The path to Llacas

Breakfast with the Pope

After a comparatively comfortable sleep (the heating turned itself off and refused to come back on again, so the room felt a little like how I imagine a night in the freezer compartment of my fridge would feel; and him waking up violently around 2am thinking that an imaginary psychotic burglar was about to join us) we made our way down to breakfast in good spirits.

We discovered that it is very hard to retain those good spirits whilst trying to eat bacon and eggs to a very loud radio broadcast of the Pope's funeral. Latin prayers, liturgical ceremonies and spectator wailing are not the most cheerful way to start your day - but any whispered jokes or stifled giggles were put paid to by the fierce expression of the waitress and her insistence that we have everything on the breakfast menu. Comparisons with Father Ted's Mrs Doyle would be old hat but even still......

Still, we left feeling full, if a little depressed after the dining room soundtrack. Stepping out into the bright and sunny (and ok, bloody freezing) Irish spring weather, we set off down the hill and found the Dublin Writer's Museum (yes, the map had moved it several streets away, but we still found it) which was fascinating. As was the Old Post Office, Trinity College and all the other fantastic buildings that Dublin has to offer. Yes, yes - lovely architecture and all that, but best of all for me however, were the pedestrian crossings in the town. Display boards on the traffic lights that counted down the number of seconds until you could safely cross the road (Why? Are people really that impatient? '23 seconds until I can cross the road? Sod that for a game of soldiers, I'll stay on this side thank you very much!') and excellent beeping noise (it has an urgency to it reminiscent of the final round on a quiz show) - that was a constant source of amusement to me. I have a feeling that the novelty wore off for him quite early on, but I'll definitely be starting up a campaign to introduce them to the UK/the South of England/Dorset/Bournemouth/my road as soon as possible.

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellipse/

posted by Liberty Slutzski @ 1:33 pm