Dinner involved going to the supermarket and eating noodles via the kettle in our room, plus some fruit. Then bed – falling asleep almost immediately.
The next morning, reluctantly hauling myself out of bed to go for a short jog – about 28 minutes (a tick under 5 minute Kms) which was surprising considering how bad I felt, and also upto 33 Pushups (adding 1 per day from the 1st – so you can see tell where I started from.
Our next stop was a place called Sports and skills, or something like that in Galway. Basically it is a place where you can play ten sports in a skill test area where you get scored based on your performance in that sport. For example, in hurling you have to hit various targets and you get a points for hitting the ball into targets. Other sports included (basketball – free throws, golf chipping into a hole, Gaelic football shooting, rugby shooting, baseball hit from a machine, cricket bowl, soccer kick etc) It was much harder than it looked, and I only scored 48/100 I think Mark and Andrew scored 37 and 38). (the record was 68) If we got to go around again, I think we would have gone better, as we were learning how the drill worked, usually the last 4 or 5 attempts we scored points from. It was a great idea and was very fun to go to – a nice change of tempo for us, away from the museums and churches and castles and what not. We then were going onto Dublin – we had strayed from our plan a few days ago, taking an extra day to go horse riding in the south and see the ring of Kerry for a whole day rather than squeezing it into half a day. We had a brief stop off in the city trying to find the Spanish arch – unsuccessfully really, so we had a walk around the city centre before heading to Dublin. The drive to Dublin was thankfully on freeway (or the most part of it) so through the pouring rain we didn’t have tight corners and narrow roads. We have stayed in hostels a few nights in a row, which has been a nice change from sleeping in people’s houses where you have to be ‘on’ in a sense, and talk to your host about things – where at this point if it isn’t interesting, then I’m quickly losing interest. (especially after a long day of seeing things, you get home and just want to chill out and eat dinner and watch an hour or two of tv and then go to sleep – instead some nights I can be up till 1am talking. (I’m not complaining – just a thought) (Although I do find it terribly interesting to meet people and see their homes.)
At the hostel you can just watch tv or lie around relaxing rather than answering the question of “where have you been so far” which at times can be tremendously tiring. “We started in Holland and then went down to……” see previous blogs if this is your first time reading this. J That is not saying that I didn’t look for a place to stay in Galway and in Dublin, but finding it almost impossible to find a place on couchsurfing in the major cities – we were very lucky in Berlin I think. An interesting thing about Irish people, they all seem very ahh I will say it nicely – in a lower social class than the places that we have been so far. Most people look unhappy and a little rough. When you talk to them though, they are nice enough – although the conversations have been a little limited.
I have been getting a few emails from my old work (oops - I mean current) about work stuff and it doesn’t look like fun and I’m glad that I’m not there anymore. Not having to work for very long and taking a 6 month holiday (plus 3 months of kinda work) makes you adjust to (and it sounds stupid – but) not working – you just don’t think about it. The only thing that keeps me busy is trying to make the most of the time that I have overseas, so seeing as much as possible in the time available. Coming to the UK in oct/nov has been as expected – rain and poor weather, but the crowds have been far less than what we would have encountered in September.
The next morning, reluctantly hauling myself out of bed to go for a short jog – about 28 minutes (a tick under 5 minute Kms) which was surprising considering how bad I felt, and also upto 33 Pushups (adding 1 per day from the 1st – so you can see tell where I started from.
Our next stop was a place called Sports and skills, or something like that in Galway. Basically it is a place where you can play ten sports in a skill test area where you get scored based on your performance in that sport. For example, in hurling you have to hit various targets and you get a points for hitting the ball into targets. Other sports included (basketball – free throws, golf chipping into a hole, Gaelic football shooting, rugby shooting, baseball hit from a machine, cricket bowl, soccer kick etc) It was much harder than it looked, and I only scored 48/100 I think Mark and Andrew scored 37 and 38). (the record was 68) If we got to go around again, I think we would have gone better, as we were learning how the drill worked, usually the last 4 or 5 attempts we scored points from. It was a great idea and was very fun to go to – a nice change of tempo for us, away from the museums and churches and castles and what not. We then were going onto Dublin – we had strayed from our plan a few days ago, taking an extra day to go horse riding in the south and see the ring of Kerry for a whole day rather than squeezing it into half a day. We had a brief stop off in the city trying to find the Spanish arch – unsuccessfully really, so we had a walk around the city centre before heading to Dublin. The drive to Dublin was thankfully on freeway (or the most part of it) so through the pouring rain we didn’t have tight corners and narrow roads. We have stayed in hostels a few nights in a row, which has been a nice change from sleeping in people’s houses where you have to be ‘on’ in a sense, and talk to your host about things – where at this point if it isn’t interesting, then I’m quickly losing interest. (especially after a long day of seeing things, you get home and just want to chill out and eat dinner and watch an hour or two of tv and then go to sleep – instead some nights I can be up till 1am talking. (I’m not complaining – just a thought) (Although I do find it terribly interesting to meet people and see their homes.)
At the hostel you can just watch tv or lie around relaxing rather than answering the question of “where have you been so far” which at times can be tremendously tiring. “We started in Holland and then went down to……” see previous blogs if this is your first time reading this. J That is not saying that I didn’t look for a place to stay in Galway and in Dublin, but finding it almost impossible to find a place on couchsurfing in the major cities – we were very lucky in Berlin I think. An interesting thing about Irish people, they all seem very ahh I will say it nicely – in a lower social class than the places that we have been so far. Most people look unhappy and a little rough. When you talk to them though, they are nice enough – although the conversations have been a little limited.
I have been getting a few emails from my old work (oops - I mean current) about work stuff and it doesn’t look like fun and I’m glad that I’m not there anymore. Not having to work for very long and taking a 6 month holiday (plus 3 months of kinda work) makes you adjust to (and it sounds stupid – but) not working – you just don’t think about it. The only thing that keeps me busy is trying to make the most of the time that I have overseas, so seeing as much as possible in the time available. Coming to the UK in oct/nov has been as expected – rain and poor weather, but the crowds have been far less than what we would have encountered in September.
So tomorrow we are going to be in Dublin – plans to see a few things and then head up to north of Belfast – let’s hope that the weather holds – cause at the moment it is pouring and pouring with rain. This evening we tried to look for a car park that was reasonably priced in the city center… wow… that was difficult – with pouring rain and water everywhere, just finding our hostel was an issue – we illegally parked, dumped our bags and then went on a car park search… Our first one was 50 euro a day!! Paris was 25! We finally found one for around 30 a day. That will do – we got soaked coming back to the hostel, and then had a nice dinner at a restaurant closeby…
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