The plan was to take an early train up to Dublin, visit my family for a few hours, then go to the Meat Loaf concert, head back to my family’s place to sleep, and to take an early train back to Cork in order to view an apartment before Ted had to go to work.
You may guess from how I structured that, that things did not go according to plan.
Cork City held a marathon Monday morning. The first one in twenty-five years, apparently. The entire city centre was blocked off. It took us literally 90 minutes to get to the Cork train station from our house. It’s usually a 20 minute drive. Ted was insanely frustrated, poor guy. Eventually we did make it to the train station (having been let through one of the roads by the most put-upon looking young garda in the universe) and, having thoroughly missed our train, walked over to where the French Market was being held and looked for some breakfast. We didn’t find breakfast (there, anyway), but we did find some mind-blowingly good honey-roasted pecans and cashews and (from the same vendor) cinnamon-soaked dried apple and raspberry-juice-soaked cherries. *swoon*
We got to Dublin much later than anticipated. Mom and Dad came in to pick up our bags for us (because they are the BEST parents!) and we had a snack with them and did a little shopping (we stopped by Sub City and had a good chat with Rob, the proprietor, who is launching a new pulp-era comic book at the end of the summer. I’m looking forward to reading it.), then had dinner at Cactus Jack’s on Millennium Walkway (don’t bother), and then went to the concert, which was a lot of fun. I’ll maybe do a writeup later, but I’m tired, so I’m not gonna now. I have a new, less alarming red concert t-shirt. Perhaps I’ll take a picture. :)
The last train out to Bray was at 11:30, so we bailed from the concert *immediately* and walked quickly back to the train station. On the way we passed a woman in stiletto heels who was walking like she was trying not to put any weight on her feet. I felt so sorry for her. :) I gave her a sympathetic smile as we went by, and she said, “There’ll be no walkin’ for me tamorra, so there won’t be!” as she winced along. :)
This morning at about 10 to 7, Seirid opened the door to the library, which is where Ted and I were sleeping, and took a couple steps in before he saw me. He went dead still. I whispered, “Hello, Seirid! It’s your Auntie Catie!” He remained dead still, then very, very carefully stepped back out and very very quietly closed the door. It was *very* funny. :) (Apparently he then ran and said to his mother, “I told Auntie Catie, “*Don’t* make noise and wake my momma up, she’s *sleeping*!”)
After not long at all we had to go get on the train back to Dublin, and once we got there, we got on the LUAS to the other train station, and two stops in, the driver came on the PA and said there’d been an accident on the line and we wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. So Ted and I hopped out and walked to the train station, missing our train by about six minutes, and therefore didn’t make it to the apartment viewing this afternoon.
Comedy of errors, anyone? :)
miles to Minas Tirith: 166
Oh my goodness…Meat Loaf concert!!! I have seen him twice here in the states. The Bat Out of Hell II and Welcome to the Neighborhood tour and I just love his concerts. Alas the only one this time around near me is waaayyy to expensive to talk the hubby into. I am sorry you missed it I would have loved to have heard about it.
Oh, we did make it to the concert! That was the only thing that went right! I’ll do a writeup about it soon. It was lots of fun. :)