes for the DART, which took us back to Dublin where we picked up our luggage, safe and sound, and went off to find the bus that would take us to the airport. Once we got to the airport, we met up with the sister of a Brussels friend who was sending St Paddy's day paraphernilia back to Belgium with us, and enjoyed a leisurely food court dinner of Pizza from Sbarro before doing some last minute shopping at the gift shop and somehow ending up running to catch our plane.

I hope Mike enjoyed his birthday trip as much as I enjoyed mine!