We got up very early today, because the hotel didn't have a parking garage ("car park") and we had parked on the street. So, I had to run down to the car before 8, feed a few Euros into the Pay-and-Display machine, and put the ticket on the dashboard. This bought us until 9:30 to move the car.
Breakfast was not included in our discount, internet-only room rate, so we opted to skip that and just snack in the car. We managed to get out of Belfast without too much trouble; the streets there seem easily navigable and they actually have signs indicating which way the highways are.
I managed the take a picture of some of the "speed cameras" in Northern Ireland, before we crossed the border. The border exists pretty much only on paper (these days, anyway), and is further marked by the presence of money-changing establishments.
The weather was rather blah, so we didn't stop much in the morning part of the drive. Belfast to Dublin is about 110 miles, and since we left at about 9:30 AM on a weekday, traffic was heavy. Up until now, most of our traveling has been late morning to late evening, so we hadn't seen much traffic.
On top of that, there was some serious construction in a few spots. This reminds me of a cool thing that I wanted to comment on. When they close a lane of a normal, two-lane road, such that each side alternates using the single lane that remains, they use temporary traffic lights. Instead of paying two guys to stand there with radios, they set up little traffic lights that must be on timers, to automate the process. Now, one might argue that this doesn't load balance well.... and it wouldn't. Maybe they're not on timers, maybe the guy in one of the construction vehicles has a switch, I don't know.
It seems like they have automated a lot of things in a way that make me say to myself "hmm, why don't we do that in the US?". A perfect example being the Pay-and-Display system. Forget meters, those are so old-fashioned.
Also, with the public parking garages in a lot of the cities here... you get a ticket on the way in, just as you'd expect, but when you leave, you feed the ticket into a machine, and it calculates how much you owe. You feed it some money, and it gives you back the ticket. Now that ticket will open the exit gate, no live attendant required. Why don't our parking garages work with EZPass?
Some day, a lot (more) of our jobs will be replaced by machines.
But I digress. On the way to Dublin, we stopped in Howth, as I mentioned we might in last night's post. It was, as promised, quite nice.
Howth is a tiny little fishing harbor out on a peninsula, just north of Dublin. The middle of the peninsula is a tall plateau, with the village center of Howth being carved into the side of it. The rest of the village sits on the edge of the water, with a few large piers and a very functional fishing industry.
The weather cleared up for us as we were headed to Howth, so we walked around for awhile and had lunch. The yacht club was in full action, and the harbor was busy. We took the majority of today's pictures in Howth.
After that, we drove vaguely in the direction of Dublin, with a few extra turns here and there, until we made it back into the city. It started raining again, but we decided to continue with the plan. The plan, which I don't think I mentioned yet, is rather complicated. In fact, it requires some back story:
A few weeks ago, I went to a conference in Ohio. The attendees were all computer professionals, of course. At the bar on the second night we were there (there was nothing else to do, we were in the middle of nowhere, which is in Ohio), we ran into a bunch of fellow conference-goers. One of the guys at the table had an Irish accent, and after speaking with him for a bit, it turned out he lives in Dublin and works for Information Services at Trinity College, in the center of Dublin.
I explained how I was going to be in Dublin, and he told me to stop by and visit. One of the attractions in Dublin is the Book of Kells, which is the oldest known copy of the New Testament, or something like that. Also, it is written and illustrated with painstaking detail, which is impressive considering it was created in the early 9th century, on vellum, with quills, etc.
Regardless, the Book of Kells is in the old (1712?) library at Trinity College, which is impressive all by itself. The fellow I met at the conference (let's call him Dave, because that's his name) said that he could probably get us into the exhibit for free, which is always good.
We dropped in rather unexpectedly on Dave around 2 or 2:30 this afternoon. He knew I was going to come by some time this day, but I guess I never solidified the plan with him. He flashed his staff ID and got us past all of the lines waiting to get into the library, past the line to get into the exhibit without any tickets, and stayed for a chat about Trinity, Ireland in general, etc. In fact, he was a wealth of information and happy to talk about it, which seemed odd for a man who was supposed to be busy.
Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take any pictures in the exhibit, or the very old parts of the library either. I bet
google has some, though.
By the time we got out of the library, it had stopped raining and was a beautiful day (again), so we toured around Trinity for a bit.
We then decided to shop a bit and get some dinner in Dublin before going out to our hotel out by the airport (which we actually passed on the way to Howth). We drove around and found a parking spot near the center of the city and put the last of our Euro coinage into the parking machine. After we shopped, we had some more coinage, so we payed the parking machine again and went into a restaurant.
The Guiness was rather expensive, and small...
Would you pay $5 for that?
The food was excellent, but it was slow to arrive due to the fact that every table in the place was full. It was so slow, we were out of time on our parking ticket. In Ireland, they don't issue parking tickets, they immobilize your car and then charge you to re-mobilize it. As they put it, "clamping in effect" or "violators will be clamped".
We had literally spent our last Euros on the previous parking permit, so I bought the guy at the table next to us a Guinness in exchange for some coins to feed the parking machine again. I was willing to risk it, but Sabrina wasn't willing to play those odds.
We're staying at the Hilton near the Dublin airport, which is very nice, and probably the most expensive night so far. Free parking and free breakfast, plus wine, chocolates, fresh fruit, and bathrobes waiting... very swanky hotel. No free internet; No free wireless, no free wired, not even free internet in the business center. Since we're in the middle of nowhere, I can't even steal it from some neighbors, not even with the laptop in the 4th floor windowsill.
We settled for a drink and desert in the swanky hotel bar, and I've had extra time to write this since I don't have to wait for photos to upload across the Atlantic. I considered wardriving, but Sabrina convinced me to wait until tomorrow to post the photos and such.
Tomorrow morning we fly home, with a brief layover in Shannon. The plane leaves Shannon at about 1 PM local, and arrives in Newark at about 3:30 PM Eastern time... even though it's about an 8 hour flight. Should be interesting.
