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Derry |
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| Derry City Council |
9th July 2001 At 4am Jane and I left the Thistle hotel at Victoria Station where she and Dad were staying, for the coach to Stanstead airport, which is around an hour and a halves drive out of London. Damn Ryanair and it's cheap flights... the only times you can get for the really cheap ones are at ridiculous times in the morning. At Stansted airport in the departure lounge I actually bumped into James who is the manager of the Hammersmith Hovel. He was going for a visit to his hometown! It was quite a coincidence really, because on the day that he was booking his flight, he actually finished doing that to let me use the phone in the office! I should have told him we were going before hand cos he would have been able to show us around a bit when we got there. We arrived on the Emerald Isle at around 8:30am or something like that and caught a bus to the centre of town then walked to the Bed and Breakfast where we were staying. I didn't get lost either... v. impressive! We stayed at Acorn House which was about 5-10 mins walk from all the shops. When we got there the lady who manages the house (Margaret I think) gave us the third degree... no just kidding! She was just being friendly having a chat and asking about a million questions 'SO girls, what are ye doin here?' 'How can you Australians afford to go on all these holidays?' 'Why are you staying here and not in a Youth Hostel' etc etc etc!! Then she finally realised how tired we were and showed us up to our room.
When we did make it in to town we looked in all the shops and ended up having McDonald's for dinner cos we hadn't eaten anything since the morning and were starving. There were some really cute kids all around with their cute Northern Irish accents they sound gorgeous! Now I should just say that the week that we arrived is supposedly the most troublesome in Northern Ireland because it's when the big orange march takes place. I was actually a bit scared about going there, but everything seemed to be fine from our point of view. The biggest march was due to take place on the Thursday, one day after we left so I guess it was good that we weren't going to be there if anything did happen (although it would have been kind of interesting to see one of the marches... a good photo opportunity anyway). I was a little bit suprised/relieved at how just like any other town (albeit a small country type town) it seemed to be ... as we all know, for anyone who doesn't live in Northern Ireland, all we here about it is all the bad stuff so we expect that it will be too dangerous to visit there at all. The reality seems to be that most people just live a normal life and the "troubles" (as they like to refer to it) are caused by a minority of the population. However this is just my own view point from what I saw/heard in the few days I was there. I guess you'd really have to live there and experience life there fully to make any sort of complete judgement. Well to continue, it was COLD in Derry... windy and not very warm when it was sunny... for some stupid reason I wasn't really expecting that... d'oh! Given the not very encouraging weather we decided to go and see 'Tomb Raider' at the local cinema. Ah it was so much cheaper going to the movies here than in London it was great! The movie was pretty stupid though. On Tuesday I had decided that we would try and go out to see the Giant's Causeway, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Northern Ireland. Given this fact you'd think it would be relatively easy to get on some kind of bus/train/coach tour out there..... well ... NO! Is the short response! It was pouring with rain and cold, but we got up early, had a hurried breakfast and then got in a cab to the train station. We got on a train to Coleraine where we'd either get a connecting bus or train to the Causeway.... there was a bus that went out there that didn't come for an hour and a half. The train ride to Coleraine, by the way, was really nice. The train goes along the coastline and through hills and all of that, it was really picturesque despite the gloomy grey wetness. Ok, so Jane and I whiled away an hour and a half in the bus station playing boxes, we also phoned Mum briefly and ... eating lollies or whatever. We see the bus pull up into the station and the driver gets out and does something for about half an hour. So still waiting.... waiting..... finally the bus driver gets back into the bus, and before we could get our stuff together and run on to the bus he had taken off!!! I could not believe it!!! So we waited some more and got on the return train back to Derry. AND as soon as we got back the clouds cleared up and the sun started shining! (Only temporarily though). |
Derry Diary Part II
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