Drayke's Travels

We’ve made loose plans to stay in one place for about a week while we’re in the Land of Éirinn. Our first stop is a little village called Kilcullen, where we found a nice place on Airbnb. It’s part of a duplex in a little housing development about 5-10 min walk from the village.

I’ve already posted about our first meal in the village.

We had a bit of an adventure upon landing. We made it through the airport and immigration checkpoint just fine, at about 8am local time, having had almost no sleep on the plane because of “jetlag.” We took the first bus we could find to the city center. This is where the confusion began. Not wanting to be restricted and stressed by over-planning, my only plan was to make it to our Airbnb by the end of the day.

The first bus dropped us near the center of Dublin in what I would describe as the main big shopping/tourist street. We walked about half a block just looking for coffee and wifi (our phones are on airplane mode for the entirety of our stay) and entered the first place I knew would have both, a starbucks.

Because of the touristy nature of the street, quite a few non-English speakers came through the starbucks while we were there. This was a new experience for my midwestern ears, the majority of my non-english exposure being Latin Americans and the Amish.

I’ve found the public transit directions on google maps on my phone to be quite reliable, except that the bus we needed to get from Dublin to Kilcullen, about an hour drive, picks up at an unusual location.

Just like the early scenes of The Quiet Man, we’ve found the Irish people to be incredibly friendly, but often unintentionally unhelpful. Our first stop was a large bus depot, where I waited in line to ask at the counter for a ticket for the 130 to Kilcullen. The lady at the counter said that we needed to go across the street, and head “like you’re going to Connolly Station.” This ended up being precisely where the bus picked up, but we were looking for a building or some kind of sign indicating such. (Part of these problems are our own unfamiliarity with public transit.) Google also led us slightly astray here where the directions said the bus was at Busáras, which is the tram stop outside the bus depot.

After attempting to get information from strangers on the street, the information counter at Connolly Station (the long distance train station) and the ticket counter there, we went back to the bus station where we were able to purchase tickets for the 130 from a kiosk. We waited until about 10 minutes before the bus was due, and, not seeing it in the depot, asked a porter who helped us rush outside and around the corner to make the bus just in time.

After a much needed nap on the bus, we had the driver drop us somewhere I thought was close (wifi on the bus comes in very handy with google maps) and walked the remaining 10ish minutes to the neighborhood where we are staying.

The house is half a duplex, and very clean and comfortable. I’m very fascinated by all the little differences in styles, like how nobody here uses asphalt shingles or siding, and the doors inside all use skeleton keys. Also the space in front of the houses are all bricked drives for parking, instead of grass we work so hard for in some parts of the US.