Some yobbo felt the need to tear down the road with his car, popping exhaust, waking me up. Then a bunch of assholes waking up their friend — and the entire fucking hallway — at 3am. This should have been the sign for the day to come.
Breakfast at the hotel was the same. We sorted out our plans for the day, almost all of which centred around getting to Dublin. We didn’t have a lot of plans beyond that. I had a vain hope of getting to Dublin in time to get the car back early, saving a night on the rental. I had a sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t going to happen.
But first, church! We checked out of our room and moved our bags to Allen and Jean’s room, who arranged for a late checkout. Then we collectively headed to the Regent Street Church. Newtownards had a lot of churches back in the day; there’s fewer now, but there are still 11 within about a kilometer of the hotel.
I’m used to stone churches. I mean, this is Europe, after all. But the Regent Street Church is comparatively new, dating from the mid-1830s. (I got this from talking to the “janitor”, who was more than happy to give me the church’s abbreviated history.) It’s brick and mortar and plaster. It’s … not a “church” to me, I guess. It just feels too new.
We had a bit of expectation that Allen would be leading the service, given that the usual minister – who’d we met at dinner yesterday – was away. Allen did provide a portion of the service (the children’s story), but most of it was a guest minister who rattled on how much modern music didn’t hold a candle to the great hymns. He lost me, definitely lost the kids, and probably a fair bit of the audience. The guy would have been pure Fire and Brimstone if he were Catholic.
The Wetherspoons in Newtownards is drab. That seems like a plain word, but it’s quite accurate for the place, both the decor and the service. Jean never got the dessert she ordered. We didn’t spend too long, as we all had destinations to occupy our afternoons. Kate ate even less, only my chips.
We empted Allen and Jean’s room, all of us hauling our bags out for respective vehicles: the four of us for the car, Allen and Jean for a taxi to the ferry to Scotland. (Even though I know I’m in Ireland, it still feels weird to think of people going to other countries. They’re just so darn close here.)
Unwinding our way back into Belfast for the last time, we took the M1 and headed south. Now, I need you to understand my (very poor) decision here: The M1 is the #1 Motorway (hence, M1) in Ireland.
See my mistake? “Ireland” is the island, on which there are two countries: The Republic of Ireland (what many of us refer to as “Ireland”) and Northern Ireland. They cohabitate, though… “getting along” in the way that neighbours who don’t much like how the other trims their hedges. And they don’t share highways.
So I ignored Google’s insistent updates to have me turn and take different highways. The M1 connects the two major cities, this won’t be a problem. And when you lookup the definition of “Idiot”, you’ll find me.
The M1 heads towards Galway – to the west. It took me far too long to realize this. (Feature suggestion for Google: be polite, but tell people quite literally that they’re going the wrong way way.) Alex finally asked where the hell I was going and we turned at Drumgormel. And instead of highways, we were back on narrow roads again.
We ended up going through Armagh. I knew of the town because it’s a pilgrimage for St. Patrick’s Cathedral. You know me and flashy churches, so my day brightened a bit – we were doing to get to check out something really cool and… no, no-one wanted to go. So I watched it out the window as we drove past in search of a toilet. Already feeling like a fool for my supposed superior navigation, I felt worse, ignored that a sightseeing spot was being passed.
The Spar we stopped at was a wash – no toilet to be had – but we found a Sainsbury’s nearby. That served as both a restroom and a snack stop.
A28 to the A1 to the N1 and back to the M1, which – wait for it – all the same fucking road. (I really shouldn’t say that, but foul mood persists. We have roads in Calgary with five different names so I really shouldn’t complain. But I am. Because, mood.) And then Google Maps decided to get its revenge for being ignored, not telling me to get into the proper lanes on the M1 when it broke into the M50. I should have gone into the Port Tunnel to the south side of the River Liffey.
Instead, we drove mostly the same path through Dublin that we’d taken a week earlier with the taxi from the airport. Not what I’d wanted to do (certainly not a week ago). Grumble grumble.
Missed the return time for the car by about an hour. We found our hotel – the Premier Inn. We’d loved the one in Cork, so we fully believed that we’d have a great experience here, too. If my mood hadn’t already prepared me for what was to unfold, I don’t know what could have.
We booked a room with two queen beds: four people, two to a bed. It’s not the greatest experience, but it’s the most cost effective. Then we ran into the hotel’s ironclad policy: Two adults to a room. And as much as we might claim that we have underage children, Alex is shorter than them and we can all go to hell, apparently. No amount of pleading or defense worked. I kind of wanted to slap the clerk.
Plan B: AirBnB. Alex found one not too far away. But, oh, wait – if you want that AirBnB you have to give up your room at the hotel for €500. Nearly a thousand dollars Canadian at current exchange. Fuckers.
Fine. We’ll take another room. But, oh, no, we can’t do that at the desk, you have to book online. Pardon fucking me?
The clerk is being as helpful as possible, but in the wrong way. He’s all smiles, but all useless. It’s basically like talking to Siri. We cancel the tentative AirBnB (the host far more agreeable to the short-term cancellation than the hotel), and book the second room. Ironically, the kids ended up with a bigger room than ours that could easily do three people, four with a cot. I want to drag the clerk out into the street and curb his smiley, useless face.
We’re done. It’s been a rough day. We could go out and find a restaurant, but the convenience of just eating at the hotel is, frankly, overwhelming and we give in. Figures, we get the same fucking clerk who checked us in as a waiter. And it’s just the same useless smiles. Food is crap, drinks not delivered but charged. We will not be eating here again.
The girls went to their room, which they were delighted about (at least some happiness came of it) and Alex and I went to ours. Alex was done, but I was too itchy to stay and watch nothing of interest on TV. So I went out for some night photography.
The catch: we’re at roughly the same latitude as home fairly close to the summer solstice. It doesn’t get dark until after 23:30. So as I’m roaming about, it’s still reasonably bright. Thankfully, I know a few tricks to make it seem darker that work with the equipment I have. We’ll see how well it all turns out when I get home and process them.
