From Ireland to Austria Series: Wexford to Rosslare Harbour and back again
This is from a series originally posted on my original blog: Seefahrer Thayer. While I don't recommend it, you can view the original posts here. Because the content had value and useful tips I've decided to repost them here, however, they've since been heavily edited and updated.
It's been a series if misreads and waiting today. I thought the ferry left Ireland at 14:00, but it turns out that's when it arrives in the UK. So the next ferry is at 21:00 tonight- and it lands in Fishguard, where I take a train from there at 1:00 to London arriving around 7:00 AM. I have to make an annoying connection onto a bus around 3:00 AM, then get back on the train about 20 minutes later.
A little disappointed I basically lost a day, but it's been nice besides. I was going to take the train into a town twenty minutes up the road to Wexford- it's supposed to be a nice shopping town, and there's literally nothing in Rosslare but the harbour- but, guess what? I misread the time. The train only comes by every 3 hours! Crazy.
So I'm back on the bus, which is stupid expensive (€7.70 return) for such a little place- and none of them have been on time yet.
The cost for the ferry and train was €52. I expected worse, so I suppose it wasn't so bad. I'll definitely have to try and get some sleep between everything going on. I'm trying to get London done in a day/ day and a half, as I'm not a huge fan of major cities. Plus, I'm ready to get to Belgium, the Netherlands and GERMANY! And definitely excited to see friendly faces in Berlin.
I'm starting to get a bit nervous about the language barrier for countries, I just hope to meet people half as friendly as they were in Belfast, and I'll be just fine.
A few notes about Ireland before I leave:
- I'm pretty sure this is all of Europe, but the use of "footpaths" instead of "sidewalks" is something I've been enjoying
- Dunno if this is the rest of Europe, but they use "quarter to" "quarter past" and "half [hour]." Took me a while to get used to it, really.
- Also, besides how magnificently clean Ireland is, they're exceptionally accommodating to the elderly. I was speaking to some women on the bus here and they said people older than 65 or 66 ride the bus and train for free. Wow.
