Approaching Dublin on the ferry from Holyhead
After a lovely week and a half of catching up with old friends, canoeing and bike-riding in Thüringen it was time to meet Niamh in London and head over to Ireland.
After a late night watching Germany win the World Cup I was up before 06:00 to get the train to London, changing at Weimar to get on an ICE express to Frankfurt, then another to Brussels. After a mediocre lunch in the surprisingly crappy train station it was on to the Eurostar, the over-priced, somewhat down-at-heel train that has a monopoly on Channel crossings, to London's St. Pancras station.
After meeting Niamh at the station, we headed off on a bus through London to my old mate Greg's somewhere off Brixton Road.
He took us for a bike tour around London and dinner at a 'real English pub'; after collapsing in bed we left the next day for Ireland, getting two trains and a ferry to Dublin to be met by Niamh's parents.
So, we've been here a week now, doing not much of anything, blobbing, sleeping and generally relaxing.
Tomorrow we're heading to Carlow, south of here, to paddle for three days down the Barrow river, then a couple of days making our way up to Donegal to do a week-long Irish language course, then some more wandering around Ireland and the UK!
The puff has gone out of my blogging and photographing the last few weeks, so to those two or three people who will read this - apologies! I think my brain just needed a rest.
Below are a few mediocre photos of the trip across form Jena!