Monday, August 17, 2009

Tuedsay - Early morning in Dublin

Beautiful morning, . The air is cool but not cold, a little early morning mist.  Yesterday we had discovered the church and Maureen decided to go today so all we have to do is find it again.  I will find the laundry and then we shall go for breakfast together .that is the plan. The Launderette was open and Teresa explained how they worked. Quite simple really. Told me that they did a lot of the hotels and hostels laundry requirements and that some of the hotels charged quite a lot for the service they provided. When I looked at what some hotels charged , ours was actually very reasonable. I wrote postcards on top of the washing machines. After Maureens clothes were washed and I had transfered the wet laundry to the dryer I  went to find the mail box. 
 side note. the mail boxes in Ireland are green. and they vary in size depending on the amount of use they get. In some towns the mailbox was 12 x 8 x 6  inches. I found that interesting. very efficient.  This does mean that you have to pay attention to where there might be a mail box as they are all different depending on the size of the town 
 

Of course I took photos of everything. It was just down the street and easy to find so I wandered around a little bit. It was quiet. There was very little traffic unlike yesterday which was insane. They drive 3 inches away from each other and figuring out crosswalks was tense as sometimes they would stop at the corners and sometimes they would not. They being drivers of vehicles and they drive really fast it seemed to me. 

Sidenote
 When I first got into Dublin and was walking around with my map, I could not find a single street signpost. 
I finally asked somone and he told me they were on the buildings. I could not see what he was talking about but said thank-you and continued wandering around trying to see what he was talking about. 
Finally I saw a sign. Up high on the corner of a building. The street signs in Ireland are usually on the sides of buildings, on the corners, to be more specific. 
The rule seems to be that the name of the street will be shown at either end of the street up on the corner of the building.  Sometimes they will be on every corner because the streets are very short so you have to pay attention to what street you are on as there may or may not be another sign for some time. 

I did find the mail box and I did find Maureen and we did find the launderette again which was good or Maureen would have had no clothes.  
Went for breakfast at the Central Hotel. Scrambled eggs, toast,  fruit and tea. They didn't put out very much at one time so you had to wait to get your portion.  Nice hotel but more expensive than ours and very busy. We went back to our hotel and packed things up. Have to say that the staff at the Adams Trinity are very helpful. Archie was great. kept us laughing.