Traveling Drama!

The past couple of days have been really interesting to say the least! I got to stay in Dublin, and then go around the southern part of Ireland (which I'll blog more about either tomorrow or Wednesday). I went on a 3 day tour. I arrived in Ireland Thursday night and I stayed at the Times Hostel, and then Friday morning I woke up and went on my tour. We ended up getting back around 5 pm and my flight was at 6:30 the next morning so I decided to get a hostel for the night. Now when I decided that I was going to stay in Dublin an extra night and was booking my hostels I decided that I wasn't going to stay in the same hostel as the first night, because the weekend rates for that hostel went up, and there was another hostel that was rated pretty decently that was a little bit cheaper... Oh boy! Never... ever... ever... will I do that again.

When you are in a strange town traveling alone you should always book the same place for accommodations for the second night. When I got off my tour my tour guide told me the way to get my hostel. In Dublin there is a GIANTIC spike in the middle of the street... I'm talking like 300 ft tall! Or 100 meters. Well he told me to walk to the spike and turn the the right and that would take me right to my hostel... So I'm walking along and I directly pass the hostel that I had stayed in the first night, and I'm walking along... happy as a peacock down the road, and I come up to the spike, and I look to the right. It's just a really small alley type of road, and it doesn't look like it has any hostels on it. So I was starting to question whether or not I got the right directions from my guide so I asked a guy standing next to me if I was heading in the right direction. And he was like "Ohhh actually it's not down that road you have to go to the top of this road to the next light then veer to the right, and take a left and you'll be right there." So of course I was like "Ohhh thank you sooo much!!" So off I went on my way... I ended up walking around Dublin for over an hour and half lost with my book bag on. See the thing is "Veer to the right" isn't very good directions, and the streets in Ireland aren't marked as clearly as our streets. There will be an intersection without any street signs... so you don't know if you're on the right street or not! Half the time you have to walk to the next intersection for a sign... so you can walk and walk and walk and then realize you aren't even on the right road! Which did happen to me a couple times! I had to keep stopping for directions. I FINALLY think that I'm on the right road, and I realize that the house numbers are going in the wrong direction... but there was a big intersection that crossed the street... So I was like... well maybe the numbers on those are going to go up instead of down... So I cross the street and wouldn't you know there wasn't any street sign, and the house DIDN'T have numbers on them! At this point I've already been walking lost for an hour and half truly regretting my decision to come to this hostel instead of the one that I'd stayed in the first night... which if you remember I passed within 5 minutes of my journey... My backpack felt like it weighed 50 pounds and I was so stressed that I was lost, and I was worried that it was going to get dark soon and that I'd still be wandering around, and I didn't even have a clue as to where I was in the city. So I just kept on walking and praise the lord my hostel FINALLY came into view! Phew! So I got settled in and I wanted to run to a grocery store to make a quick bite to eat for the night... I asked the guy where a store was and he was like "Oh it's real close by just go up to the light right there and turn right... you'll run right into it" And I was like grumble grumble more directions... these better be right... grr... So I walk up there and turn onto my right and to my ABSOLUTE horror... what do I see staring at me?? If you said the giant spike you're right! I'd finally made it back to the ORIGINAL road I was supposed to turn down!! I guess the guy on the street gave my the scenic route or something... because my hostel was literally a 5 minute walk from where I originally asked directions from!!!! Bah! I was sooo down hearted when I saw that. So I walked into the grocery store and bought some food... I came back to this hostel which was a dump by the way, and they didn't have an oven at it. :( So I couldn't even make the food I'd just bought. Yeah. So that was an experience. 2 euro well saved on that one... won't be doing that again! Next time I'll just pay the difference and go the hostel in the area that I'm familiar with...

And if you thought that was the end of my troubles... I have another lovely story for you. I caught my plane out of Dublin just fine. I got back into the UK with no issues... I didn't even have to through customs which surprised me... Originally Jessie was supposed to come on this Dublin trip with me, but she ended up not being able to come for various reasons. When we booked our bus tickets it was before I'd ever been to Edinburgh... so while we were booking Jessie wanted an early bus, because she had to get back for a class on Monday... but there was a ticket at 4 pm for a pound left, so I decided to save the money and spend the day in Edinburgh. Consequently, Jessie booked a 9:20 am bus and I booked a 4 pm bus. However, when I got out of the airport from Dublin I was so tired and sick of traveling (especially after what happened the last night in Dublin) so I decided that I wasn't going to stay the extra time in Edinburgh and since Jessie didn't come I'd just jump on her seat on the bus. So I caught a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center, and I had plenty of time before my bus left... so I got breakfast at McDonald's and piddled around for a bit. Then I got to the bus station about an hour early and I'm sitting there... and sitting there... and it was 20 minutes before my bus was supposed to take off and I realized that it wasn't there yet... so I went over to the man at the help desk and I asked him where the bus was... And he was like "Well isn't that funny there isn't anything about this on our board. Strange." He called his buddy over and asked him what was wrong with the board and where was my bus... so that guy looks at my ticket, and that's when I noticed something funny about it... it said EDA to ABE when last week it said EDI to ABE and I was like uh oh... turns out I was supposed to catch that bus at the airport! I never had to make my way into the city center, and it was too late to get back to the airport to catch my bus. The second guy kind of wandered off, and I was talking to the first guy... and I was like "Well it's ok because I actually have another ticket booked for later on today. I guess I'm going to be hanging around the city for a while." And then of course he asked me why I booked an extra ticket and where I was from and what not... so I spent a few minutes talking to him, and then the second guy comes back with his manager... and the man comes up to me and goes " There's another bus leaving about 15 minutes after your bus was going to leave and it's heading to the same spot and has some open seats. So at 9:35 hop onto the M 90 bus and it'll take you into Aberdeen." I was completely shocked I wasn't expecting them to get me onto another bus or anything like that, but I was very grateful, because I really didn't feel like sticking around the city was an extra 7 hrs...

So the man tells the bus driver that I'm to be let onto the bus, and I hop on and all was well... UNTIL... we had to change buses at another station. They were loading up there, and the guy goes "Where's your ticket?" And I was like... umm... well... and I go into my whole story about how I went to the bus station instead of staying in the airport and how the manager put me onto this bus, and yadda yadda... And the guy goes "Well I can get you to Dundee but you'll have to get off there because this is a bank holiday long weekend and that bus could be full and there probably won't be a seat for you." And of course I was like gaaaasp! I was like ohhh no what am I going to do... I'm going to be stranded at this bus station, and I was like oh crap how am I going get back up to Aberdeen... So I'm stressing out the whole way up there... I was hoping that maybe someone wouldn't show up for the bus and that they'd just let me hop back on... or worst case scenario was thinking that I'd have to stay at the bus station all day until my other bus got there... which it would eventually... and then I'd have to explain to them why I was getting onto it there instead of Edinburgh and hope that I could get on it... Yes all this was running through my mind, so we get there and as it turns out the bus wasn't full AT ALL! We picked up about 10 people at that last stop, and just about everyone on the bus had their own seat... so there was plenty of room for me to get on ... I don't know what that guy was talking about. The bus driver was really nice to me though. We were talking while the other bus loaded up, and he was like "Don't you worry I'll figure out a way for you to get on this bus somehow... I'm sure there will be a seat." It was really nice. :)

People in Scotland seem to be really nice as a whole. Even the guy that told me there might not be a seat for me at the next pick up location was pretty nice about it. They say that one these holiday weekends it's hit and miss what the traffic could be like on the buses... because senior citizens get to use the buses in Scotland for free. Any bus going anywhere in the country they can go on for no fee... So a lot of them travel to see family along with other people going home for a long weekend and what not... so it was touch and go... Luckily it worked out! I was worried for that hour or so though!!

But yes, I know after those stories it probably sounds like my trip to Ireland was awful.. but really it was really nice and I had a lot of fun. I'm really glad that I got to go and see it. I'll post a blog on it later on!