Day 5 Weds. Oct. 28

54 F, partly sunny, heavy intermittent showers and gale force winds

Awoke early in Dublin. Called for a cab to pick us up at 09:30 in order to get to the Landsdown DART Sta. in time to meet the 11:10 ferry in Dun Laoghaire. Had breakfast in our B&B. Just as good as yesterday's. It was sunny and clear out but we had a half hour to kill before the cab arrived so on a whim I called Stena's sea condition line. D'oh! The early ferry had been canceled due to high winds. It was still sitting in Holyhead! Well we went over to the terminal anyway hoping for the best. The cab was late... bad omen.

We *had* to be in London at Waterloo Station 9am the next morning to catch the Eurostar to DP. The first Stena person we talked to said the weather would probably be bad until about 3:00pm. I called Irish Ferries and the only one the had going out wasn't until 21:45. At the time we thought that to be unreasonably late. Silly us!

[long tedious bit about us waiting at Stena until 20:45 deleted]
Stena transferred us to Dublin and the Irish Ferries terminal where we waiting in line for 30 mins to check in, another 30 mins to board, and once aboard 30 seconds to have them pull a pint for me in the onboard pub.

The crossing took about 3 hours (and an eternity of drunk Irishmen hitting on chicks and throwing up on the floor). We got into Holyhead about 3:15am. Then we were forced to standout in the (freezing) cold Welsh Oct. night (gale force) air waiting for a train.

There wasn't a soul around to tell us what time it would come, or what platform to wait on. Just garbled messages on a 200 yr. old PA system..(and I bet you thought they weren't around then, trust me..) We decided by consensus that Platform 3 was the place to be. The train finally pulled up at 4:05am. It left Holyhead at 4:15am. It's now 4:30am and we don't know if we'll make it on time. We still have to change at Crewe. I'm tired (kels asleep sorta)

Side note: When we came off the ferry the terminal was JAMMED full of students trying to get back to Ireland. There must have been 200 people camped on the floor and we almost couldn't get thru the terminal for the bodies. I guess immigration figured anyone going thru that kind of trip must be legit as they never checked any passports. Closest they got was a dog sniffing all the bags as we walked out of the terminal. We also heard a rumour that Stena didn't know if they'd be able to run again until Sat. or Sun.

The terminal emptied out long before the train arrived. I guess they were all put onto the Irish Ferry for a trip. BTW, The Irish Ferry is beautiful inside. Wood panelling, old style lighting, velvet cushioned wooden chairs. The Stena HSS is much more modern with a MacDonalds and MTV on board.

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