The trip back from Ireland to England was a bit of a challenge. With a mere 5 hours of sleep, we began our longest day yet at 5:00 in the morning. We packed up, grabbed a taxi and headed to the Dublin Port to catch our ferry. Getting to South Africa was easier than what we did today.
Our driver (this time) was from Lithuania. He certainly had strong negative opinions of President Bush. I believe he said, "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth and leave no doubt--that is what Bush should have followed. He is stooooooooooooopid." He continued with his political opinions without reservations for a good 30 minutes, all the while coloring the air blue with Irish expletives. Everyone we have talked with, from common folk to taxi drivers to Dax's customers, blame Bush for the recession.
We arrived at the Port without incident and had plenty of time to spare. We were on the fast ferry this time (2 hours as opposed to 4)--you would think that would have made for a shorter trip! It was much smaller and more crowded--without all the amenities. We were really tired, but it was so noisy that we couldn't rest. There was a 3 year old girl running around while blowing a whistle--until a crew member finally asked her family to make her stop. Then, the whistle girl's brother began chasing her around the ferry with a play gun (until a crew member once again addressed the parents). At that point, we didn't have the opportunity to nap. So, we kept a positive attitude and decided it was no big deal...we can sleep soundly on the train.
A 3 year old boy (near us) vomited on the ferry (one of five children from infant to 8 years). We were presented with an opportunity to help. We were able to contribute a package of wet ones and Clorox wipes. I am mentioning this only because it is actually one of the best things that occurred today!
Here's the port.
Not real sure what he was doing here. I suppose he was simply entertaining himself and trying not to go crazy with that little girl running around blowing a whistle.
Just looking out the window.
After being directed to go down the stairs, we began to disembark the ship. To our surprise, at the bottom of the stairs, was a crew member instructing us to go back up because the cars had to exit first. At that point, there was no way we could make it back up the stairs through all the other people already on the stairs, so we just hung out in the corner while the cars left. Oh, by the way, now we had only 30 minutes to catch our train. We were eventually able to get off that boat, claim our luggage, jog to the bus and make it to the train station with 9 minutes to spare! All was still going smoothly and we were so looking forward to a nap on the train. We waited and our train didn't show. Then, we found out that it was going to be late.
This is where we waited, and waited,
and waited.
I will now take a moment to be grateful for another positive about our day. While waiting, we were able to spend time visiting with a couple of 15 year old girls from Wales. One of them absolutely loves basketball. She plays in Wales, but wants to come to the USA to play ball because people don't enjoy the sport where she lives. Such nice young ladies.
We were so happy when we saw our train coming, until we learned that it really wasn't our scheduled train. This train only had 3 coaches instead of 9 or 12. So, the 3 reserved seats we had, mattered not anymore. Also, we now have missed our connecting train at the Chester Station.
Here is our train, coach B--look in there, the entire aisle is filled with standing passengers and all seats are full. Guess where we are!
Here we are! Crammed in between coaches by the door with all the luggage. Dax and I could not even stand up straight--it was so crowded. Also, please note, that each time someone had to get off the train or new passengers needed to load, we had to move the luggage. And, guess where the new passengers had to stand. Yep, crammed right there with us.
I will take another moment to feature the 3rd bright spot on this travel day. If we weren't crammed in between coaches with luggage, we would have not had the opportunity to spend time with these 2 people. The man on the left is a Zulu from South Africa. We enjoyed talking with him about our experiences there from last summer. He earns his living by selling snacks on the train. We bought several snacks since he couldn't even go up and down the aisles of the train because of the overcrowding. Can you guess how old the boy is on the right? This kid is actually 14! He is in the equivalent of 9th grade and has to travel to a different town in Wales for school. He was a great help because he knew where the train stopped and which door had to be opened to exit and load passengers. This way we could move the luggage and climb over each other to allow people to get off and on the train. What a sweet kid!
This is where the boy got off the train. We don't know where his school could be--we saw nothing other than some sheep and fields.
We soon learned that our train was not going through to Chester (at that point we didn't care because we had already missed our connection). We just wanted to SIT. They were going to drop us about half way there and have busses transport us to Chester to figure out what to do next. Oh joy (insert slight sarcasm here).
A delightful female community police officer boarded our train at one of the stops. She informed us that the train was now going to Chester. We also learned that copper thieves destructed the transmission lines for the train. Guess what. We are really the lucky ones because this is the ONLY train that has run all day. Go figure, and we were on it! Even though we never got to sit down, we will count this as the 4th positive thing about this extended travel day.
We finally arrived at Chester. We simply boarded a train heading the correct direction (even though it wasn't our scheduled one). No one ever checked our tickets, so we just sat down--so exhausted and not even close to being done with our day. The people next to us were wondering why their train was so crowded. They said that is was quite unusual to have a full train. We sat in silence for quite a while and then spilled the beans. They weren't in their assigned seats either because they couldn't make it up to their coach (due to the crowds). They should have been in Coach B like us. Those were our assigned seats; however, since it wasn't our train, we weren't too worried about it. :) The couple sitting next to us were amazing. They were the type of people you want as neighbors. I know my parents would have loved them. The man is an ichthyologist and travels the world presenting his research (by invitation). He has presented at Cornell University. His wife is a retired school teacher and quite interesting, too. This would be the 5th positive thing about our day.
Once we arrived at Euston Station in London, more adventures began.
Here's the short version. We carried our hundreds of pounds of luggage up and down stairs (you would have thought we were in China) in many Underground Stations and made no progress for hours. I'm telling you, there is no way a physically handicapped person could live in London and depend on the Underground.
Even though this dog's owner was more than stinky, the dog earned the honor of our 6th positive thing about the day. And, the 3 elderly ladies who boarded at the next stop would be #7. One of the ladies said, "Mind your paws." We needed that laugh.
Once we arrived at Heathrow, we waited (forever) for our Hoppa bus and made it to our hotel.
Our room was not as expected, but we finally were settled in shortly after midnight. We ended up having to have a fan brought in because the AC was not working. Also, Isaiah had to sleep on the floor because the pull out was NOT okay. He may as well been sleeping on barbed wire.
I will refrain from posting the other pictures of our hotel room. The conditions were deplorable. I tripped over a piece of carpet and decided I would just pull that back to see why it was sticking up. It had been wet from a leak and there was mold there (a 3 foot area by the bed).
Ahhhh, thank goodness this travel day is done. Tomorrow should be better!
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